WHINE!

Sweet little Pepper boy--age 5 1/2--is in the thick of a detestable phase. It's a whining phase. The worst of the whines come out when he has to do homework. I've nearly reached boiling point a few times due to the thickness of the whine. Seriously, it makes me cringe. Yesterday I ended up having to let Matt take over halfway through the homework because I could not get that boy to stop whining and do his work.

Today I decided to try something new. I told him he could whine about his work all he wanted, but only during pre-set whining periods. He was surprised...very surprised. For homework today he had to do a shape matching coloring page, a penguin math page, and he had to write the numbers from 51-80. He got a do a good whine before each page. Every time he changed colors on the first page, I gave him 5 seconds to whine. I let him whine for 5 seconds twice during penguin math. Then he got to whine at 65 on his number writing. Every time, without fail, he managed about 2 seconds of whining before he burst out laughing. It lightened the atmosphere of our homework time considerably. He finished his work in about half the time it usually takes him, and he didn't truly whine at all.

I think I've found the solution, y'all!