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    Parenting A Strong Willed Child

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    A strong willed child is often regarded in either a very positive light or a very negative light, depending on your preconceptions. So is a strong willed bad? I certainly don’t think so. As with most things, there are positives and negatives to being strong willed. A iron-willed child will be resolute and determined. Those are great qualities in the right circumstances. In fact they can make for great leaders! However, a strong-minded child can also be inflexible and mulish. Those qualities generally result in more negative behaviors. If you are parenting a strong willed child, you may be about at the end of your rope. Don’t fear. Take a deep breath, help is here.

    The Strong-Willed Child

    If your spirited child

    Engages in frequent temper tantrums Doesn’t accept instructions at face valueSeems to enjoy arguing with you over everythingLikes to ask “why” on a regular basisAnd tends to be outspoken and disruptive

    Then you’re probably parenting a strong-willed child. Headstrong kids like to learn things for themselves instead of accepting what others tell them. They want to be in charge of themselves so strong willed children usually test the limits you set. They will often desire to do what they think is the right thing above everything else.

    This can certainly create some difficult and challenging days for parents. It’s good to accept your child’s temperament and encourage them to think for themselves. This can help avoid constant power struggles. On the other hand, they also need to learn that there are boundaries and expectations that they will need to comply with.

    How To Parent A Strong Willed Child

    Some people would say, “how to deal with a strong willed child” but I think that sounds a bit negative. Remove your preconceptions that “they need to be dealt with” and replace them with a more positive framing. What you really want to figure out is how to parent a strong willed child. These tips will help you set boundaries with your strong-willed child’s behavior while also giving them the space they need to be themselves. Consistently working in a loving way to strengthen the parent-child relationship and set clear expectations will help reduce behavior problems.

    1. Establish Family Rules

    Gather all of the family members for a family meeting about the rules you want to set. Explain the expectations and what your kids can expect the result to be if they don’t comply. Welcome feedback from your kids about rules they feel are important or why they feel certain rules aren’t important. Explain that the rules are for everyone and ask your child if they understand the rules and the consequences of breaking them. Once you have this buy in from strong willed kids, it is more likely they will make good choices.

    2. Create Predictability

    Strong-willed children don’t do well when their power is taken away from them. Creating structure helps them to know what is expected of them. And if a day is going to be a little off from the norm, talk to your child about it ahead of time. In this way, they know what to expect beforehand instead of expecting them to adjust at a moment’s notice. Taking time to communicate with them about changes will help avoid their frustration and resulting disruptive behavior.

    3. Forget Ultimatums

    A strong-willed child will see an ultimatum as a challenge and they won’t back down. If they misbehave and you give them a time-out until they’re ready to cooperate, they’ll sit in time-out all day long. Instead, encourage cooperation by working with them. Next time, instead of giving them time-out until they’re ready to clean up their toys, work together to clean them up. This will has the added benefit of helping them learn to work together with others.

    4. Be Patient

    Furthermore, delaying gratification can be a better way of encouraging your child to cooperate than time outs. For instance, they can’t go outside to play or ride bikes until the toys are cleaned up. They’ll be more inclined to do the thing they don’t want to do so that they can do the thing they do want to do. Instead of getting involved in a battle of wills, they will mostly like chose the good behavior themselves in order to get what they really want.

    5. Pay Attention

    Your child may not be able to accurately verbalize what they’re feeling, but they’ll show it in their actions. Pay attention to their frustration and anger levels. When do they feel the most frustrated, what is upsetting them, and how do they handle it? These can be clues to help you figure out how to best help them cope. Remember that younger children are still learning to identify their own emotions and understand how to communicate big feelings. A child’s emotions are sometimes confusing to them as well. However their behavior offers a clue. A defiant child displaying aggressive behavior usually feels something is unfair and they feel angry. If you can find a way to help them express themselves with their words, they will often feel better and behave better.

    More Resources For Parenting A Strong Willed Child

    Want more reading on the subject? Try the very well reviewed book, Parenting The Strong-Willed Child: The Clinically Proven Five-Week Program for Parents of Two- to Six-Year-Olds. This classic by Rex Forehand, Ph.D. and Nicholas Long Ph.D. has helped hundreds of thousands of parents with disciplining a strong willed child using positive reinforcement. They have lots of great ideas for managing the strong-willed temperament in effective ways.

    A strong-willed child can certainly test your patience, but they’re also free thinkers, go-getters, and independent- all qualities you want to encourage! By helping them find the best ways to express themselves and deal with the times they have to comply with rules, you’ll both find some satisfaction. As you help these experiential learners with problem solving difficult situations, you will see their behavior improve in important ways.

    I hope these tips for parenting a strong willed child help you find an effective style of parenting and reduces behavioral challenges. Being a positive parent with happy kids will suit you all better. Which suggestion did you find the most helpful?

