It happens. Your kid gets in a snarky, whiny mood and you are stuck in the car listening to endless complaints and begging. For a brief moment you briefly recall why it is you had kids in the first place and in the next you try to figure out if you could, in fact, not get caught but dismiss both in the same moment. You love being a mother and murder is never the answer. Still the whining from the backseat continues.
Parenting 101 tells you not to give in once you’ve put your foot down and said no. Giving in is bad. But the kids haven’t read that book yet. That would yield them entirely too many trade secrets. So they keep asking, begging, whining, grating…
Be it sarcasm, a good sense of humor, impatience, or the occasional urge to embarass my kid, I occasionally say things out of the blue just to elicit a reaction. Normally it stops the begging as well. Win-Win! So here’s my top ten geeky ways to respond to my begging child.
10. Help me, Obi-Won Ka-Whiny. You’re my only hope.
9. Do you know what happened to the last child that begged me? He was kidnapped by the Borg.
8. Every time you beg, a programmer loses a line of code.
7. Cruciatus! Dang it, it worked on the cat! Practice makes perfect.
6. Reverse begging: You design and build me a mom-bot, and SHE can take/give you whatever you are whining about.
5. So last night I was playing with the PS3 and found the password set. I’ve forgotten what I put it as though. Something about silence, golden, bribes. Eh, it’ll come to me.
4. Oh my goodness! That was the forty-second time you’ve asked me that! It all makes sense, now. It’s amazing, this clarity. Oh, that was 43, now you’ve ruined it.
3. Yes, I’ll take you there on the Frabjous Day. You kill yourself a Jabberwocky and we’ll call it even. Caloo, calay!
2. I’m sorry but the number of syllables in that request is not in the Fibonacci series. Your request is denied.
1. Because I said so. (I don’t care if you are Geek or not, this one is golden and we went through childbirth. We earned our right to this one, thank you.)
Happy Geeking!
sadly these don’t work on a 2 year old lol
I do one of two responses:
“sorry, I don’t speak or understand whine”
and
-Did you ask?
*yes*
-Did I answer?
*yes*
-Then that’s it.
For a whiny request that I just can’t do, “Sorry, my magic wand is in the shop.”
That made me laugh so much! I have also become a master of diversion & distraction. Whether it’s whining or an OCD moment, my kid always reacts/recovers better when I use humour. Thanks so much for the post!
We keep telling kiddo that if she presents her argument/request in an amusing fashion, she’s much more likely to get what she wants by sheer entertainment value. For instance, instead of whining that her life is over if she doesn’t get something, she should instead cry out, “LO! I AM SLAIN!” and act out a fantabulous death scene. This will show us that she’s making a conscious, serious request via a silly means, indicating forethought and contemplation instead of kneejerk whinery.
We haven’t gotten the good performance yet, but if we ask, “What do Mum and Dad always say to whining?” she will at least dutifully sigh, “You’ll say no.”
And honestly, I don’t like the “because I said so” line. It bugged me as a kid because it is inherently unscientific, using a non-answer as a bludgeon. It’s very thou-shalty, and I don’t like being ordered around in a meaningless fashion by imaginary concepts. I was always much more willing to go along with a command if I knew the good reason. My kid is 5 and I’ve never used “because I said so” yet except as a joke and honestly, giving the reason works pretty well with her too…not always, but enough to make it worthwhile.
I dislike that phrase too. But I have had to use it. Of course, that’s as a last resort after explaining patiently multiple times what my reasoning is and they are STILL whining.
I tried whining back to them once (reverse psychology) and one of my kids retorted “NO! You don’t do that! I DO!!” lol
I’ve tried whining/tantruming back. Very rarely, it makes her laugh enough to forget her problem. Usually, though, she sees it as mocking her (which it is, I guess) and it doubles her fury.
Damn these kids who can see through our manipulations and manipulate us back! Gah!
That whining sign always cracks me up. They have it at our local barber shop.
Hee-Hee
I was at a gas station once and a tween-age kid asked his Mom if he could have an energy drink (like that’s a good idea to begin with). The kid couldn’t decide so he asked his mom if he could have TWO! :rolleyes: The mom said no. So he said, “Please, please, please, please, please, please…” over and over again all the way through the store, and while waiting in line to check out. Finally at the very last second “please, please, please, please…” the mom CAVED! “OK, fine, go get one.” So then the entire line had to wait for the kid to run to the back of the store get his SECOND energy drink and come back before the Mom could check out.
Really? You take a stand, and at the last second you CAVE, right when it’s most inconvenient for everyone else?
Thanks for the new one liners!
I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Whi-nese…
We say ‘sorry dearie, I don’t speak whin-ese’ in a fake British accent, over and over again as needed
Completely loved it, specially number 3, I think #/ would be crucio or maybe that was why it didn’t worked XD