Parenting Advice Dealing With Strong Willed Kids

Hey, my name is Dr. Todd. Let's talk about how to deal with strong-willed kids. Are you currently dealing with a strong-willed child? You know, it can certainly throw up a whole bunch of unique challenges. In this video, I want to share with you some insights from my clinical experience that will help you connect with your child, positively influence them, and build a strong and deep relationship with them. So, let's get going. There is nothing I love more than my strong-willed child, and I have had a couple. If you have a strong-willed child, believe me when I say that I know what you're going through. We kind of have a running joke with my daughter right now, who was our strongest-willed child. She used to quote her favorite movie, The Little Mermaid, and she told us one time, I'm 16 years old and I can make my own decisions. And she was four when she said that. And that was basically the theme of her life. Now that my daughter's an adult, she's become this just awesome, wonderful, smart, capable young woman. I have loved watching her grow up. But she had her challenges along the way, let me tell you. And she'll admit it. She always insisted on learning the hard way. To this day, she probably still has to learn the hard way. And she acknowledges it. Dealing with a strong-willed child means you have to be both firm and flexible. And you also have to be creative. More than anything else, you have to be able to walk this little tightrope of being a credible parent and also being a connected parent. This concept of being credible and connected is so important that I've created an entire course that I call Connection and Credibility. But for this video, let me just explain what I mean by these two concepts. So with credibility, when you hear a crazy news story or a rumor at work, or you wonder, is this true? Is this from a credible source? Can I trust this? That's what credibility is. Can your kid trust you? Do they believe you for real? Do you mean what you say? Or will you give in if they push you around a little bit? Let me illustrate what credibility is by telling you a story. It's a true story of what credibility isn't. And this occurred many years ago. I was a brand new psychologist. And just maybe a year or two into my career, and I was at the time working with kids and teenagers and their parents. And so in the evening, I walked into a SuperTarget. If any of you know what a SuperTarget is, it's just a massive store that has everything you would ever need in it. And as I walk into the SuperTarget, I'm kind of in my own little world. And I hear this really loud commotion going on in front of me. And it's kind of up here off to the left. And so I look over, and there's this young boy. He's probably seven or eight years old. And he had just grabbed something from his dad and started running away from his dad in this long aisle down SuperTarget. And so I hear his father yell at him, Ben, get back here right now. And I mean, he was yelling loudly. It got everybody's attention. And he's standing in the middle of the aisle, watching Ben, his son, get smaller and smaller as he's running in the opposite direction. And this is where it got interesting. Dad then said, Ben, don't make me count. Don't make me count. And Ben was showing no signs of slowing down. And so dad started counting. Just a little side note, in my house, my mom counted. And when my mom counted, you were okay at one. But if you got to two, you were starting to get worried. And if you got to three, it was time to run or do what she said. Yeah, I mean, it was no joke with my mom. But with this dad, when he got to one, Ben was kind of cruising along pretty comfortably. When he got to two, Ben sped up a little bit. When he got to three, Ben was sprinting. This is when it really got entertaining to me. Like, I just found this so interesting. And I am not lying. I watched this dad count to 17 before Ben reached the end of the aisle, turned the corner, and he was gone. 17 is an interesting number. That's a lot of counting. I don't think he and my mom meant the same thing when they started counting. I don't think Ben had any fear of his dad when his dad started counting. I'm even more certain that Ben didn't believe a thing his father said when he started counting. This dad had no credibility at all. He had no control with Ben. And he and Ben both knew it. Ben was definitely the one in charge. I'll tell you one thing for sure. Ben had learned that his parents, or at least his dad, they were not credible. His dad was not credible. He could get away with blowing them off because nothing bad would happen if he blew them off. So very simply, credibility is a set of expectations or behaviors and structures that you set in place that benefit your children and your family. All of these things that you set in place create an environment of safety and well-being for your kids, and it allows them to thrive and trust you. It allows them to be able to rely on you. Let me give you another example. But before I give you that example, I just want to thank you for watching this video. Are you ever struggling to communicate