strong willed children

[annaz]

I wish I had all these forum helps too when dd was young, and not from a book. And besides, whatever the book was telling you was all said in the first paragraph. I guess kudos to writers who have the gift of gab to make it longer. Wasted money. It was always some new fangled way of dealing with children in a way that you couldn't really remember all the steps, reasoning and other garbage I had to remember. For some reason and it seems like there's a very common denominator in these threads. Find it and use it. One, it seems that strong-willed children need a lot of hugs and two, they need immediate consequences. My dd did. The more aggressive I thought I had to be and the more aggressive "friends" told me to be, the worse she was. She was louder and nastier and it went on longer.

My dd needed a quiet but stern no, physical removal from whatever she was doing, some ignoring of screaming, then hugs later. That's it. I look back and I could just cry at all the yelling I did and trying of different things, listening to friends telling us that she needed this paragraph-long reason on why, mainly because I was a new, insecure mom.

The thing is you know your child the best.

[psreit]

Thanks for all the good advice. I know not all children will respond to the same thing. In our foster dd's case, it will be hard when transition begins, because I know that when with mom she will most often get what she wants if she screams. So, some of what we are trying to do will be undone with every visit. While she is with us, though, we hope to instill something positive in her. But, I need to practice 'firm' patience. It is tough sometimes with this type of child.

[blessedmom]

My dd needed a quiet but stern no, physical removal from whatever she was doing, some ignoring of screaming, then hugs later. That's it. I look back and I could just cry at all the yelling I did and trying of different things, listening to friends telling us that she needed this paragraph-long reason on why, mainly because I was a new, insecure mom.

Annaz, I am so there with you. I tried to be so stern with my oldest. I feel like I expected her to know and be able to do all I expected instead of helping her learn and do the things I expected. I feel like I added to her frustrations with my reactions to her, all out of my own insecurities. I wish I would have just talked normally to her, showing her that I knew she could do what I asked and if she couldn't I was so willing to help her learn. But praise God He doesn't leave us there. There is still lots of time to let her know that I love her and I am on her side, trying to help her. And now with my little one, I feel like we are all doing better helping him learn what is expected.

This just reminded me how I am trying to be more positive with all of my kids and I see how it really helps my strong-willed ones when I point out what they are doing well to. I imagine anyone else with strong willed ones will admit that they do alot of things very well, of course when they want to , but when they do them they do them well. I know my oldest sometimes thinks all she ever does is wrong. It saddened me one day when she said how she felt like such a failure. She's only 11! She's very bright and very talented, yet I was only pointing out the not so good stuff. I still need to correct her and give her consequences when she is disobedient, but I also need to remind her so much more how much I love her, how wonderful she is, and what she is doing well. Why is that harder for me to do than point out her weaknesses? i truly do see a difference when I make it a point to encourage all of my kids and especially when I take the time to do it in front of their dad. I too often only give him the bad reports.
Praise God He is not done with any of us! Phil 1:6!
Nicole

[countrymom]

A few things I work so hard on because they are so HARD to do: (but what a strong-willed, or any child, needs)

- voice stays calm and cheery no matter what

- think of your comments like a bank - for every negative/discipline comment there should be one positive comment (kind of like deposits and withdrawals). Actually, the idea is to have more deposits (positive) than withdrawals. Very, very hard with a strong-willed child that lacks impulse control.

- do not elaborate. My child knows what is wrong and does not need a few paragraphs to tell him. Again, very hard!

- realize my child is not doing what he does to get me (a great book that helped me is "Raising Your Spirited Child")

- Consistency: I love Dr. Dobson's analogy for a strong-willed child. Think of the police of long ago that did the rounds at night checking all the doors in town to see if they were locked. A strong-willed child has a need to check those doors every day because he/she needs to know they are locked.

- Find my child's love language and try to satisfy it each day. Often behavior issues are tied directly to this need. (a great book on this is "The Five Love Languages of Children")

-recognize the behavior as a habit and help the child break the habit (I love to read way older parenting books and they all speak greatly to this - CM has a lot to say about this.

- Pray, pray, pray