Customer Reviews

Win the Whining War & Other Skirmishes: A Family Peace Plan

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"You may have chosen to be a parent, but you did not choose to give up your mental health in the process. I believe parents have a right to no-fuss mornings, tear-free bedtimes, low stress errand-running and time for themselves." ~Cynthia Whitham

Do you want to learn how to stop: whining, tantrums, dawdling, bad language, name calling, teasing, spitting, biting, talking back, interrupting, complaining, sulking and fighting, this is your guide.

Cynthia Whitham is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who specializes in parent training. She also gives workshops for parents, teachers and therapists. She uses the ideas in this book at home with her own children.

Cynthia makes an excellent point about children finding negative ways to get attention. She recommends complimenting the good behavior and seeing if that helps change the situation.

"The more positive attention you give, the better things get."

This is a very organized book. Not only can you organize the behaviors you love, dislike and want to stop, you can also pick them right off a nice list.

I also loved her ideas of "do say and don't say." There are things that will encourage a variety of behaviors you might not want to encourage even when you are being positive. This has to do with sibling rivalry and making a child successful at the expense of others. Being compared to your brothers and sisters just isn't fun.

You will also see the value of:

Making praise a habit.
Making Big Tasks Manageable
How to use "Ignore" to the best advantage.
Offering choices (oh, this is a good one and it works)
Making a better behaviour chart
Setting limits
Time-Out
Battle Plans

This book presents practical solutions to everyday problems. This is an excellent resource for parents, grandparents, teachers, babysitters and day care workers.

According to Cynthia, "spanking and screaming" are not options you have to engage in. You can really focus on the positive aspects and see amazing results.

Highly Recommended! 20 Stars!

~The Rebecca Review

I was talking with a co-worker today about this wonderful book! We work in the mental health profession working with children every day. But when it comes to our own it's a different story. My co-worker picked up this book to help a client and realized she could use it at home! It has a wonderful piece about how to go about getting your child to clean his or her room with the arguements---who can't use tips like that!

My husband and I first became familar with this book when we attened a parenting class at UCLA which Cynthia Whitham taught. It was based on the principles of this book. Our son, four, at the time was diagosed with ADHD. After appling the things we learned from Cynthia in everyday life, our son was re-tested and found not to have ADHD. I believe it's commonly misdiagosed and this book really gives you the tools to handle a child that might just need firm limits and not medication. I belive this book is a must for EVERY parent. I have recommended it and passed it on to various friends for 3 years now. If kids came with an manual this would be it!!

If you really want to cut the whining, the tantrums, the interrupting, the talking back, the dawdling in your home -- you need to go to the experts. Or expert.

Cynthia Whitham's (a licensed clinical social worker specializing in parent training and associate director of the prominent UCLA Parent Training program) solid suggestions proved as easy to implement with my 3-year-old as were with my 11- and 10-year-olds. And unlike some experts, she offers detailed steps to her simple solutions, with consideration give to the age of the child.

If there's one book I actually enjoyed and found effective among the myriad of parenting tomes I've picked up along the way, it's this one: "Win the Whining War & Other Skirmishes: A Family Peace Plan".

If you want to dial down the yelling and ramp up the compliance level in your home -- this is your book.

With all the self-help books out there today that require you to have a PhD in order to understand them, it's a great gift to find a book like "Win the Whining War...". It's a "matter of fact", common sense approach to bringing peace not only to you, but to your child. It's a blueprint for breaking old patterns, learning healthier ones; having a better relationship with your child and enabling your child to feel better about himself. I have read it and given it as a gift to at least a half dozen people. It works and it works quickly! After only one week, literally, we saw a difference in our 10 year old son. I recommend this highly to all parents.

This book is an excellent resource for parents and educators alike. Written in clear simple language the book offer practical solutions to everyday problems we face with young children. Principles of behavior modification are universal and apply to all ages, however, specific techniques vary. In Win the Whining War book Ms. Whitham offers both, theory and practice. For the last ten years I've been recommending this book to my patients' parents with consistent success.

After reading Whitham's book my husband and I are now in the driver's seat. The advice she offers is practical and easy to follow. We immediately began applying the tactics described and our daughter's behavior improved within a day's time. Ignoring the negative behavior has made some VERY unbearable times finally bearable. Since this book is targeted for 2 & 1/2 year olds and above, I was elated to find a book that can serve as a comprehensive guide throughout the childhood years. "Win the Whining Wars and Other Skirmishes" will no doubt be a book in our library that is read time and time again.

This book has the idea that if you ALWAYS ignore bearable but unwanted behavior, it is discouraged and wil decrease. Intolerable behavior, that which must end is described as that which threatens the safetly of yourself and others (ex. playing with matches, etc.).

Although I am sure that ignoring leads to a decrease in unwanted behavior, it needs to be coupled with explaining to a child what NOT to do as well as what is expected of him or her. This book does not teach the child what not to do, but expects the child to decrease the behavior, not because they are told or explained why that behavior isn't tolerated but because she will be ignored.

The author believes that EVERYTHING the child does is an attempt to attract attention (which is not necessarily so) and that if you withdraw that attention, the child will stop doing it. This is a good technique to use in some situations. However, some intolerable behavior needs to be explained to children and have consequences as well. For example, I have to teach my kids what not to touch around the house and don't believe that ignoring them when they touch something that might break will end that behavior. They are doing it out of curiosity, not necessarily to call on my attention. It is important to identify when a behavior is a call for attention and when it is not, so you know when to follow this book and when to apply a different technique.

The book "Setting Limits" is great in helping to avoid repeating yourself as well as raising your voice in order to be "heard" and not "tuned out."

The book is a well-written and practical introduction to parent training. It is an easy read (I read it through over the course of a weekend), but as I've already discovered, putting Whitham's advice to the reality test is not a simple matter. The illustrations in the book are funny, too. I will probably use 90 percent of the material in my own parenting.

I was over sea having 5 years old son, who was a bit out of control. I looked for help in this book. Well, I guess working with children, nothing is easy and simple, there isn't one answer what to do to correct child behavior. Coming back to United State, his behavior got much better, I guess being in the different country, away from home, it created large amount of stress on him to miss behave. It's good book, but have lot of work to do.