WANNA’ TRADE?

Our super sized super markets are amazing.  You can find almost anything you need from frozen peas to feathered ferns, but who would have thought you could get a new kid there?  And yet that’s where I got an offer just the other day.

Having raised four daughters and spent several decades doing the WD, I decided there had to be something better.  The “WD” is the whiners dance.  It requires more than one person but no music or particular choreography.  It’s all verbal and sounds like this:

Adult: “Don’t whine at me.”

Child: “I’m not whinnnnnnnning.”

A: “Yes, you are.  I know whining when I hear it.”

C: “You aren’t listennnnnnning right.”

A: “Don’t tell m what I’m doing.  You’d better not take that tone with me!”

C: “WHAT tone?  This is my regular voice!”

A: “How many times have I told you to treat me with respect?!  [Not really a question.] Your sister doesn’t talk like that!”

C:"You always take HER side.  If you knew what she was doing behind your back, you wouldn’t think whining was so bad!”

[Voices rising, solutions disappearing, relationships suffering, everyone losing]

Fast forward to a new generation (my grands) and new approach.  Rather than complaining about the noise, I posed a question to 5 and 8 year old sisters when things were calm.  [Don’t discuss things when folks are upset.]  “Did you notice that there’s been a lot of whining around here lately?”  Then I waited for an answer.

When they replied in the positive (astonished that an adult would ask such a question], I asked my next question: “What do you think we could do about it?”

After a considerable amount of thinking and discussion, the girls decided it would be okay to have a reminder in the form of a signal.  “We’d rather have that than be bossed around.”  And a 3-fingered “W” held to the chin was agreed upon.  Practice ensued and this play acting made it seem fun to have a silent reminder.  It worked like a charm for the two weeks prior to our shopping excursion.

The three of us walked happily through one of the sets of glass doors that opened to receive us.  Next to us another family came clattering in with children of similar ages, but these girls had chosen “the whine” to communicate AT their mom.  It was dinner time and she was trying to hold it together, but the sound level was going up, and things were unraveling right there in the store’s entry.   I felt sorry for this beleaguered mom who was trying to placate whined demands without success.  It was sort of like watching someone reasoning with a drunk. ..and the kids were drunk with power.

Thinking to offer our family’s new solution to this chronic problem, I walked the few paces that separated us.  This is not something I have done before, so I had no idea what to expect.  As I approached she checked out my happy granddaughters and virtually shouted at me, “WILL YOU TRADE ME ONE OF YOURS FOR ONE OF MINE?!” 

Perfect chance for us to share our “W” signal solution…complete with a demo by the girls! “Brilliant!  You’ve probably saved their lives!” was Mom’s response. 

“If the ‘Big W’ goes unheeded,” I told her,” there’s a simple back-up plan.  Just look calmly at the perpetrator, take a big breath, and say calmly and quietly, ‘I’ll be glad to listen when your voice sounds like mine.’”

That last line got me hugged–right there in the supermarket! 

Guess she decided not to trade me kids after all.