Trying to eliminate constant whining

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I think if my mom used sarcasm like that on a regular basis I would have became severely depressed much earlier in life, though my complaining was mostly due to sensory issues which my family didn't get.

I don't really so that is why I end up screaming at him and telling him to shut up and get out and yelling stop it or quit it or telling him to not whine and I am not listening to it. I try to stay calm about it by trying to not yell and tell him nicely instead but that doesn't work most of the time so I end up yelling instead. I wonder how ASD parents do it and how do they not yell at their kids? I would think their kids must overwhelm them so how do they become god? Or maybe they have easy kids and they easily listen to them. Not all kids will listen no matter how respectful you are to them and no matter how nicely you say it. I also wonder how they do it as a single parent because I know I wouldn't be able to raise my kids alone. I have my husband so I can just leave my son with him telling him I need a break from him because I am tired of yelling at him. You can't have that luxury as a single parent unless you have family nearby who will help you out but I am not comfortable asking for it but yet I ca easily accept it when it's offered. I think lot of parents have a hard time asking for help because of the stigma so they try and do it alone or they rant instead hoping they will get help from their friends or family because it's so much easier to accept help than asking for it. Plus it's pretty embarrassing to ask for it.

All parents yell at their kids and probably act the way I do when overwhelmed especially if their kids are whining when they are tired or have had a stressful day but I probably have these episodes more often than normal parents. That is why I don't easily judge parents if I see them snap at their kids or be grouchy with them and going "what" in a irritated tone because they are probably having a bad day too and are not usually like that or their kid has more energy than other kids and that can overwhelm the parent, or maybe the parent has anxiety so they get overwhelmed quickly and easier. Toddlers are too young to understand so they keep doing what they keep on doing. They do not understand how they are acting is setting their parent off and making them be that way so I can't expect my own to accommodate me yet. Even looking it up online how to not yell at your kids, all the advice has been useless. I think it's only directed at parents who don't have anxiety or any ASD or don't have anything bad or stressful going on in their live. ASD parents are right, there isn't support out there for ASD parents and that could also apply to parents with other conditions too.

Or it helps your kid learn their feelings are invalid and to shut up when they are uncomfortable and in pain, or else they are being weak. Everyone whines sometimes I am pretty sure, expecting a child to never whine and have perfect emotional regulation is like expecting a cat not to meow. Of course it can be annoying but much of the time children don't whine just to whine there is usually a reason could be extreme discomfort and they don't know the right words to explain it well...so just ignoring them just creates more frustration and lack of communication when actually trying to figure out why the whining is occuring and what solutions there are for those issues would probably have a better outcome for everyone. Perhaps things are a little bit different with neurotypicals though I imagine the have issues communicating to adults well as children as well when they are having an issue...but especially with autistic kids who have significant trouble with social interaction its going to be even harder for them to express things let alone express them 'properly'.

There does exist exessive whining and what not, out of not getting someones way(not referring to autistic routine issues) which there should be consequences for...but say a kid is whining because its too hot out, well even if you don't feel like its too hot out to them it might really be too hot out....so it is very important to try and figure out if the whining is due to some real discomfort or if they're trying to be difficult or just trying to get their way in which case they probably need a time out and a good talking to about why its selfish and disrespectful to act like that.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 13 May 2014, 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

I wish I had that luxury lol. That would have saved my sanity. What a bonus to having hearing loss and using hearing aids for it. You are in control of your own environment regarding noise and sounds. If a room is too noisy for you, just simply turn it down instead of walking out of the room.

You can buy ear plugs or headphones to use, though. Maybe download some calming or instructive podcasts, so you can say to him, "I am going to listen to my teacher now."

Keeping calm is hard for all parents, and no one will get it right all the time, but I really felt for you reading your earlier post about how hard it is. I think this is definitely an area where your ASD makes things more difficult, because it is sensory and it is going to rattle you more than it would an NT parent.

You have to try to pull yourself out of the moment, if possible, and out of your own distress. Divert your focus to getting the problem solved (having something specific to work on helps my son in difficult situations, usually). You know that yelling is counterproductive, so if you can catch your breathe before responding, you may be able to find your calm voice. Write yourself steps and a script that you can remember and follow, and see if that helps things.

Whining is a sound produced by engaging the nasal resonators instead of the chest and throat. It can be made without any verbal content at all (dogs can do it, too.)

Whining has a sensory component that can be very difficult. When whining was more frequent, I had to give myself time-outs. I always told my son that it was a noise-thing so he would know why. NT people find it to be very annoying, too. Many people believe tolerating whining is bad home training. So the world judges both you and your kid.

If you have to deal with schools and other people, in general, it is a thing that needs to be accounted for. I got a lot of judgement b/c I never prioritized it. I never prioritized it because I had other behaviors that were more problematic. I always looked at any movement from a more problematic behavior to a less problematic one to be an improvement. The world at large does not care and expects it all to be extinguished right away. That never was a realistic option for us.

I always told my son it was difficult to listen to from a sensory perspective, and that he needed to curtail it. Now, if I catch him and he is not near meltdown mode, he can adjust it. He once could not do this, and I was more afraid of him getting frustrated if every form of "negative" communication was verboten.

That said, everyone's mileage may vary. For some of us it is harder than others b/c the way that whining is used varies. The intent always mattered to me, but it does not matter "out there." All whining is looked at as being equally bad, even if it is in pain or some other reason. This is the world we live in. If our kids whine, they get teased, teachers complain, relatives complain and even people who generally understand what is going on will pressure to extinguish it. I opted for low-level effort, and my reasons were not accepted as valid.

