Oh, dear. One of my daughters whines a lot. She can wake up whining. She can go to bed whining. She can whine about breakfast. She can whine about dinner. About everything. About anything. Well, you get the idea with that.
(A digression: We went to her Parent's Evening last night and spoke to her teacher who described a happy, enthusiastic, cheerful, friendly, clever, intelligent child I am pleased to report.)
Today, I picked her up from school and she was complaining of feeling ill; not an uncommon event. I have to say I wasn't entirely convinced. The little smiles (you know the ones) weren't helping me either!
We got home and the whining carried on. The monologues of 'How nobody understands.' etc etc etc. And the volume got louder. A sign she isn't feeling that unwell usually. She kept saying she was going to be sick. My children have a blue-print for being ill (one that they worked out together on a subliminal level): They go off their food, they get a slight temperature, they are quiet, listless and need to snuggle on the sofa. She had decided to rewrite the blue-print so I didn't think she was really ill. Until, that was, she was actually sick.
And then I felt really bad. The mummy-guilt kicked in at full throttle. My girl was poorly and I had ignored her. I have told her that the whining will be like the boy who cried Wolf and that is what happened today. I am hoping that we can use this incident as a way to help her out of the whining.
At the moment I feel like parenting will be added to my list of failures. I really need that holiday we are due to go on on Saturday. Ho, hum.
At a tangent: If anyone has any tips on how to divert the habit then I will gratefully receive them.
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