Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to episode 121 of Outnumbered the Podcast. Got whiny kids? It's okay. We do too. But the difference is that we have dealt with so many whiny kids through the years between the two of us that we have five super amazing solutions to share with you on
Speaker: how to help whiny kids stop whining so much. So we hope you enjoy this episode and that it's really helpful for you if you have whiny kids in your life too.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Speaker: Hey guys, welcome back. We are excited to talk to you. Well, okay. Maybe we're not excited to talk about kids who won, but that's what we're talking about today is kids who are maybe extra, especially whiny.
Speaker: And we want to start off with a disclaimer that if your intuition is telling you that your child's whining is abnormal or way too much, please pay attention to that. We're not health professionals. There might be something underlying in your child. We're just moms who have dealt with an awful lot of whining kids in our motherhood years.
Speaker: Right, right, totally. I mean, sometimes that's the only way kids have to communicate. Babies cry, kids whine. And so, especially if you think it might be a health issue or it seems like their emotions are a little bit too much for them, especially after listening to this episode, then you might want to consult a doctor.
Speaker: To start off, I wanted to share a little mom moment that kind of touched my heart the other day. I have a seven -year -old who I've mentioned a couple of times because he's kind of the one that costs me most of my thinking and creativity, ingenuity, and parenting. He's just a tricky one sometimes. And so the other day he was playing with his little brother who's two
Speaker: And they were wrestling and playing, but the seven -year -old was just being a little bit too rough, you know? He was putting a basket over his head, and then he was putting a blanket on him and sitting on him. And then he was throwing a pillow at him. And everything he did was making the two -year -old cry. And the two -year -old wanted to play with him, you could tell, but every time he turned around, he was getting knocked over or something. And so I kept saying, Bud, please be careful. Bud, let's not wrestle. So, you know, I was just giving caution after caution. And finally he sat down and looked at me and went, I just don't know what's wrong with me.
Speaker: And it made me giggle a little bit, but that just kind of made me sad because I thought, oh, I really don't want my seven -year -old to feel like there is something wrong with him. I want him to just understand that this is a natural process of being a rambunctious little boy is that you sometimes are too rough with people and you have to just figure out a good way to deal with the younger kids versus an older kid who can take the pillow smack to the face, etc.
Speaker: So anyway, I just bring that up because today we're gonna be talking about how to help your kids realize that there is nothing wrong with them when they whine, but how to maybe more constructively express their emotions. Okay, starting off, what do we mean by whining? This is not when kids are crying because they're hurt. You know, they fell down and stubbed their toe and they're bleeding and they're crying. That's not whining, that's crying. This is just kind of the noises they make when
Speaker: They're wanting to get your attention. Maybe they don't know what's wrong and there's nothing really like super bloody wrong. It's not an emergency. I mean, come on, we're a parent. This is what we're defining as whining. It's not the hurt cry or the sad cry. It's just kind of the whiny cry.
Speaker: So this episode is really intended for kids younger than the teen and tween years and older and out of maybe those first baby years. So they can communicate, not like a baby where they just cry. They can communicate. But after the teen, the tween years, they're better at communicating and whining isn't really a tool to pull out of their toolbox. So just a heads up on kind of those ages where kids whine.
Speaker: Right, totally. And it kind of makes me giggle a little bit, Audrey, when you say kids who whine because, oh, kids whine, or at least all my kids whine. And I think it's just kind of their way of communicating a little bit more incessantly than just talking and not quite as heavy as crying or screaming, right? And like you said, this is just part of childhood. So the sooner we can wrap our heads around the fact that they're going to do it, the easier it is for us to deal with it when it comes.
Speaker: they just have not fully understood how to process their own emotions and their own needs and how to communicate in healthy ways. And so just that heads up. If your kid's whining, that is totally normal. Yes, I agree. All kids whine, but I have some who are whinier than others, almost to the point of
Speaker: like this distraction for me like they just go on and on and on. So we wanted to pinpoint some completely normal reasons why kids might be whining. They're tired. They're overtired. They're hungry. They've got small hurts. They stubbed their toe yesterday and it still aches a little bit today.
Speaker: Maybe some unusual stressors like going through potty training or a new baby in the family changes like a move, that kind of thing are just going to throw kids, all kids and maybe especially this subset of kids who just uses wine as the main tool in their toolbox and throws them into that whining place.
