Embrace Your Child’s Streak of Stubbornness
One day, when my son was three years old, I took him to an indoor bounce park. However, an hour of jumping, sliding and bouncing did not tire him as much as I hoped. This made him ready for only an hour. Unfortunately, the open jump time was over, and all the other three-year-olds obediently drank from their water bottles and pulled on their sneakers. In the meantime, my son flatly refused to leave.
He had an expression that I had seen many times before. The dude didn’t want to leave, so the dude wasn’t going to leave. The more I tried to reason with him, the more decisive he became in the fact that he was not actually jumping. When he tried to fight his way back into the jumping area, a frustrated employee snapped, “You really need to take control of your son.”
Okay, lady, of course. Why don’t you give it a try?
He had a strong will from the day he was born – a quality that is both admirable and difficult to nurture. By the age of four, his ability to negotiate what he wanted was downright impressive. I’ve always said that I can see very clearly how he can grow up as a lawyer or CEO.
Turns out I could be right. This study , which tracked children for 40 years, from 12 to 52 years old, concluded that certain childhood traits were predictors of future professional success:
One surprising finding was that breaking the rules and ignoring parental authority was the best noncognitive predictor of higher income after adjusting for the influence of IQ, parental SES (socioeconomic status), and educational attainment.
So this stubbornness then pays off. Literally. Instead of trying to break their strong will, we can learn to accept it.
Make it positive
When my son was young, I read the book Raising an Energetic Child: A Guide for Parents whose Child is More Energetic, Sensitive, Perceptive, Assertive, and Energetic . This book taught me how to transform what I thought was “stubbornness” into “tenacity.” While stubbornness has a negative connotation, persistence is worth appreciating and is a leadership quality that we often look to as adults. Perseverance is what we want to bring up in children, even if at first it manifests itself in the form of a three-year-old who has decided that he will not leave the denial park, thank you very much .
Strong-willed kids often look like perfectionists too. But as psychologist and writer Dr. Laura Markham writes in Aha! While raising , they really crave “mastery”.
Let her take on as much of her own affairs as possible. Do not saw her to brush her teeth; ask: “What else do you need to do before leaving?” If it looks empty, check the shortlist: “Every morning we eat, brush our teeth, go to the toilet, and pack our backpack. I saw you packed your backpack, it’s awesome! What else do you need to do before leaving? » Children who feel more independent and responsible for themselves will have less need to resist. Not to mention, they take responsibility early.
Get rid of the power struggle
If you find that you just want to win, you are caught up in a power struggle. Stubborn children need to feel heard, so listen to them. They need to feel understood, so seek out their point of view. And they need to feel like they are in control, so give them choices when you can. Markham says that support, rather than strength, is often the way to make a strong-willed child obey:
There is no such force in the world that could force a truly strong-willed person to agree. This only increases their resistance because their honesty will not allow them to back down just because they are being threatened.
But if you give them enough support and they feel enough connected, strong-willed children will usually agree to do what you want, not what they want. Children cooperate because they want something more than the present moment – they want this warm relationship with us.
None of this means that your strong-willed child should be running the show – of course, they need limitations. But setting an example of mutual respect and empathy can help curb their natural tendencies to rebel and prepare them for future successful careers.