Whining About Whininess...

It's going to do me in...Huston and his whining. Now I know that Isaiah went through a stage of it too - the constant whiny voice and pouting to get his way. But golly, I think Huston has it down to a science. It comes a lot more naturally for him. My theory is this - as a "middle" child, Huston uses his whining as a manipulation tool - if he looks pathetic and makes a fuss over something than people shall pay attention to him and life shall go his way.

The interesting thing is that aside from a worn down moment with his older brother this method really doesn't work too well. The whining just makes me that more determined that he will not get his request. I have tried to be consistent in dealing with it, and feel that for the most part I have succeeded in being consistent, but I do not see any improvement in the situation. Any suggestions? Am I missing something? Maybe.

I need to just hang in there right. I remember when Huston first moved into a big boy bed he got out of it every night. I would go to the door tell them goodnight and say, "Huston, stay in bed." He would nod in agreement and I wouldn't even make it all the way down the hall before he was out again. This happened multiple times every night and Steven was being done in with this particular behavior. I remembered he thought that there had to be some other punishment that would convince him to obey...I told him that we just needed to be consistent...and the determination of our part paid off - gradually he stopped hopping out of bed every night.

I am ready for the gradual disappearance of the whining. Bring it on, I want my old sweet Huston back. I could blame the arrival of the baby, but the problem was here long before that - though it does only seem to be getting worse. He is just plain rude many times, but I remembered something else just a couple of days ago - something I am not doing with him that I did with Isaiah - I backed it all up with Scripture. Most every time I corrected, I gave Isaiah the verse that back up mommy's argument/point. It took the problem off of me - he was no longer disobeying just mom, he was disobeying God, and you might not think and 3-4 year old would "get" that or care about it, but it really brought it home for him.

Well, I did the Scripture thing and I put vinegar in Isaiah's mouth when he talked ugly....haven't done that with Huston either because I totally scarred Isaiah on any food item that may have vinegar in it or smell of it. I'm amazed he likes pickles. So anyway - I will begin to do this discipline thing a little more correctly and hopefully we will see some progress - wish us luck, we'll need it or one of us will not survive.