Learner Dad: I can’t understand people who don’t shout at their kids. How do they manage it?

"A whingey voice can send me from placid to livid in four seconds flat, two if I’m after a poor night’s sleep."

Picture: iStock 

We’ve a new innovation in our house. A whingeing chart. Every time one of the kids speaks in a whingey voice, they get an X on the chart, and that’s five minutes off their video game time at the weekend. We even made them draw the chart out themselves – we’re bringing whole new levels of cruelty to our war against whingeing.

A whingey voice is the ‘finger-nails down the blackboard’ event for parents. You can’t live with it for too long. It’s a fight or flight thing, you need to make them stop, even if that involves giving them what they ask for.