If I were a child, I would be distracting myself with a shiny object or handing over a bottle and telling myself it was time for a nap and a diaper change.
Recent times have been tough and while I haven’t lost my lost my mojo, I definitely lost, or at least misplaced, my normal, fairly resilient, Pollyanna-ish self. Instead, I’ve done more than my share of whining and venting.
When my kids used to whine, I would draw on humour and mimic them or just pretend I didn’t understand what they were saying until they used a normal voice. While those strategies may have worked on kids, I’m not sure about their applicability to adults. As a result, I got thinking about the best way to deal with negativity and complaints from a whiny adult.
Here’s the resulting five pieces of advice I gave myself.