How To Deal With Stubborn Children (Part 2)

Mark Wealth
Continued from part one.

Wikihow tells us bluntly that punishing stubborn children with hurtful or humiliating methods is generally ineffective. If anything, it will create strong negative emotions and reinforce the stubbornness they were trying to deal with. The key to dealing with stubborn children lies in understanding the cause or reason for the strong-headedness.

Stubborn kids, from teens, down to toddlers are usually at turning points in their growth phase and are just asserting their individualism and boundaries. Yes they are also testing you but it’s not with a view to making you pop a vein and get admitted for partial stroke. They are just testing to know theirs and your boundary. This applies to anyone they are interacting with. With this our new found knowledge, let’s explore a few ways we could positively deal with these stubborn offspring of ours.

Don’t lose it and yell even if you’ve given them alternatives and they have wrinkled their nose at your noble offer. Stay calm and engage with a question and a listening ear. What they still don’t want to listen? Well, these kids will not take away your peace. Calmly and firmly repeat your order, set a time for them to move their teeny behinds or face the consequence. Do not stay to argue after you have said that otherwise you’ll be playing on their turf and soon enough you’ll lose your cool.

Just get up and go as soon as you announce the consequence. Go play some soothing music or something, calm those boiling nerves before they explode.

Talking About Consequences

You need to be firm about the repercussions of being stubborn. Like we said at the beginning, don’t just dish out something that will hurt or humiliate the child. The essence of consequence is to teach that it’s better to obey not necessarily to punish. Therefore make the consequence relevant to the offence. Did they fail to clean up their toys? Confiscate the toys for two days.

Is this harsh? Okay then make them choose their consequences. If it seems too lenient, add your input, have them agree and put it in writing. Although some parents don’t think this works. In a debate between  Bruce Feiler and KJ Dell’Antonia on www.nytimes.com, the father showed how letting the kids choose their consequence worked but the mother showed how it would work in her home so she chooses the consequences.

Other ways of using consequences is reminding them how a past disobedience got them into trouble. Remember though, you ought to have ‘consequences’ for good behaviour. Reward them accordingly.

Seek Help

Your kid may not respond to any of these measures. They may be overly hostile and aggressive in addition to being disobedient. If you notice this happening, seek help. Your child may have Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). According to www.webmd.com, ODD is a condition in which a child displays an ongoing pattern of an angry or irritable mood, defiant or argumentative behaviour, and vindictiveness toward people in authority.

According to the medical website, ODD can be caused by defects or injuries to certain parts of the brain, genetic inheritance or dysfunctional familial backgrounds. Good news though, it can be treated with psychotherapy. But you have to see a doctor first.

There might be other ways you have come up with that works. We’ll be happy to hear about it in the comments section if it doesn’t have to do with physically hitting them though. Such treatments end up causing the opposite instead of teaching the child to obey. And be easy with your stubborn child. Parents have strong negative reactions to stubborn kids but experts say that such strong-willed children could actually become pace-setters who are not easily swayed by peer pressure and usually break limits and expand frontiers in their field. Of course that’s if they are handled correctly. The watch words here are patience, calmness, sensitivity (to the kids body language) and a bit of creativity. Might not be a smooth ride but you guys will get ‘there’.