{"id":6722,"date":"2014-11-21T06:00:32","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=6722"},"modified":"2014-11-16T20:00:57","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T01:00:57","slug":"change-whining-into-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/11\/change-whining-into-gratitude.html","title":{"rendered":"Change Whining Into Gratitude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2013\/08\/child-phone.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-5266 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2013\/08\/child-phone-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"child phone\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>A mom asks:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The other day I was so embarrassed because my child whined around when I was trying to talk to another mom. When our children whine, it really bothers us. We want to turn that whining to gratitude. How do we make that happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When you want to extinguish one behavior and then replace it with a positive one, you begin by labeling the inappropriate behavior. For example, \u201cKayla, right now you are whining, that needs to stop in order for mom to listen to what you are saying or need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If she doesn\u2019t stop, ignore the whining and restate the expectation-you will only respond when she stops whining. Do not pick her up and don\u2019t engage her until she stops. If a request is involved, ask her to restate it politely.<\/p>\n<p>If you are consistent with withholding your attention for whining and giving attention only when she is not whining, the behavior will eventually end.<\/p>\n<p>Then, at other times of the day, model gratitude by periodically verbalizing things for which you are grateful. Read books about thankfulness and practice thinking of things you are thankful for while you are driving around in the car. Make it a game\u2014who can come up with the most things to be thankful for in the day. You can also memorize scriptures that talk about thankfulness like Psalm 100 and provide a small reward for this.<\/p>\n<p>The point is that you have to intentionally teach children to look for things for which they are grateful. Eventually, they will notice on their own and point them out to you. Keep modeling this as well. Kids learn best by watching their parents. Grateful parents create grateful kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mom asks: The other day I was so embarrassed because my child whined around when I was trying to talk to another mom. When our children whine, it really bothers us. We want to turn that whining to gratitude. How do we make that happen? When you want to extinguish one behavior and then&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[914],"tags":[2732,641,52,1822,3109],"class_list":["post-6722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-relationships-2","tag-child-behavior","tag-gratitude","tag-parenting-2","tag-parenting-children","tag-whining"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Change Whining Into Gratitude<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/11\/change-whining-into-gratitude.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Change Whining Into Gratitude\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A mom asks: The other day I was so embarrassed because my child whined around when I was trying to talk to another mom. When our children whine, it really bothers us. We want to turn that whining to gratitude. How do we make that happen? When you want to extinguish one behavior and then&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/11\/change-whining-into-gratitude.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-21T11:00:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-11-17T01:00:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2013\/08\/child-phone-198x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Change Whining Into Gratitude","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/11\/change-whining-into-gratitude.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Change Whining Into Gratitude","og_description":"A mom asks: The other day I was so embarrassed because my child whined around when I was trying to talk to another mom. When our children whine, it really bothers us. We want to turn that whining to gratitude. How do we make that happen? 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6723,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6722\/revisions\/6723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}