No Whining Zone

As a follow up to my post from last week, I created a “No Whining” list with the kids. Once again, a big thank you to the fabulous, British parenting advice that projects from my TV. So this exercise was a way to document all the activities they whine over and should not, with the intent to drive proactive, positive behavior instead of my reactive, robot-like response of “seriously, is that really something to whine about?”

To complete this task, I asked both Alex and Avery to think back over the past few days (and weeks) and tell me some of the bad choices (to steal a favorite word from daycare) that they might have made and complained about. Surprisingly, they were extremely eager to participate – probably because I was before them teacher-like, with a blank sheet of paper and a black Sharpie in hand – and they quickly started throwing out answers like they were in a creative brainstorming session on Madison avenue. Overall, I was impressed with the list (proves they do listen every now and then), as it was filled with a variety of atypical activities and others that are unfortunately part of our daily routine.

No Whining About …
- Getting dressed in the morning
- Who is the leader or goes first
- Whether the windows are up and down in the car
- The color or type of bowl, cup, plate or spoon
- The color of our front door
- Not being allowed to browse YouTube
- Stuart Little or Stuart Little 2
- Who gets to sit by me on the couch
- Who gets to hand the pop-cycles to the checkout clerk at Target
- Why you cannot sit on the floor in the middle of UDF to scratch your foot
- Special treats
- Taking a bath at night
- The little things

Yes, Alex concluded with my all time favorite. Now I just need to make a list of the little things.