Speaker: Right, right, right. And basically, we just are trying to get to the point where we all feel kind of this sense of relief, like, OK, this is normal. And it's also normal for whining to be annoying to a parent. You're not supposed to like it. That's OK if you don't like it and to want to escape from it. But we wanted to create this episode so that if you want to go a little bit further and try to find some solutions so that there is less whining and your kid seems a little bit happier and more productive in his communication, then this is what we're here for.
Speaker: Yes, we have five ways that we're gonna try to help you help your child reduce that whining. I don't know how to describe it other than just whining. All right, so whining is designed to get your attention. So our number one way to reduce whining is to, wait for it, examine yourself.
Speaker: What does it take for your kids to get your attention? Are you not responding to their needs or helping them process their emotions so that they just have to get a little louder to be heard? They have to kind of amplify themselves, make themselves more of a pain in the butt, more annoying so that you'll pay attention and respond to them. And then kind of a subset of this, another thing we can examine in ourselves is how do we model
Speaker: tired, hungry, stressors to them. Like, what is our adult version of whining? How have we shown them through our example that there's other ways to communicate other than whining? Or if you're a whiner, hey, sometimes, you know, as adults, sometimes I whine too. So I just have a little more, maybe less higher pitched way of communicating it.
Speaker: Yes, I love, love, love this tip because number one, it's the most painful one. Nobody wants to check themselves first, right? They want to just deal with their kids. But I personally have noticed that my kids whine excessively when my phone is out. When I'm on my phone, my kids whine. And that's not really a big surprise, right? Because my attention is elsewhere and so they feel like they need to elevate the volume and the intensity of their voice so that they can get my attention. And when I pay attention to this, I go,
Speaker: It's because I'm looking down away from them. And to be fair, you know, we moms have busy lives. It's not like I'm scrolling Instagram all morning long. Sometimes I get distracted on Instagram. I'll give myself that too. But sometimes it's just ordering groceries, responding to a text, calling a doctor, paying a bill, whatever. My phone is kind of my mini computer, you know? So when I'm distracted with whatever household task that takes me away from them, especially looking at a little screen, my kids whine. So I have really had to pay attention to that to, you know, give them the attention that they need.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, totally. That's when my kids amp up their whininess, too. Or take advantage of, you know, I said, OK, go empty the dishwasher and while you're emptying the dishwasher, I'm going to respond to this email. And the next thing I know, they're upstairs playing with toys and the dishwasher is not empty.
Speaker: Most distracted run. I know, I know. But also when I'm in a phone conversation or in a conversation with an adult in the room or on the phone or something, they're like, that's when they amp up their whining.
Speaker: an attention or a jealousy thing like, hey, I want your attention too. I'm kind of jealous of this attention that you're giving another adult and not me. And we're going to get into a little bit more something on this just in one of our different tips. But yes, definitely when I'm on the phone or not giving them my full attention is when the whining gets amplified.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. Kids want your full and undivided attention. And it's okay that we can't always give it to them, but we need to give them constructive ways of waiting around for us until we're available. Okay, so number two of ways to reduce whining is to help them identify their feelings and make sure that the kids understand that they are normal feelings. So especially the younger ones, most often cannot identify what they're feeling. They just know that they're feeling something uncomfortable, something that they don't like.
Speaker: And so we have taken some great tips from some of our favorite life coaches that we listen to, and we love to help our kids understand where in the body they're feeling the emotion. So you can ask them, tell us, are you feeling this in your chest or your tummy? Does your tummy feel sick? Does your chest feel tight? Any number of things, give them some suggestions. As you know, your emotions affect your body too, and you can give them some ideas.
Speaker: And then ask them to describe the actions that come as a result of what they're feeling. So for example, if they're feeling anger and they say, oh, I just feel like something's poking me in the chest or something or however they describe the emotion, and it makes me want to, whatever, push my sister or throw a block or whatever, to help them make that connection is really, really powerful.
Speaker: Yeah, the poor little things like the first time a couple of times you go through this exercise with them, they really have no clue. Like they don't really have the ability to identify that this tightness in my chest or I'm panting, you know, kind of how I get really angry and they're like,
Speaker: sorry for the sound effects, but yeah, they're like, they can't really connect that to you know, being angry and being able to help them with that is is kind of empowering for them. So one thing that helps my kids is identify their feelings is sharing
Speaker: Times about when I've been angry or tired or hurt and what it feels like for me So, you know what when somebody hurts my feeling that hurts me like I feel right at the top of my stomach I feel like I ate something bad and I feel like I'm a throw up and that's what it feels like when I get my feelings hurt and they just kind of look at me like oh Yeah, that's exactly what it feels like for me or they'll say well mine is like over here on my side like a side ache like I've been running five miles and you know, I
Speaker: But just give them that little empowering tool of being able to identify their feelings and just understand that they're normal because other people feel them too. Yes, exactly. And I love the idea of giving them suggestions and sharing your own experiences so they know it's normal and even adults deal with this. So that's really powerful.
