Parenting the Strong-Willed Child

Dear Dr. Meg,

Do you have any helps and tips of having an strong-willed only child. - Beth

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Dear Beth-

Dr Dobson wrote an excellent book on parenting the strong-willed child and I highly recommend that you read it. Also, Ryan and I did a show on parenting the strong-willed child recently so watch the radio schedule for when it will air. In the meantime, here are a few suggestions.

First, when disciplining your child, make sure that you discern the difference between willfully defiant behavior and normal childish behavior. If a child directly defies you order not to do something or looks at you with ‘I dare you to reprimand me’ written all over his face, then you are dealing with willful defiance. If, on the other hand, he constantly knocks things over, spills food on the floor or wets his pants, he’s just being a kids and you shouldn’t reprimand him for these things. Most parents drive themselves crazy reprimanding children for many things which are just childish behaviors.

Second, choose one or two of your child’s behaviors that really are important for you to curb. Work on only those two for several weeks and then move on to others. This way you won’t spend your entire day saying ‘no’ over and over. For instance, if your child constantly back talks you, sit down one morning when he’s in a good mood and say this. “Timmy, in our house, the way we talk to one another is very important. You have a habit of talking badly to me and this needs to stop. I will help you change this because no one in our family can speak this way. So, every time you say mean things like ( give him an example)… to me, then you will go to your room (or whatever punishment you choose.) Do you understand? We will start working on this today.”

Keep it simple and clean. Most importantly, when you set the rules down, you have declared that war ensues if he talks back. I guarantee, winning will be much harder for you than for him because each and every time he back talks, he’s challenged you and you MUST win. If you are at a friend’s house and he back talks, you must leave and put him in his room. If you are in the middle of dinner, he leaves the table. You get my point. When he disobeys a direct order, you stop everything you are doing and implement the consequence so that he knows you really mean business. This will upset your days but you must do it because if you don’t, he will never take anything you say seriously.

Here’s the payoff. Once you get through a few really hard weeks, he’ll realize that challenging your authority doesn’t get him anywhere and once he realizes this, life at home will be much more enjoyable. The hard thing about strong-willed children is that they love to see who the boss is. Once they accept that you are, even the toughest of kids will back off. And when they do- they will be much happier.

The goal with strong-willed children is to help reroute their will. These are spirited children who have a lot to offer the world because they are spunky. So, as Dr. Dobson says, “break his will without breaking his spirit” and you will have a delightful and very successful child on your hands one day.

Dr. Meg