Edited to add: I have no idea how to scientifically describe a whine. Maybe someone with more physics knowledge than I possess can do so. It is one of those people know it when they hear it kind of things that I am sure will make you cringe.

I could probably find examples on YouTube or something. If one is an aspie with sound sensitivities, I think it is much worse on us than for NTs. I was rather bemused when called to task for not extinguishing it. If I thought it would have been the smart thing to do for us, I would have prioritized it for my own sake, believe me.

Your comments are interesting. The way my parents (and my friends' parents) used the word "whine", I interpreted it as "to complain when nobody wants to listen and nobody cares". I was never told that whining constituted producing that nasal sound, rather than simply voicing my discomfort, as well as how to make people care when indeed nobody cares. Needless to say, I developed boatloads of self-esteem issues that I still struggle with.

I guess I learned something. In addition to frequency (as in hertz), speed, volume, or timbre of voice, I guess whining is also based on where the voice originates: inside one's sinuses, rather than one's diaphragm. I'm sure it's the reason why Adele (singer of "Skyfall") sounds beautiful, while Rihanna (singer of "Unfaithful") sounds grating.

You totally get it now, I see (your Adele vs. Rihanna example is a good one.) If only your parents had been able to articulate the difference for you, and maybe engage you with some speech therapy or singing lessons, you would not have suffered the frustration of dealing with the fallout from your childhood whining.

And in my defense, I think "I can't understand you when you talk that way" is age-appropriate language to communicate to a 2.5 year old the complex idea "When you produce that nasal tone of voice it is counterproductive to your desire to communicate with me."

It's possible it may have been your tone and they didn't want to listen to your tone. Not to what you want to say. They wanted you to change your tone so you weren't whining and you say it in your normal voice without whining. What it looks like is, you may not have had control over your tone because it was your normal voice and they didn't know that so they didn't get to work with you about your tone or try and put up with it. I knew a boy in my school who may have had it and it always sounded like he was whining when he spoke so I thought he was always whining. I realize now that may have been his normal voice and some ASD kids do have a hard time regulating their tone so it never changes and it always sound the same and it can sound like a whine unfortunately. Imagine how hard it must be for that child to have everyone think they are whining so they are always being shut out and ignored so they interpret it as "Shut up, no one wants to listen to you speak, no one cares about what you want to say." is this something you had to go through growing up? In school and all and from your peers?

I think one you are aware you had this issue, then your whole perception changes about your past and you see that they just didn't understand and you didn't know either, now you know it may have been because you had troubles with your tone and couldn't change it so it's not like it was because no one wanted to listen to you, it was your tone, not what you were saying. They just wanted you to change your tone and say it in a different voice which they thought would be your normal tone. But of course you couldn't tell them back then you don't know how to change it or how to make it sound like you're not whining if you were not aware of that issue you had.

I have an issue with talking loud and all someone has to do is tell me I am shouting and to talk quieter and I am able to lower my voice. Same could apply to tone too, someone tells their kid they are whining so all they have to do is change their tone. If only your parents knew then, your life may have been a lot easier.

Usually there is also an elongation of syllables. I wish I could describe what I mean in a better way.

There are people who use "whine" as a synonym for complain, but I always assume that people are referring to the noise aspect unless there is context to believe otherwise.

Aspie1, I am sorry that your parents were so unwilling to hear when things were troubling you. We rely on the complaints because otherwise we would have no idea what is going on in our son's head. My son is much more autistic than I am, and he is not me, anyway, so I can't always intuit what is going on. When our son was in public school I wish he had complained more (to us) and earlier. How do you know what the he** is going on, otherwise, right?

I wouldn't put on rose-colored glasses just yet. Now that I think about it, my parents' definition of "whine" was something like: "to complain repeatedly when you were told 'no' the first time". That was true even in situations like saying 'I'm thirsty' walking outside for hours on a hot summer day, and they didn't want to buy water/juice/etc. I was already jaded enough at age 7 to believe that adults colluded together to set me up to get thirsty on purpose, just so they could punish me for "whining". In retrospect, that's pretty farfetched, but I read somewhere that it's not uncommon for aspie kids to attribute the worst motives to adults in their lives. (Caused mostly by misunderstandings, I presume.)

I think that's exactly what everyone in my life did. Not my just my parents, but my friends parents' too. My family had a habit of using words in an odd manner, often contrary to their standard definition. This is one example. Then again, I did the same thing. For example, I used the word "chandelier" to refer to any ceiling-mounted light fixture, from a large crystal one in a historic theater, to a single lightbulb inside a closet (this did not apply to ceiling fans; I referred to them by their correct name).

Fran Drescher and Janice from Friends both sound like they are whining all the time. That's the sound.

I haven't been getting updates about replies to this thread, so it will take me a while to get through it all. Thanks.

Hahaha! This needs to be studied for sure.

Too bad I didn't learn to whine until I was preteen, all those years of annoying my parents just wasted, but then my most common whine became, mommm, I'm booooooored!

Yes... hunger is a whining and "bad" behaviour trigger for my son. He has just recently started improving his eating habits- less self-limiting and restricting of foods. I have to keep the snacks flowing and meals on a rigid schedule or I see the negative effects clearly. He eats like a horse- when he eats.
There are various triggers and I can identify and address most of them- but the whining still continues.