Being the Parent

My beautiful almost-13 year old had a meltdown today.

She asked me to do something for her, and I had no problem accommodating the request. However, I needed to verify the details of the situation, so I asked her to perform a simple task of which she is quite capable.

She refused.

I hadn’t immediately provided her with my reasoning, so I shared my rationale to help her understand my expectation. She’s a very logic-smart girl, so I figured that might make a difference.

Instead, she dug in her heels and said, “Fine. Forget it. I don’t need your help anyway.”

I was so thankful I heard and listened to the Lord’s prompting in my spirit to stay calm; I don’t obey that wisdom often enough, but at least I latched onto it in that moment. So I didn’t raise my voice. However, I also knew I couldn’t back down. For my daughter’s good, I needed to hold firmly to my expectation that she comply with my initial, very simple request of her. Even though sticking to my guns made her extremely unhappy – and, in fact, made me quite uncomfortable – appeasing her to erase the short-term conflict between us would have been far worse in the end. Had I given in to her stubbornness, I’d have communicated that defiance wins and that anything that causes even mild unhappiness should be discarded.

My daughter isn’t actually immersed in technology; the entitlement mentality that burst forth in this situation was simply the expression of immature adolescence coupled with that which is common to us all – i.e., a tendency toward sin in one way or another. But given her age, she’s perhaps more prone than older people to believing the lie that she must always be happy. After all, even though she doesn’t yet own a cell phone or spend much time beyond her daily math lessons on the computer – choices my husband and I have purposely made for both our daughters to insulate them from some of the more serious effects of overexposure to technology – she’s growing up in a world where a few clicks or finger-swipes can appear to ameliorate any difficulty. Perhaps she didn’t see the need to justify her request of me because she can always restart her Friday afternoon Kindle game if she gets into a tough spot.

It broke my heart to stress out my daughter by insisting she comply; though she’s often quite stoic, she wrestled mightily to hold back tears, and later on did cry. However, certain as I was that my motivation wasn’t a power-play but, rather, an opportunity to demonstrate to her that she’d survive a moment of unhappiness, I had to proceed for her own ultimate good.

She was angry with me, but she finally obeyed. Then I hugged her and sat with her for a while, just as I’d done after I’d had to spank her as a child. Knowing her as I do, I’m certain she’ll remind me more than once that I required her to do something she disliked. But I had to see past the immediate situation to the big picture. I had to be the parent.

*****

Photo Credit: J.K. Califf

CK

Well Worth the Work

Earlier this spring, “Jill,” the little girl for whom I’d babysat for over five years, had a meltdown when her mom came to pick her up.

As a strong-willed child, Jill was prone to tantrums when she was younger, particularly at pickup time since transitions were hard for her. But it’d been months since she’d had an incident of any sort. So, though her mom and I had previously seen outbursts of similar intensity, we were a bit taken aback.

At one point, Jill bolted from the living room. I followed while her mom tended to Jill’s baby sister. And I felt confident I’d be able to placate her since, as is rather typical, Jill’s tantrums tended to soften for me compared to how she behaved for either parent. So I approached with firm but calm words, beginning to explain that she needed to obey her mom and that I’d help her. But Jill did something she’d never done in her five years with me: she slapped me – hard – right across the chest. Then she raced back to the living room and threw herself to the floor, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Ten minutes later, Jill’s mom and I finally got her strapped into her car seat, still sobbing and yelling, and they drove home. Later I wondered if the tide had turned. Had Jill crossed a line with me? Would she continue to abide by my expectations, or would she become blatantly disobedient and defiant now that she’d smacked me?

I shouldn’t have worried; instead, I should have remembered that strong-willed kids will do almost anything for those who love them.

And Jill’s mom emailed that night, explaining that Jill had cried all the way home and for quite some time afterward, distraught that she’d lost control and hit me. She couldn’t believe her tantrum had escalated to that point, and she was petrified I wouldn’t forgive her.

Of course, she needn’t have worried. The next morning, she handed me a homemade apology card, and then she and I sat for a good long time, talking through the incident and cuddling. In the end, I knew she’d maintained respect for me because of her love for me, and she knew beyond any doubt that I’d forgiven her and love her deeply.

Building a solid relationship with Jill despite her strong-willed behavior was hard work over the years. But the fruit of that labor – Jill’s growing ability to control herself while maintaining her God-given spunk, and my rock-solid relationship with her that I feel sure will last a lifetime – was worth it all.