Speaker: Okay, so a few tips from me for helping them identify their feelings is we have also learned in our life coaching study that it's very important to label your emotions with one words. With one words. How about one word?
Speaker: with single words is what I'm trying to say. Things like, like you said, angry, tired, frustrated, upset, overwhelmed, hurt, et cetera. If you get into multiple words, then what you're doing is describing the thought that's feeling the emotion and that's a whole different ball of wax. So it's very, it's very important for them to identify the emotion and that's what they can process through first.
Speaker: Okay, so moving on to number three, the third way to reduce whining is to acknowledge that this thing that they've identified what they're feeling, it's acceptable. And also, it's important that they're feeling that. It's totally easier for me to say, stop whining than to take the time to sit down and help them process their feelings. And I get it, we don't always have the time.
Speaker: to help them work through these feelings, especially at the beginning. Sometimes it takes time, but just letting them know, even if you just have a second to say, I recognize that you're feeling angry and that's okay. It can really go a long ways in helping stop the whining.
Speaker: Yes. And in my experience, the whining usually comes when it's not convenient to sit down and process their emotions, you know, when you're running out the door or you're busy with something. But I love that. Just a quick little line about I can see that you're angry with your sister. Why don't we go, you know, why don't you go chill out in your room for a few minutes? I'll come talk to you as soon as this boils over or whatever, whenever you are most are the soonest available to help them process that.
Speaker: One experience that I keep experiencing, because now I have six daughters, which is bizarre, is the daughters and their emotion. I know that this is kind of stereotypical, but it has been really true for our family that once the girls hit about four years old, they start having these
Speaker: really emotional times that they're going through and some more than others. But I still remember my oldest daughter when she hit, I think it was like three, she went to bed and she just started to sob. And I was really concerned like, what's going on? Are you hurt or what's, you know, are you upset? Did somebody hurt your feelings? Whatever. And she just, between sobs managed to get out. I just miss grandma Bakes. And her grandma Bakes lived in a different state and she hadn't seen her in about
Speaker: six months and she'd seen her like twice in her whole life. And I'm thinking, this makes no sense. What are you talking about? And I was just realizing that it was just the end of the day and she was probably overwhelmed with lots of things. And that was a reason that she could give to her tears, but I really don't think that she fully understood why she was crying. And so I was trying to just kind of talk her through it. Yeah, sometimes we just get sad and sometimes we just need to cry and that's okay. And so I was proud that I resisted my temptation to just laugh at her because
Speaker: It was really silly. They heard a three -year -old crying about missing somebody they'd met twice. But it is very, very real for them. And until they can fully articulate it, which sometimes doesn't even come until you're 40 years old. We're still working on that. Then they need our help to sit with them in their sadness or their anger and tell them it's OK to feel it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really cute. I know another thing that we should have mentioned in the beginning when we were talking about normal reasons why kids whine is it always, I know we said tired. I meant like during the middle of the day when I said that, you know, they need a nap. But toward the evening, it seems like
Speaker: the amount of whining just escalates and and toward the end of the day when they're just tired and overwhelmed and sad and everything the whining happens so much more in the evening and sometimes i found
Speaker: I don't know, maybe just a little space or relief for myself to say, you know what, I can see that you're feeling this and it's okay to be feeling that. And if you'd like, we can talk more about it in the morning, but right now you're really tired and I'm really tired. And I think what would be more beneficial for us both is to get some sleep and then talk about it when we're both rested.
Speaker: And sometimes just sleep fixes the situation. And so yes, that's totally one thing. If it's evening, if it's nighttime, it's probably gonna be more whining than if it was the beginning of the day.
Speaker: Yeah, totally. In fact, a funny side note is my college girlfriends and I used to have a saying that if it was after 1030 at night and you weren't wearing a bra, you weren't allowed to analyze your life because chances are good, it's going to look really bad. Wait till the morning and then you can talk about your latest boyfriend or your latest failed class or whatever. Not good late at night.
