Reason and Logic
Excerpt from the BabyCenter email that just appeared in my inbox:
Whining and screaming: If your 15-month-old has started sounding like a hyena or worse, you’re experiencing his intense desire to interact with you. Children thrive on their parents’ attention, and a toddler this age will do just about anything to get yours. When he gets loud or whiny, kneel down to your child’s level and tell him you’re listening. If he keeps it up, calmly say, “I can’t understand you when you talk like that. Please use your normal voice and I’ll be happy to listen to what you’re saying.” Eventually, he’ll get the message.
Um, BabyCenter, can I ask WTF you’re thinking here? I’m supposed to engage my child in adult conversation by reasoning with her? Have you ever even MET a 15 month old? Reasoning and logic are not their fortes. There are hardly any philosophical debates or creative theorems being postulated. Mostly, there’s throwing, whining, tantruming, laughing and running.
My favorite part is the whole “asking her to use her normal voice because I can’t understand her” business. First of all, whining practically IS her normal voice. Then there’s the fact that she only says like four words, so chances are, I’m not going to understand her no matter what the hell voice she uses.
For cry’n out loud BabyCenter, getcher head in the game!
Filed under: baby on April 24th, 2008
“First of all, whining practically IS her normal voice” = hilarious and I TOTALLY KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN. If I tell mine I can’t understand her, she does The Lip.
This is so wrong it’s funny.
Oh, that’s funny! My child is 18 months old and says nothing coherent, except “eye,” “mommy” and “mine.” You can’t have a real conversation with a kid until he/she is about three years old, and even that may be optimistic. I have a 5-year-old, 7-year-old and 13-year-old that I still have to hit with the old, “I can’t understand you when you talk like that. Please use your normal voice and I’ll be happy to listen to what you’re saying.” Except my version sounds more like, “Stop whining! You’re driving me INSANE! Talk in a regular voice and MAYBE I’ll listen.”
Ha ha, that IS funny. I’ve just now (with my son being 25 months) found that reasoning is making any sense to him. And it usually just makes him cry/whine harder.
Baby Center advice often reminds me of Super Nanny’s advice - well meaning, but totally off.
GETCHER HEAD IN THE GAME! Love.
This advice makes me want to punch someone! What the FUCK? I can get down in AD’s face all day long while she’s whining and she’s not going to take my thoughts into careful consideration! She just turns up the volume! Surely they are thinking of 15 YEAR olds and not 15 MONTH olds?
LOL!!! I can totally relate-where the heck ARE they getting this from “Talk to them in a normal voice”….
Sheesh I wish there was a remote for our boys for volume control some days…. And why don’t they tell us this stuff when our babes are 9 MONTHS old?? They don’t just start when they’re 15 mos., it must be something that starts young… these drunk Baby Center people… LOL!
Also, the language they script for you? “I’ll be happy to listen to what you’re saying”?? It sounds like a bad customer service line!
HA! I think I’ll start telling Maddie that her “whines will be answered in the order they are received” and that her tantrums “may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.”