Carl E Pickhardt - The Everything Parents Guide To The Strong-Willed Child: An Authoritative Guide to Raising a Respectful, Cooperative, And Positive Child

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THE
EVERYTHING
PARENT'S GUIDE TO
THE
STRONG-WILLED CHILD

A guide to raising a respectful,
cooperative, and positive child

Carl E. Pickhardt, Ph.D.

Adams Media
Avon, Massachusetts

Dedication

To Ros, who knows the perils and passions of being a strong-willed child, with love.

Publishing Director: Gary M. Krebs

Managing Editor: Kate McBride

Copy Chief: Laura M. Daly

Acquisitions Editor: Kate Burgo

Development Editor: Karen Johnson Jacot

Production Editors: Jamie Wielgus,

Bridget Brace

Director of Manufacturing: Susan Beale

Associate Director of Production: Michelle Roy Kelly

Cover Design: Paul Beatrice, Matt LeBlanc

Layout and Graphics: Colleen Cunningham,

Holly Curtis, Erin Dawson, Sorae Lee

Copyright 2005, F+W Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

An Everything Series Book.

Everything and everything.com are registered trademarks of F+W Publications, Inc.

Published by Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company

57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322 U.S.A.

www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 13: 978-1-59337-381-8

ISBN 10: 1-59337-381-3

Printed in the United States of America.

J I H G F E D C B

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pickhardt, Carl E.

The everything parents guide to the strong-willed child/ Carl E. Pickhardt.

p. cm.(An everything series book)

ISBN 1-59337-381-3

1. Child rearing. 2. Discipline of children. 3. Child psychology. I. Title. II. Series: Everything series.

HQ772.P493 2005

649'.64dc22

2005011014

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

All the examples and dialogues used in this book are fictional, and have been created by the author to illustrate disciplinary situations.

willfulness('wil-fl-ns) n.1. a person's power of self-determination to direct, to persist, to resist, and to prevail

Acknowledgments

The research on which this book is based is my experience counseling with strong-wed children and their parents over the past twenty-some years. These children have taught me a lot about the loneliness of being determined to lead one's independent path through life, and these parents have taught me a lot about the courage required to take unpopular stands for children's best interests against what those children strongly want. I am indebted to them all for the education that they have provided me.

Contents

Introduction

W hat is a strong-willed child? How did he or she come to be that way? How can parents nurture the positive aspects of their child's strong will, moderate the negative aspects, and not act and react in ways that make a challenging situation worse? These are some of the questions this book answers.

Every child has willful moments. A child may feel injured, scared, or otherwise upset by something that has happened and go on strike against parental instruction. I can't! I won't! Leave me alone! screams the child, who becomes lost in the emotion of the moment. Because the child's feelings have overwhelmed his thinking, parents must help him calm down before they can expect him to follow directions.

Although all children can be strong-willed on some occasions, some children are much more intensely so, and more often so, than others. Strong-willed children are not different in kind from other children; they differ only in the degree to which need for self-determination rules their life. But degree makes an enormous difference.

Toxicologists will tell you that, in most cases, the poison is not in the substance; it's in the dose. A tiny amount of arsenic in your drinking water does you no harm, but a significant amount can be lethal. The same is true with willfulness. For most parents, occasional willfulness is tolerable, but continual willfulness can create a problem as it quickly gathers shaping power of its own. The more often a willful act achieves its objective, the more powerful willfulness becomes.

Now is later. If a child repeatedly acts strong-willed now and gets what he wants, then through habit he learns to be even more strong-willed later on. Practice makes powerful. What this girl or boy must be taught is how to manage a strong will growing up so that it works forand not againstthem in adult life. Strong-willed children become strong-willed adults. Remember that how your child learns to act now affects how he will act as an adult. Parents can (and should) continually ask themselves the preparation question, Is the way our willful child acts in the present how we want him to behave as a future adult? If not, then teach him now how to manage his willfulness so that it will benefit and not harm him later on.

A strong-willed child is hard to handle but is easily managed. He is hard to handle because his wants are so strongly felt and delay or denial of wants creates so much frustration. But he is easily managed because parents control so much of what the child wants and so learn to bargain accordingly: For you to get what you want, you must do what we want first.

There are some times when most children are strong-willed, and there are some children who are strong-willed most of the time.