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how to deal with constant nagging?
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My kids are overall pretty well behaved, but one thing that has been driving us crazy lately is the constant nagging. They cannot go 5 minutes without asking for something! We have a schedule~ well, it’s more of a routine ~ that we stick to fairly well. We read together, my hubby plays with them and takes them to run errands with him when he’s home, at least 5 out of 7 nights/wk we have supper together, hubby and I both tuck them in, say prayers, read stories every night. I try to watch at least one movie a week with them…make popcorn & hot chocolate, the whole nine yards, so I don’t know if this is an attention thing or what, but all day it’s constantly “can I? can I? can I?” For example, my daughter this morning, in a time span of no more than 5 minutes asked, “Can we paint? Can we have a snack? Can we play the elephant game?”, and it’s not just her. The my sons do it as well. They will have just had a snack…which they are only allowed one snack per day between lunch and supper… this NEVER changes, and yet 10 minutes after their snack they are asking for another one. They aren’t allowed anything besides water in between meals…it’s been this way for more than a year, and yet they still ask for juice/coke/milk in between when they have water in their cups…so it’s not like they are thirsty?? My hubby and I are so fed up with the constant parade of can I’s! anyone have any suggestions with how to handle it? I know to a certain extent it’s an age thing, but I feel like it’s just become a habit for them and I don’t know how to break it. lol
Are there consequences for nagging? If they don’t have some medical reason they need to eat, I would take away the next snack every time they ask for extra. Or if they ask for juice, they get just water all the next day.
Nebby
Remind us how old your kids are?
We have dealt with this (we call it whining at our house) too. Some of the kids adapted and stopped, one it just seems this persistent asking is engrained in his personality. I try to think of the positives that will come when he’s an adult…
A few small things that helped us:
1. Look at yourself. Do you break the rules you’ve set for the kids, grabbing an extra bite to eat, drinking something other than water between meals, etc? Sometimes it is that simple. Not often though.
2. Look at yourself (are you catching a theme?). When a child speaks to you and asks you a question do you answer specifically the FIRST time. I was so often guilty of ignoring the question or putting them off with “I don’t know”, “Later”, or “Not right now”. Ignoring the question means they’re going to keep asking until you have the decency to respond to them. Putting off the answer by being nonspecific means that they will keep asking until they find out what the official answer is going to be.
Instead, I have learned to be specific. “Yes, we will play outside right after snack time.” “No, you may not have something to eat until dinner time at 5pm” “Yes, we will play with paint right after everyone finishes their chores.”
I found that for all but one of my children that their whining resolved 98% when I simply fixed what I was doing that aggravated the issue. For my one persistent child we have had to use a different tactic. We make him aware that he is repeating his question, and have him tell us what specific answer we already gave to him. Then we send him to his room if he continues, onto his bed, where the only thing to ask the question to again is his pillow. 🙂
We have been experiencing this constant begging here too! My talking ones are 7, 5, almost 3. And Tristan figured it out for me – I’m so occupied with multiple things that I don’t listen/answer. So now to work on my own habit of attention.
I tell mine “no more asking for things.”
It really sounds to me like you’re doing everything I’d recommend: a consistent meal/snack schedule, a string rhythm to your day…what about increasing their protein at each meal? What are they having for breakfast? We cannot do grains/carbs here in the morning. My boys are starving long before lunch if we do and it completely disrupts our lessons. They do much better with eggs and bacon, unsweetened yogurt, kefir smoothies for breakfast.
Another thought is a daily checklist of sorts. I keep a sequential list of our rhythm for the day (not assigned to time) and my boys know we don’t move on to the next thing until we finish the current thing, and I also list “finish up any work” after lunch/quiet time, which comes eit before our afternoon fun activities. They always look forward to the afternoon activities so they can see that if we get off track they will be spending the afternoon catching up. Mine are K and 3rd graders and this works very well for us.
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