Did you know that all people, not just children, cry if they don't get what they want? I have proof:
So let me start by explaining why people whine when they don't get what they want.
Man is built to scream if he doesn't get what he wants.
Pretend you're in a restaurant. You are given a menu. You make a horribly complicated choice between a burger with pulled meat or a Caesar salad. Your heart says burger! Your visceral fat says - just don't ever choose the Caesar salad! Your tomorrow or tonight self says - you don't want a burger, you'll regret it!
The choice is clear, isn't it? Let tomorrow's Self take care of itself!
The waiter comes, you proudly announce: 'I'll have a pulled-meat burger, please! We live once!"
To which the waiter pulls a guilty and fearful face, saying, "Sorry, we're out of plucked meat..."
Your reaction?
This:
..but only if you've been brought up really well.
There could be other reactions, from "sorry, okay, then give me the Caesar salad" to a very loud drama, overturning the table and leaving this welcoming space, while putting 1 star on my phone with a furious review.
The moment you made a choice, your brain was flicking through your book of experiences, trying to choose the choice you needed to make at that moment. Since the brain is a pretty stupid organ, it naturally got hooked on good old dopamine. Your experience is littered with files like "these chips give me an instant high", "just one more series of Black mirror, I promise", "one shitty burger never made anyone fat". What do all these files have in common? Well-being = fast dopamine. Like big, bright LED billboards, these files prevent your stupid brain from noticing that the temporary dopamine is actually bad for you and that there are little, almost invisible files hiding in that dark corner, quietly saying: "You, big and indecisive brain organ, choose me! I am the thought that you must run first, for then we shall get something valuable into the body and not hurt it!" Eu, okay, kush, wise guys, let's not demonize one little burger already!
That moment when you were sitting at the restaurant table, menu in hand, looking at the obvious choices, your brain had already started to eat. They had actually eaten that burger long ago, all that was left was for the dog to jump tailso that all the goodness really hits your taste buds and the explosion of happiness you've been waiting for happens. At that moment, you lived (well, your brain lived) for that moment.
That's the moment when you have the chance to feel how a child sees the world. He sees your phone on the table and wants to pick it up. He lives for the moment. He is 1 year old and his brain sees and therefore wants. His little round hand reaches out for this holy grail, because now there is only him and this phone in the world. Nothing else exists! Last but not least, by the age of three, children have a predominantly egocentric worldview. If something exists or happens in the world, it has to do with me. If there is a telephone, it is there because of my existence.
The restaurant was made for you, wasn't it? A restaurant is made for its diners, not its creators. The restaurant's spaces are designed to make you feel good and want to eat. Then there is a comfortable chair and a table waiting for you. There's a menu that's for you. And on that menu, there are dishes that are written down so that you want to eat them and then, of course, pay for them 🙂 There's loud music. In a restaurant, we are all little children who know that we are entitled to everything because, well, what is the point of this business anyway?
The hand is almost reaching for the phone, but then the big people who are meant to make me happy and content do a very illogical thing - they take the phone away. No phone. No burger. No things that we were still breathing for at that moment! My brain, which was ready to stroke the colourful pictures and feel the touch of the juicy burger on my taste buds, short-circuited. The whole system was primed for a dopamine surge, but now it's reeling at the trough.
The whole system is at risk. A sudden imbalance in homeostasis occurs and, in order to survive at all, survival mechanisms are triggered, distress: attack, freeze (internaly screaming) or flee. Often the brain is ready to fight for dopamine. We have an anger response so that we can have adrenaline so that I can get that burger out of... sorry, no, that's too rude... so that I can insist on my right as a restaurant-goer to get what it says on the damn menu! Or that I have the energy to get up and walk out of there with my head held high.
In the case of a child, and one so young, there is only a reaction, because he has not yet mastered the different options. The frontal lobe of his brain, which, in very simplistic terms, is responsible for giving him the freedom to choose how to react, is still in its infancy. The necessary connections are not there. If they are, they have not undergone the necessary number of iterations to establish themselves as valid choices. The child starts one of the few tools he has so far, called "whining when he doesn't get what he wants".
One of the nine temperament traits, according to Thomas and Chessa, is intensity of reaction. This means that people, and especially children (because it is easier to observe in children than in adults whose brains have grown up, although not all of course), differ from each other in the strength of their emotional reactions, whether positive or negative. Some express their anger and frustration by sudden, loud shouting and crying, while others squeal and perhaps show a very angry face with their arms crossed on their chest.
So, yes, maybe your child is the one who doesn't hide a candle under a bushel and is very expansive in their arsenal of emotional reactions. That is probably why you had this question in the first place.
The third thing that can make even the calmest peace-lover lose patience and scream if he doesn't get what he wants is the environment. I mean both the external and the internal environment.
External - is the child in a place full of sensory stimuli, such as a supermarket? Maybe you are visiting a new environment where the child has many new impressions to process that are currently occupying the child's brain?
Internal - maybe the baby is hungry or sleepy? Against the backdrop of these unmet basic needs, it doesn't take a phone or a burger to knock a person off balance with a look or a breath!
After this explanation, will you ever wonder why a child whines if he doesn't get what he wants? How can one not spit, right?!
And no - you are not a failure as a parent if your child whines. And no, your child is fine.
What would you like them to do for you when you're not getting a burger? What is your real need at that moment? Of course, you would want the waiter to pull the burger out of the... sorry, that's going to be rude again, i.e. the waiter to run to the nearest shop and get the meat, and you to get your burger. But that's not always possible. It is not always necessary. Even your child of 1 year does not need your phone. He wants it, but he doesn't need it. And when he is confronted with these constraints that life throws at him, a normal reaction happens.
And when a person is having a reaction, they are often helped by the calm presence of another person who can accept the anger, listen, parrot, let you feel the emotion as it works its way through your body, and give you a loving hug.
Hey, but sometimes it's not that complicated and switching attention works! The waiter shows you that there's a delightful item on the menu like the xl kebab. And you show your child that the lilacs outside the window are blooming so beautifully! Both your brains quickly switch to a new and beautiful life!
What was your last "wanted but didn't get" experience? How did it go for you?
