Strong-willed children learn best through experience. They don’t respond well to threats or bribes and can be hard to manage.
Your partner needs to feel safe in your presence; otherwise, their emotions could flare up if they believe you may withdraw love or reject them. Remember to only fight two battles at once for maximum effectiveness.
Establish a Set of Rules and Routines
If your family is encountering difficulties with an unruly, highly sensitive child, setting clear boundaries and routines will help them feel secure enough to learn effectively. Furthermore, having a consistent structure will teach your child how to adapt quickly in changing environments – skills essential for future adult success.
Strong-willed children tend to have strong emotions that they pick up on from the energy around them and can become easily overwhelmed. Impulsive, they may react by acting out or disobeying instructions – something many adults see as defiance, but is typically characteristic of toddlers and developmentally appropriate behavior.
Avoid power struggles by clearly outlining the rules that matter most in your family and their consequences for breaking them, then posting the list somewhere everyone can see it (like on the fridge). Remind your children about them often and gently as their needs change over time.
If your preschooler can’t seem to sleep through the night and you suspect this may be because she won’t share her toys, create a rule stating everyone must receive 8 hours of restful sleep each night and then implement preview techniques as detailed in this handout to give your child time to review her choices before actually making them.
Set flexible family rules. As children’s needs may shift over time and household tasks vary as they age, make sure to limit how often punishment-based discipline methods such as taking away screen time or privileges or sending your child away for extended periods.
Let Them Take Charge of Their Activities
Strong-willed children can be extremely sensitive, quickly sensing when adults view them as difficult, contrary, inflexible, naughty and challenging. While these labels may be accurate to some degree, these children are also incredibly resilient! If you take a step back to look at things from their perspective (without passing judgment on how they’re acting), you might discover that their behaviour may actually be reasonable – they’re probably simply trying to express themselves positively!
Empathizing with them during these moments will allow them to feel understood while you set limits, which will allow for less power struggle and enable your child to learn through experience rather than force obedience upon them. For instance, if they want to wear their Superman cape to church but you think it’s inappropriate, offer them options and let them know your preference is respected; providing healthy outlets for their enormous energy may prevent harmful forms like aggression and defiance from developing in turn.
Letting your child make choices also teaches them about self-determination, which can be an invaluable life lesson. But it’s important to be thoughtful when and how much responsibility is handed over at once as too much can leave both parties feeling overwhelmed. Furthermore, teaching your children problem-solving is also invaluable life skill!
Avoid Power Struggles
Just minutes ago you were enjoying an enjoyable moment with your child when suddenly, a power struggle ensued, leading to tears, yelling and hurtful words from both parties involved. While strong-willed kids need someone they can depend on, you want to avoid these painful and ineffective power struggles altogether.
Avoiding power struggles requires setting clear, consistent boundaries and communicating them openly and regularly with all children, but especially your strong-willed one. Provide your rules and family values in an even manner before asking them for input during calm moments – this helps empower rather than coerce them, showing your respect for their perspective.
When your child starts acting up, try not to engage in heated arguments or attempt to “break their will.” Set reasonable expectations and enforce them but don’t try forcing your strong-willed child into submission by force – this only increases resistance! Instead, discipline through relationship rather than punishment.
Remember that power struggles may be challenging for everyone involved, but they should be seen as an opportunity for your strong-willed child. If their development is appropriately addressed by sensitive parenting, they will eventually blossom into amazing teens and adults with strong motivation and inner direction – so don’t give up! In time you will be so proud to see who your strong-willed child has become – peaceful parenting is key for helping your strong-willed kid grow into the wonderful person they can become! Here’s a little help on that front.
Give Your Child Choices
Children who exhibit strong-willed behaviors often feel powerless; providing choices can give them more empowerment and increase cooperation between you. This could motivate the youngster to comply.
Contrary to intuition, this may be one of the best parenting tips for strong-willed children. Threats, bribes and punishments rarely work and often create more harm than good. Instead of telling them what they should do, offer multiple solutions on how they could do it themselves and give them options so that the task can get accomplished successfully.
Empathy is essential when dealing with strong-willed children who display disruptive behaviors; when empathic responses don’t meet their needs. By showing compassion towards your strong-willed child and understanding where they’re coming from, you will be better able to connect with them despite differing viewpoints; de-escalating the situation while creating safety that calms nervous systems.
Strong-willed children can be very emotionally reactive and their emotions can quickly spiral out of control. Things that upset them may cause them to dig in their heels and refuse to change their opinion; to prevent this from happening you should make sure they have healthy outlets for their emotions such as talking, moving, singing and connecting with others as ways of managing these feelings.
Be brave enough to let your strong-willed kid take risks and learn through experience – they will gain far more from doing things themselves than being told how. Provided they remain safe, let them try riding a bike alone, taking piano lessons or cutting their teddy bear apart so it can be sewn back together again.
Avoid Punishment
Parenting a strong-willed child can be frustrating and exhausting, but disciplining stubborn ones needn’t be punishment-ridden if done effectively. Instead, try connecting with them instead of trying to convince them. Respect their intelligence while using connection as your sole method for getting them on board with what you are asking of them.
Threats, bribes and punishments aren’t effective ways of motivating strong-willed children; they don’t change their behavior or perception in real time and often escalate situations further. Instead, focus on building rapport with your child and giving them healthy outlets for their energy such as talking, movement, singing, affection, playing or nature – which might include things such as talking, movement singing affection playing and nature.
When trying to convince your child to follow your rules and requests, it’s essential that they feel in control over the situation. Try using a choice-based approach whereby they present you with the rule and can decide for themselves whether or not to comply. This gives them more power over the situation while increasing compliance rates.
Finally, be careful in the words you use when discussing a strong-willed child with others. They tend to be sensitive and know that using terms like “wild,” “aggressive,” and “obstinate” sends the signal that their temperament is bad.
Parenting a strong-willed, highly sensitive child may be challenging but is well worth the effort in terms of helping them blossom into amazing human beings. By remaining patient with them and finding ways to connect, you may discover they’re actually loving and compassionate when not acting out or showing defiance or frustration.
