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!

In baby parenting adventures, kiddo has been a poor napper for the last week or so, but has slept reasonably well at night. This has made DH real worried about when I go back to work (on Monday), and especially when he starts working again (in a month, so everything will be different because baby). It also makes us worried that he's chronically sleep-deprived/overtired, which would be compounding the problem (overtired babies tend to be unable to take long naps because mother nature is a bitch)

He went camping, so I'm alone with the kid for about 30 hours (yes, this is exactly how I wanted to spend my last week of maternity leave, why do you ask?) So my mandate has been "make the kid nap. If the kid yawns, it's nap time." This means that, apart from half an hour right after bedtime, I had a maximum of 10 minutes at a time where I could be more than 3 feet from the kid (I did not know that babies came with pre-installed proximity detectors.) But, by the gods, the kid has napped.

He napped so well that he was up for an hour and a half at 3 am. This is very unlike him, and was deeply amazing for both of us.

Fortunately, canned coffee exists, because making coffee would take longer than is allowed. I've also figured out that he is okay snuggled against my leg on the sofa, so I'm at least not literally trapped under him, like I was for a lot of yesterday.

eta: msbelle, I feel you on the "no one did the job while I was off." It's why I'm going back to work on Monday rather than trying to take more time. I'd just be making my job suck A LOT more when I did go back.

Yeah I was able to talk to boss. The thing is it is really systemic in our company to just not value the detail stuff I stay on top of. It is month end close and I am sending emails about issues I need assurance with and literally no one is reading my emails.

Timelies all!

Mr. S decided to start making noise at 5:45 this morning.(Our alarm is set for 6:30) Of course he was all over the place when we let him out of his room. Great way to start our anniversary...

Yikes Debet! But canned coffee can indeed be a lifesaver.

Went to the civil rights museum today. Feel very depressed about the state of this country. Especially seeing many examples of how violence can be wrought by "authority figures" (political figures, cops, whoever)who decide to ignore the laws and either let shit happen or perpetrate the shit themselves.

Tonight though, dancing! I need to remember to take pre-emotive Tylenol though.

I spent a chunk of my morning frantically finding files on a vacationing co-worker's computers after she swanned off at the end of her 2.5-hour workday yesterday without making sure they'd successfully uploaded for access by the designers whose pages are due today. Did I mention that she gave me two wrong logins to her computer before finally coming up with the correct one? Or that one of the files wasn't in the folder it was supposed to be in, so I had to comb through her drive to track down a copy that could be substituted? Damn, woman, don't send your brain off on vacation before the rest of you goes!