Sheryl, great to hear you've gotten to a diagnosis, which is key to making strategies for corrective action. Fingers crossed!

I'm well over the hot flash stage which is great, except that the (ahem) Change left me incredibly heat-sensitive. I sweat so much more now. It seems ironic that I spent the first half of my life too cold, and now I'm going to be too hot -- there should have been a couple days in the middle where everything was nice, you know?

Crying at work before 10am. BINGO!

Overwhelmed with minutia that no one else pays attention to. Discovered errors on all the data put into my daily reports while I was on vacation. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

UGH msbelle. Just UGH.

ltc is learning that mommy is not making empty threats.

I honestly think that's one of the most important things a kid can learn.

I agree.

A related idea I learned fairly early on was not to "teach" your kids to whine (or otherwise act up) to get their way. Parents accidentally teach kids to whine by saying, "No," and then later giving in, because the kid is whining so much. They get positive reinforcement for being a persistent whiner.

It took a while to build the habit of considering my answer (and if it was "No," whether I'd eventually relent), but it made my life easier once I got the hang of it.

I also read, a million years ago, to disarm whining etc. with humor. One day, when the kids were all whining about something, I said (kinda yelled, but not in a scary way): "Hey, help! Help me! I need your help."

This got their attention. Once they asked me what I was talking about I pushed my hair back and asked them to look in my ear. Once they were all looking, I asked if there was blood -- if they could see any blood.

Even though they couldn't, they were riveted by the possibility and wanted to know why I thought my ear could be bleeding. That's when I told them that whining makes my ears bleed, which they thought was hilarious.

I think I got away with the full schtick one or two more times. After that, it got shorthanded to, "Hey quick, quick! Are my ears bleeding?" They would get the point, and it disarmed the situation without me losing my cool (or without them escalating).

And now I'm having to chase the insurance company to get them to authorize the Botox I'm supposed to get on Monday. Fuuuuuck our healthcare system.

Oh, god, whining. Twelve-year-olds whining. I just want to look at these kids in the supermarkt and say "Aren't you too old for this?" I've just realized that one reason I went to weekly grocery delivery was to avoid kids.

I need a bigger lawn so I can yell at all the kids to get off of it.

One of the worst things I have to deal with is adult females over 60 whining at me at the library.

and in the hot flash world, - last night I had the full hotflash/adrenaline rush - I haven't had those in months ....

Parents accidentally teach kids to whine by saying, "No," and then later giving in, because the kid is whining so much. They get positive reinforcement for being a persistent whiner.

A few years ago I was out for sushi with the youngest gothdaughter. (Her parents are divorced, which is relevant to this.) The gothdaughter said she wanted the green tea cheesecake. Her mom reasonably pointed out that she doesn't like cheesecake, so there was no point in getting it. Kiddo started whining; "But I want it! Why won't you let me have it? I WAAAAANT IT" and so on.

I looked at her and said, "Does whining work on your mom? Or me?" She gave me a very sullen "No" in response.

"Who does it work on?"

"Daddy."

"So, gonna stop whining at us since it won't work?"

"Okay". And immediately went back to being the sunny, goofy kid she is. Her mom had to run to the restroom so she wouldn't burst out cackling.

Parents accidentally teach kids to whine by saying, "No," and then later giving in, because the kid is whining so much. They get positive reinforcement for being a persistent whiner.

Years ago I studied these coercive cycles as a post-doc with Jerry Patterson. An important aspect is that at the same time that the child is being positively reinforced for whining, the parent is being negatively reinforced for giving in, because giving in successfully removes the aversive stimulus of child whining. Parent and child are actively training each other, and that is what makes the dyadic interaction so tenacious.

Atropa, Thessaly is that aunt in our life, and it is the best.

msbelle:

Good Lord, that is 100% pure bullshit. Will you get a chance to talk to the boss about it? Cause that sounds like someone(multiple someones?) flat-out failing to do the work they were assigned. Oh, hey, it's also relevant to the conversation about not reinforcing bad behavior!