Speaker: So recently I wanted to share a time, an experience I had helping one of my kids feel what they were feeling. And I have one son who's really, really, really a people pleaser to the point where he would rather, he would rather give up all his toys than make another kid sad about not getting to borrow or play with his toy. And so he a lot of times sacrifices his own feelings
Speaker: for making other people happy pleasing other people and so he was having a hard day one day and crying and I just came to him and for the first time ever in his life because I've just recently added this tool to my toolbox as a parent I said I Can see that you're crying and it's okay to cry hmm, and he got the biggest
Speaker: he got the biggest look on his face. Like you could just see like the relief come into his face. Like he, he knows that. And he's heard me say, stop crying. I don't like crying. Crying isn't, you're crying is making me frustrated. And he's heard me say all that. And as a people pleaser that has, I know it's been a burden to him. So I just said to him for the first time,
Speaker: It's okay to cry. It's okay to feel whatever you're feeling. I know you can't identify it and tell me why you're crying right now, but it's okay. To me, it's a new tool, but it feels really powerful to just validate what they're feeling. Say, it's okay to cry, and it's also important to me to feel what you're feeling, and that's okay.
Speaker: Yes, it's important for all of us to feel those feelings. And I, most of my life, I've, I've understood the importance of being able to cry because you always feel so much better afterwards, don't you think? Like this, like this purge. But as an adult, especially as a mother,
Speaker: I felt added pressure to stay calm and look like my emotions aren't bothering me. And so just for example, in this postpartum time, I've had a couple of good cries because that's just sometimes the only thing that you can do when you're allowing this overwhelm to creep in.
Speaker: and life seems unmanageable. And I've been able to really make it work for me. I've thought, okay, I don't really want my kids to see me cry all the time because I think it upsets them. So I go to my room and I lock myself in. I say, mom needs a few minutes and I just go for it. And I just, you know, if I need to be loud, I can bury my head in my pillow and I can just scream and do whatever I need to do to get that emotion out.
Speaker: And it's been great. And sometimes it makes me feel bad to let my husband see too, because even though he's an adult, it makes him upset when he sees me upset. But that is life, is feeling the emotions, the good and the bad and the ugly. And there's nothing wrong with that. And the problems come when we start resisting the emotions and hiding them and shoving them down. And so that is one of the most important things we can teach our children about their emotional health is that it is okay to feel it and let the emotion out. We'll talk in a minute about
Speaker: emotions versus, you know, like bad behaviors, but the emotions are not bad. Yeah. And I just wanted to say, you know, since I had that little conversation with my son, I've had this maybe two weeks ago, I've had this new tool in my toolbox. He has been kind of a different person, like since I've told him it's okay to feel what he's feeling. It's just very heartbreaking to see. And also the other thing I wanted to note is that there's also some more
Speaker: like anger things coming out of him that he's probably also been repressing because he didn't feel like it was okay to feel them. And that's okay too. Like we're gonna go ahead and process through those emotions too. If every emotion is okay, then those angry ones are okay too. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And just a side note, we're probably going to find ourselves working through a lot of stuff personally as we allow our children to do this because it's just not socially acceptable in a lot of ways to openly feel our feelings, especially for boys and men. I really feel like this is something really damaging.
Speaker: we've picked up from society that it's not okay for boys to cry, it's okay for them to be angry for some reason but not to cry or be sad or be feeling in those quote -unquote girly emotions, right? And so we need to make sure that our own, I guess, societal expectations or our own inhibitions aren't affecting our children. We might have to just do a little bit of working through those on our own, right, in order to best help them.
Speaker: Yeah totally but think of what powerful tools we can give our sons for their future families. Yeah they're actually going to be you know husbands that can you know that are emotionally responsive and not just shutting themselves down that'd be great. Okay so our fourth way to reduce the whining is to interact with our children as adults like in a manner that we would interact with another adult so talk to them like you would an adult
Speaker: um don't talk down to them don't talk to them in baby talk um every any kid that's old enough to know the difference will know that they're being panned or two right and they're not going to like it and the older they get the worse the more they hate it right especially if they sense that you are
Speaker: doing something just because they're upset, right? They want authenticity. They want you to be yourself and to be honest with them. So beware of putting on a show and talking in a way that might upset them.
Speaker: Yes, I totally agree with that. Kids are, what did one of our, I think it was one of our previous guests on the podcast say? Kids are, I don't remember how they put it. It was so good. If I remember it, we'll put it in the show notes, but something about kids are like truth detectors. Kids are truth detectors. They know if you're being honest or if you're just being fake or something, they can ferret that out in like two seconds. Yep, totally.