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      in Children

      The Justice Gatekeepers for our Children

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      “That is not fair!” Any parent or teacher knows how early in children’s lives this notion drives human behavior, motivation, and belonging. When children feel they are treated fairly, they develop a sense of safety and predictability, and find reason to comply with rules and legitimize authorities. Parents and teachers are justice gatekeepers in children’s lives. How they handle conflict and discipline shapes children’s expectations of justice in other settings. Most children and adolescents do not have direct contact with legal authorities, such as police or judges. However, one of the ways they build their perspectives is based on the justice they have grown to expect from closer authorities. Data from a diverse group of 680 Brazilian adolescents revealed that parents’ justice at home and their evaluations of school fairness predicted how adolescents perceived their personal access to justice and the justice of the world at large. Furthermore, adolescents’ world views of justice predicted how much they legitimized the law and avoided delinquent behaviors the following year. It is easy to think about justice as simply getting what you deserve, but that bypasses one of the more powerful cognitions of justice – the process of justice. Procedural justice considers the respect, neutrality, voice, and fairness of the authority’s actions. A child may not agree that she should be disciplined for her dishonesty, but if the parent is respectful, explains the rules, and listens to the child, she is more likely to continue respecting her parents’ authority, despite her frustration. The point is not to be lenient, but to emerge on the other side with your child’s respect so that, even when consequences are firm, the child experiences the safety and predictability of justice. “How parents and teachers handle conflict and discipline shapes children’s expectations of justice in other settings.” It is vital that children experience justice and come to expect it. Harsh punishments or rules without explanation do not feel fair, and chip away at the legitimacy youth attribute to authorities at large – and that illegitimacy makes them vulnerable to future delinquency. When you find out your child has done something wrong, do you: Listen to their side of the story? Talk to them politely? Explain why you are disciplining them? Youth should be given the chance to articulate their perspective and practice civil dialogue in common daily scenarios. When children are consistently given a chance to explain their perspective and be respected by the authorities they know, they will anticipate and even demand to be given the same rights in society. The world is not a fair place, and failing to expose injustice underprepares children at best, and leads them to blame the victims or be the victims at worst. The goal is not to have children believe the world is fair, but is to make their lives fair so they can be equipped with the courage to engage in positive civic behaviors and avoid fatalistic mindsets. “We want to raise children to speak up and expect to be heard and understood.” We want to raise children who are equipped for the challenges of the world. Doing so begins by providing a safe haven at home and at school, where they can learn to connect their actions to outcomes and to be outraged by, not cynical of, injustice. We want them to have good reasons to legitimize their authorities. We want to raise children to speak up and expect to be heard and understood. We must model for them the kind of justice we want them to demand from society. Header photo: MTSOfan. Creative Commons.  More

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      in Parenting

      Why Positive Discipline Techniques Are So Effective

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      These days many parents are tuned in to the fact that some forms of discipline are heavy handed. Harsh discipline can actually thwart the development of the child by undermining their confidence and weakening the parent-child connection. However, parents also know that all children can – and do – misbehave from time-to-time and discipline is an important part of establishing consequences and boundaries. Choosing to use positive discipline technique for your child is so effective because it helps to establish cooperation without shaming.

      What is Positive Discipline?
      Dr. Jane Nelsen is the founder of the positive discipline techniques and published the book Positive Discipline in 1981. While these ideas were not entirely new, they were synthesized into a clear picture of how to raise a child through positive discipline that helped children to become more responsible, cooperative, and self-disciplined. Positive discipline works through clear communication and keeping the parent-child connection (rather than severing it through chastisement and isolation).
      The Positive Discipline Book:
      The Positive Discipline book goes into much greater detail and gives you many positive discipline techniques and examples to help you navigate parenthood from toddlers to teens. It teaches you how to:
      bridge communication gaps
      defuse power struggles
      avoid the dangers of praise
      enforce your message of love
      build on strengths, not weaknesses
      hold children accountable with their self-respect intact
      teach children not what to think but how to think
      win cooperation at home and at school
      meet the special challenge of teen misbehavior
      Why Positive Discipline Is Better
      Positive discipline is a form of training, as opposed to chastisement – which is more like a punishment. Effective discipline involves clear communication where appropriate behaviors and inappropriate behaviors are made clear as are consequences.
      Positive discipline techniques are better because they focus on encouragement and problem solving rather than on threats, fear of punishment, and/or shame. To me, positive discipline and harsh discipline may both of the same effect of the child behaving in your presence but one is much better. Positive discipline is the best because it is more effective in your absence and because it encourages self growth. Because the child is learning what is expected and learning to problem solve in order to avoid negative outcomes, they are naturally more able to do so without you. If they are learning the consequences of their actions without being shamed and feeling disconnected from the parent, they can learn their lesson without the compounded problem of feeling cut off from their parent.
      Generally, more traditional discipline comes after the horse has bolted and is corrective in nature. It can be confusing to the child if clear communication has not occurred to let them know what was expected or unacceptable. This means that it has the potential to damage self-esteem or undermine a child’s confidence.
      For example, when a child does something wrong and the standard response is go to your room, or a swat on the bottom, the child has been “disciplined” in a traditional sense. But has that child learned anything? They have probably learned that a certain behavior will merit this negative response but they probably haven’t learned why or what they could have done differently.
      Given that children tend to mimic adults, teaching kids this type of punitive reaction to things we don’t like can lead to problems. For example, if I were to smack and shout at my child when they did something wrong, I should not be surprised to find that my child may smack and shout at his friend when he perceives something he doesn’t like. All my child would be doing is repeating what I taught him.
      Using positive discipline techniques helps your child learn to use his or her reasoning and better judgement to avoid misbehavior rather than fear of punishment to avoid misbehavior.
      Positive Discipline Techniques