CK

"Giving In" When Possible

Power, control, and victory - the three things strong-willed kids crave. In fact, though they appear to dig in their heels and throw their tantrums in order to "test" us as parents and caregivers, their real motivation is to gain what they crave. The resulting stress for us is an unfortunate consequence, but it's not their goal.

The problem is that a strong-willed child's real goal is often at odds with what's truly best for her or for a family or classroom. We cannot in good conscience abdicate ultimate control of or power in a family or classroom to an immature child. And - for her own good - she cannot always have her idea of victory. All children need to learn and accept that reality.

However, we go a long way toward aiding a strong-willed child in that process if we yield some power, control, and victory as situations warrant. In other words, if we give a strong-willed child some power, control, and victory while concurrently and consistently explaining that he cannot always get his own way, we'll see an improvement in that child's behavior over time as he understands that he will be listened to and that his wishes will be taken into account whenever possible.

I experienced this first-hand for five and half years through "Jill." I was Jill's babysitter from the time she was just eight weeks old until earlier this month, when she ended her full-time stint with me in anticipation of starting kindergarten in the fall. I love Jill like a niece, but she is unmistakably strong-willed; as such, I didn't always like her behavior.

Her parents and I recognized Jill's temperament early on and realized it was our joint responsibility to shape her behavior without breaking her will. And one way we accomplished that was by giving her reasonable, limited choices whenever possible.

For example, she didn't generally get a say in what I chose to make for meals, but I did let her decide between two or three options for her twice-daily snacks. And, though she wasn't allowed to disrupt my children's homeschool lessons, I provided five or six educational activities for her to complete each morning, letting her decide which ones to do and in what order.

It took considerable time and effort to think of and present the options at first, and she still threw many tantrums as a toddler. But, having seen the process work itself out for five years and witnessing now the sweet young girl that Jill has become, I can vouch for the process. It's worth it.

CK

Re-Visiting Jill

I’ve previously written about “Jill,” one of the girls for whom I babysit. Jill is now four years old, and I’ve known her since she was a newborn.

I love Jill nearly as if she were my own; in fact, when she leaves for kindergarten a year and a half from now, I fully expect to experience real grief. However, because she is – as I said in one of my previous pieces – a “poster child” for the strong-willed, I haven’t always enjoyed her behavior.

When I first wrote about her, she was about a year old; the second time, she was two and a half. Each time, I addressed her strong-willed nature and talked about how I’d seen success in dealing with it by utilizing Dr. Kathy’s techniques for the strong-willed child. And it seemed appropriate to take a look at how she’s doing now as we think about the idea of frequent and objective feedback.

Of course, it isn’t merely the strong-willed who benefit from such feedback. We all need it – to help us curtail harmful habits and to facilitate continued growth in already-positive aspects of our lives. But strong-willed kids serve as good examples of the power of feedback because – just as everything about them is “intense” – the result of employing regular, objective feedback is dramatic.

Jill still has her “moments.” The hardest part of her day is when her mom comes to pick her up – not because she doesn’t want to go home, but because transitions are hard for her. So she pitches a fit when her mom arrives – sometimes every few days and sometimes every day for a week.

However, if you were to meet her at just about any other time, you would never guess she was a very “difficult” (albeit, still loveable) baby and toddler. She joyfully participates in K4 learning activities, plays well with all the other children in my care, and has given up tossing her meals across the room in favor of willingly trying “no thank you helpings.” Her timeouts have dwindled from several each week to, perhaps, one a month. And the length of each tantrum has diminished from an hour or more to about five minutes apiece.

Her parents and I aren’t miracle workers. To be sure, we’ve all prayed a lot and credit God with giving us strength and wisdom and with working on Jill’s heart. But, practically speaking, we’ve merely utilized the powerful tool of objective feedback (i.e., delivering natural consequences in a calm, dispassionate way) whenever it’s necessary and as consistently as possible for repeat offenses.

That’s a long, exhausting task. But I’ve seen the other side of the coin – children who clearly receive little such feedback and are consequently out of control – as well as the fruits of our labor with Jill. We’ve still got a ways to go – starting with her afternoon transition time – but I don’t for a moment regret the investment.

CK

Hard C’s with Strong Wills

Two-and-a-half-year old “Jill” is one of the children for whom I provide daycare services. I’ve cared for her 190 days a year since she was two months old, and I love her. However, it’s sometimes been difficult to like her – or at least her behavior – because (as defined in Dr. Kathy Koch's very helpful CD, Strong-Willed: A Focus On Solutions) Jill is a poster child for the strong-willed.