Speaker: So one tip I have, one thing I say to my kids when they're, when they're whining or when they're inconsolable or they can't, you know, they're crying so hard, they can't express themselves. I say to them, I really want to know what's wrong, but I cannot understand you when you're crying, whining, talking, whatever it is like that.
Speaker: and I want to know what's wrong, I want to be able to help you with it if that's a possibility, but I can't understand you." And that kind of brings them into this space where they're like, oh yeah, okay, all right, get it, pull it together enough that I can take a breath, like I'm trying to get them to breathe mostly. And then we'll talk about it. You know, this is really for the youngest kids to kind of snap them into the awareness that
Speaker: No one can help you when you're like this. You can't even help yourself. You probably can't even understand what you're saying. And even with younger kids, I have mimicked to them, not in a sarcastic mockery way, I have mimicked to them,
Speaker: This is what it sounds like to me. And I'll say, can you understand what I'm saying? Because I'm having trouble understanding what that means. Yes. I love that tip. One thing that we have started doing is I've tried to stop assigning my kids some like a time out in their room when they're being naughty, because instead I want their room to be this peaceful place that they go to to calm themselves down so that they can communicate better.
Speaker: So if they're having a meltdown, freaking out about something, we'll try to get to the bottom of it. I'll tell them it's okay to be upset. But if we can't even communicate, they're just beyond that. I'll say, okay, it's time to go rest in your room for a little bit until you feel like you're at a place that we can talk and then we'll figure this out, okay? So it's not a punishment. It's a, come on, let me come to your room with you. And I sit on their bed with them and they lay down and cry and they say, okay, I'll come back in a few minutes.
Speaker: to see if you're a little bit calmer and we can talk, okay? And I think that gives them permission to go cry it out or do whatever they need to do without it disrupting the rest of the family and without them feeling bad about it. That's just where they go to have their upset time. And then we can discuss feeling those feelings.
Speaker: Oh, that is such a good tip to make their bedroom, their retreat, their safe place, their rest haven where they can get in that comfortable place. We've been doing a couple of room changes around at our house or just organizing moving around different furniture things and different kids into different bedrooms or whatever.
Speaker: Like, that's kind of been my thought behind this. How can I make this room like a sanctuary for them, somewhere that they feel safe and they like to go? And there's other reasons behind that, but that's not what this podcast episode is about. All right, moving on to the fifth and final way that we're going to share with you to reduce whining is teach them other, better methods of communication.
Speaker: So that's what whining is. It's an ineffective attempt at communication for whatever example. So let's give them some tools to work with. Learning their communication style and teaching them to express themselves in that way is the first place to start in helping them, giving them better tools to learn about themselves.
Speaker: Yes, a tip for this is to first learn your own communication style. So like I know that I personally do not like confrontation and I like to keep things light. And so I've learned that sometimes it makes me nervous to
Speaker: Talk to my older kids, my younger kids, I don't feel like it's confrontation, but my teenagers, I feel a little bit on edge and so I've had to work through my own issues with confrontation in order to more healthfully talk them through their emotions. Our episode about one -on -one time talks about this and about how to best connect with a child, especially one that has a personality style or a communication style that's a little bit different from yours because that can require a little bit more effort.
Speaker: Yeah, that was a really good episode, learning about yourself and learning about your kids' individual personality and communication styles. So other ways that they can learn to communicate is using their words, obviously, is one way. That's what we've been talking about. But maybe drawing a picture. You can't really find words to share with me how you feel. How about if you take this crayon and show me on paper how you feel?
Speaker: And another very powerful tool to help your kids is to explain that all their feelings come from thoughts. Now they have to be a little bit older to kind of understand this. My three -year -old doesn't get this concept.
Speaker: But this has been very helpful for my six, seven year old and up. So explain that all your feelings come from thoughts. So after you talk about finding that one word descriptor that we were talking about in tip number two to identify their emotion, then you can start exploring what is the thought that is causing you to feel this one word emotion, whatever it is.
Speaker: And then start digging into that thought and asking questions like, why are you thinking that thought? Is that thought true? Is it valid? Is it helping you in this situation? Is it helping you communicate? Is it helping you feel good, feel better? And not wanting to change their feeling, but maybe it would be more helpful to help them think about their thinking.