      Dr. Nelsen offers five criteria for positive discipline- kind and firm, belonging and significance, effective long term, teaches life skills, reinforcement of capability.
      Positive discipline techniques do not allow for permissiveness and still involve consequences. They are kind and firm. It is important to be respectful and encouraging even when you are firm in respecting yourself and delivering consequences teach teach the lesson.
      Children need to feel a sense of belonging and significance. Connection is a very important part of our motivation and children want to belong and feel important. Positive parenting techniques keep this in mind as well as teach valuable life skills such as respect and concern for others. They encourage cooperation and contribution.
      Ultimately, positive discipline techniques are empowering for a child because they invite the children to discover how capable they really are and to use their personal choices in positive ways. 
      Positive discipline techniques take into account that children will often reflect what we do and sometimes show us our own short-comings. We too can practice self improvement in being clear communicators and in looking ahead to avoid poor behavior.
      Another positive discipline technique is to look at the belief behind the behavior. Taking a look at why a poor behavior is happening can sometimes be as simple as the circumstances but for repetitive problems, there may be an underlying belief or misunderstanding that needs to addressed. Talking with children about why they are making their choices and helping them brainstorm and problem solve solutions can go along way towards preventing future problems.
      Real Life Positive Discipline Examples
      This portion of the post is contributed by Neil Fellowes whose mission is to help parents with their parenting techniques using everyday situations. He uses the authoritative parenting style to create less pressure and frustration. He finds that positive discipline is more effective making busy parents more peaceful and efficient. 
      You see, there many things we can do as a parent to pre-empt a child’s behaviour. One positive discipline technique is to put something in place that can stop the unnecessary or unwanted behaviour beforehand.
      For example, if a toddler is left alone in front of the DVD for a time with a drink and they, quite by chance, stand up by the TV and accidentally drip all their juice out of their toddler cup onto the DVD player and it fuses, it will likely infuriate you, but is it really their fault?
      The authoritative parenting style requires the parent to think ahead and work things out for a child. For example, I knew that my children would get on brilliantly for about 30 minutes when they are aged around 12 and 6 years old respectively. If I left them much longer than that they would get disruptive and fall out.
      I noticed a pattern, so I began to interrupt it. After about 20 or 25 minutes I’d go and check in on them, spend 5 to 10 minutes with them and then leave again. This way they spent longer together without annoying each other and falling out. Over time I began to increase the time by a few minutes here and there.  The outcome was a brilliantly creative time where they made animated movies together out of Lego with voice overs.  Because of this they made some memories and developed a closer bond than they would have if I had not predicted their behaviour and interrupted it.
      Yes, positive discipline may require a little more work up front to think things through, but compare that to not thinking things through and the energy it then takes to correct bad behaviour and the bad feeling that goes with that.
      Take a moment now and consider what do you chastise or discipline your child for the most. Think about what is happening just before you have to tell them off… think about what you can do to interrupt the behaviour before it starts.
      An example might be you are going on a trip to grandma’s house. The trip is an hour and usually the children are fine for the first 10 minutes, but then they start to act up, and you have to pull over or threaten them.
      Now use the positive discipline approach. What can you do at 10 minutes into the journey that interrupts the kids? Play a game of eye-spy? Sing a song together? What can you do 10 minutes later? Tell them 10 things you love about them? Have them tell each other what they love about each other?
      You might notice all my positive discipline examples above get the children interacting with each other and collaborating or cooperating.  And you might argue that you can’t do this in all situations.
      For example, what do you do when you are on the phone and you sense they are about to get troublesome? You could give them a rub on the head and pause from the call long enough to reassure them that although you are busy you are watching them. You could end the call if it’s unimportant! Alternatively, you could distract them with a treat of some sort.
      None of this is hard to do. It takes a little thought on your part, but that thought will save you a lot of trouble and frustration and negative energy. On the positive side, what are the long-term benefits you will enjoy as a family because you have stopped negative behaviour and encouraged collaboration and co-operation.
      Conclusion
      For me personally, I have always used positive discipline techniques. They came very naturally to me as my Grandmother always used logic and reason with me to help me chose the best course of action and regulate my own behavior. When more traditional disciplines methods were used on me, I felt very angry and resentful of those lording their power over me. I found in raising my own two children that positive discipline is so effective and it results in happier children and parents.
      There are so many different parenting styles.  What do you feel works when it comes to disciplining your child? Do you think you will try some of these positive discipline techniques?
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