Jill’s mom saw this trait immediately. And it quickly became apparent to me as well, even when she was a newborn. But Jill’s parents and I are on the same page when it comes to our beliefs about child-rearing in general – and all the more so with the strong-willed. We all believe that a parent’s job (and, by extension and with her parents’ permission, my job as a caregiver) is to train a child toward obedience. Not to break the will, of course. But neither to let it run amuck. Rather, it’s about shaping the will to help prepare a child for the realities of life, long-term.

My daughters are not particularly strong-willed, and Jill is her parents’ first child. So we’ve all been learning on the job. But in that process, we’re finding success with an approach that can be summed up in a simple alliterative phrase: Consequences with Calm Consistency.
When Jill draws a behavioral line in the sand – whether she throws her dinner plate across the room or lashes out to slap someone with whom she’s displeased – she earns consequences. Often that means she gets a time-out tailored to her temperament. And she receives natural consequences as well; for example, when Jill tossed down a treasured baby doll to express her angst at going home one day, dolly slept at my house overnight.

We also do our best to deliver the consequences with calm – which is, of course, sometimes a Herculean task. So we’re not always successful. But we help Jill in two ways when we are. First, we model for her an appropriate response to a stressful situation. And we also demonstrate that her out-of-line behavior will not gain for her the power over us that she seeks.

Finally, we strive to be consistent. That is, our goal is to always address inappropriate behavior with calm consequences, and to give Jill the same consequence every single time for repeated offenses. Thus, every time she wings a plate of food across the room, her meal ends. And any time she attempts to hit, she gets a break in her time-out chair. We don’t excuse any obvious wrong behaviors because doing so would confuse Jill, leading her to believe that it’s sometimes okay and sometimes not.

Jill will always be strong-willed, a trait for which those of us who love her actually rejoice. We know she can use it to protect herself and stand as a leader. But – just as a lump of clay cannot become a beautiful sculpture by itself – Jill’s strong will needs to be molded and shaped to become useful. By doing our best to deliver consequences with calm consistency, we’re already witnessing glimpses of the masterpiece she is.

CK

Strategies for the Strong-Willed: They Work!

I recently spoke for Celebrate Kids at an early childhood conference. In one seminar, I presented strategies developed by Dr. Kathy to help diffuse confrontations with strong-willed children.

Neither of my daughters is particularly strong-willed. (Of course, each surely has her moments!) But God prepared me well to address the topic at the conference when, beginning a year ago, I started caring for little “Jill” in my small family daycare.

Jill is only 14 months old now. So I’m careful to avoid sticking her with a label that carries negative connotations. Plus, she’s a joy whom I love so I want to resist the temptation to think of her negatively – even when her actions frustrate me. But, whether or not Jill is actually strong-willed, she has already exhibited a spectrum of “opinionated” behaviors.

Before she turned one, much of that revolved around her refusal to sleep soundly, either for her parents or me. Now, though her sleeping habits have vastly improved, she exerts her will in other ways. The week before my speaking engagement, she decided – without warning and for no reason we could decipher – that she loathed high chairs. Whenever she even saw one, she screamed at the top of her lungs. And, like a strong-willed child, she persisted until she was removed from it.

I’d learned that strong-willed children desperately want power, control, and victory. It seemed that Jill wanted to control where she ate, but – as a one-year old – she clearly needed a high chair. So I couldn’t allow her to sit elsewhere. Or could I? I remembered that Kathy suggests giving some power, control, or victory. And so I thought to move her to a booster chair; she would still be strapped in and have a tray, but it was a different seat. Would that work?

Not instantly. She still yelled through a few meals in the new chair. But I tried another strategy: involving the child when working to solve the problem. Simply put, I talked to Jill as if she could talk back to me. Which sounds silly when dealing with an infant. And, in fact, she mostly hollered back at first. But speaking to her in a calm voice, as if she could reply, calmed my nerves. And eventually placated her. After a couple of days using this and other strategies, Jill accepted the booster seat. By the following week, she even tolerated again the hated high chair!

At the conference, someone questioned if the strategies worked with very young children. Had I not experienced it myself, I might have been skeptical as well. True, I made some modifications to account for Jill’s age. But Kathy’s strategies worked for me. I believe they’ll work for you, too.

CK