Speaker: Yeah. And this is kind of a complicated concept, but the more I've taught my older kids about this, the more empowered I can sense that they feel about life in general. These are, you know, are some of our favorite life coaching skills that have just really made an impact in our own lives. Audrey's in mine. And so to teach our children is really, I think one of the most important things we can teach them, that their emotions are normal, but if they are not helping them in a good way,
Speaker: they can choose to change them through their thought process. It's really fascinating. And one thing I wanted to mention, like I touched on earlier, is that even though we want our children to feel comfortable feeling their emotions, it is absolutely appropriate to have boundaries surrounding
Speaker: their behavior, okay? So feeling angry, totally okay. Shoving their sister, not okay. Feeling upset is okay. Throwing blocks all over the room, not okay, right? So we can honor their emotions and their freedom to feel them.
Speaker: while still having limits on how they act in your household, right? So like I said, I like to keep their room kind of a peaceful zone. So when they're out of control physically, I send them outside and I say, okay, you go throw rocks outside or go kick a tire or whatever you need to do when you are not acting
Speaker: acting against the rules of the home, but you're just still upset, then come in and we'll talk, right? And we can talk through those emotions and understand what you're feeling and why. Another thing I wanted to mention is sometimes kids, well, sometimes all of us get in the same thought emotion loops, these cycles that go around and around and around, especially if they have like one sibling that they have a hard time with. And so that sibling will do
Speaker: basically anything, and they hop on that same thought -emotion loop of, oh, that's so annoying, and why did they do this, etc. And so teaching them that their underlying thoughts before their emotions hit them can help them jump the track and get out of those thought loops and improve relationships with their family members. That's what we're working on with a few of our kids.
Speaker: Yeah, that is such helpful information. Definitely okay to have rules and also okay to have emotions, but yeah, just teach them the difference between behavior and feelings, yeah. Yeah, and then just think how when they become adults, they can be angry all day long if they need to be without punching a coworker because that's very important not to do.
Speaker: Oh, yes. So some of my final thoughts are that we can't process our feelings if we refuse to allow ourselves to feel them.
Speaker: So by you, your example, letting yourself have a good cry in postpartum, you're processing those emotions and they can actually move through you and out of your body and they don't have to stay in your body and you don't have to feel stuck. Like I think a lot of times when I get stuck in an emotion is because I'm telling myself it is not okay to feel this feeling or I'm a bad person for feeling this feeling and I don't let myself feel it and then I can't process through it and ever get it out of myself.
Speaker: Yeah, so we have to process, we have to practice processing our own feelings and moving through them before we can help our kids feel their own feelings. So if you're like me and just learning and not very good at feeling your own feelings, just work on it yourself. And as you work on it yourself, then you'll gain tools for yourself to be able to help your kids feel and process their own feelings.
Speaker: and you know what going through this process with kids it makes their feelings identifiable which makes them less scary. I remember when I was a kid and I would feel things and it would be so scary to me because I wouldn't recognize it as
Speaker: Um, just a feeling. It wasn't an emergency. It wasn't, um, it, you know, it was just like one, like one person said it was just information from your brain about your, what's going on inside. And, and that really demystifies it and it, it empowers kids to, um, when they can identify their feelings and their thoughts causing their feelings and they become less scary.
Speaker: to them. And it's more like they are in control instead of their emotions controlling them. And that will ultimately reduce the amount of whining going on. Yes. I'm so glad you mentioned that. One other thing I wanted to bring up is that it's important for us as parents to realize that it's not our job to change our children's emotions. That their negative emotions don't mean anything about us. It doesn't mean we're being a bad mom because somebody got hurt and is crying. It doesn't mean that we're
Speaker: irresponsible because someone is angry, this is part of life. And for those of us with big families, especially it can be very overwhelming with all these emotions happening all day long. But if we are managing our own emotions and our own emotional health is where it should be, then we can, you know, very calmly and helpfully witness our children feeling these emotions and let them process through them instead of trying to always fix it, which is something that I've struggled with for a long time. So it's a very great place to be and we're working on it.
Speaker: All right, that's all we have for you guys today. We have a little bit of homework for you. If you want help working on processing your own emotions and helping your kids feel their feelings, we have linked in the show notes episode of the Better Than Happy podcast, help your kids feel their feelings. And we've also linked to episode 32. This is your homework one on one time. Go listen to that and learn a little bit more about your kids.
Speaker: to help them be able to learn about themselves and teach them a better way to communicate. So that's everything we have for you guys. If your kids are whining, don't worry, our kids are whining too. And we hope this episode has helped you be able to deal with it yourself and help them deal with it better too.
Speaker: Thanks for listening, friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.