with your child or to discipline them effectively? You know, none of us are handed a manual when our kids are born that tells us what to do and what we shouldn't do. So we're just winging it, and we have to learn by trial and error. Well, this channel is all about using my system of correcting and connecting to build a strong influential relationship with your child. If that's the kind of thing you want to know more about, like this video, subscribe to my channel, and share it with any friends you think it would benefit. Now, let's get back to this other example. There is no one listening to this today that would let their kids run around the car and climb over the seats while you're driving. We all know that's not safe. That's not legal. You require your kids to be in a seat belt or in a car seat in order to drive away. Lots of kids hate car seats, but when all is said and done, you begin driving, they're in their car seats. Now, this usually isn't something that you have to hash out or argue with them or that you occasionally give in on because you're tired, right? This is a boundary that most of us set. It's a rule that is established, and kids just know that's part of driving. When we go somewhere, you're in a car seat. That's what credibility looks like in this situation. Kids know what to expect, and it's just part of the culture. It's just part of the way that you do things. Credibility means having boundaries and structure that's what we're going to talk about today. Again, I go into a lot greater detail in my course on connection and credibility and what you can do to develop this in your own parenting, but this is what it basically means to be credible. Aside from being a believable parent who means what they say, when you have a strong-willed child, it's also critical that you stay very emotionally connected with that child. We had to do that with our daughter. You have to find creative ways of staying connected, and this often means that you have to meet them where they are. I've tried to connect with my kids in ways that are interesting and fun for them. My tendency often, however, was to try and connect with them in things that were interesting and fun for me, like playing golf. That doesn't usually work. You have to meet your where they are. To use golf as an example, I love golf, and I tried to connect with Brian through golf. That's the way I connected with my dad and actually with my grandfather. I have very deep, fond memories of that. Brian's not interested in golf, and so I gave up. I had to try something else, and we ended up riding dirt bikes together. Now, I'm in my 50s. I had never ridden a dirt bike before, and when we go dirt biking, I love my time with him. I'd still probably rather be golfing myself, but I would never give up the experiences that we've had through dirt biking. Speaking of dirt bikes, let me tell you a true story in my family that ended up having a profound effect on a relationship. This is going to talk about what I mean by meeting someone where they are. My daughter felt like she didn't have much of a relationship with her little brother. She wanted one, but they're very different people. They have different interests, and she often felt like he just doesn't care about her and felt a little bit rejected by him. She would often approach him and ask him about his day and ask him about school, and he would just grunt or give her one-word responses. This was actually not very long ago. She came to me complaining, and she was just feeling like, you know, he's just not interested in me, Dad, and I don't know what to do, and so I told her the same thing. You have to meet him. You have to meet Brian where he is. You know, he loves to talk about his dirt bike, so go ask him about that. Don't ask him about school. He doesn't want to talk about school. Well, so she did that. She started asking about his dirt bike, and she said, you know, will you take me out to the garage and show me your dirt bike, which he just lit up like a Christmas tree. He loved talking about that, and so he did. He took her out in the garage, and they literally spent a solid hour. I remember being in the house. I couldn't believe how long they were out there. They spent a solid hour out there, and she was asking him questions, and she was listening to him, and he was telling her all the different things, and he was telling her about all the tools that he has and just stuff that he loves to talk about. She was meeting Brian where he was, not where she was, and I myself have been shocked by this little example. Again, it was not very long ago, but that one small moment had a profound impact on their relationship. He now calls her. He likes to talk to her. He looks forward to seeing her when she visits from college. They talk on the phone. The last time she came and visited, he actually took her up in the mountains. She and I have talked about this a lot, this one little moment. None of us, neither of us expected it would turn into something like this, but we talked about how this has had such an impact on their relationship. Believe it or not, another way of staying connected to your strong-willed child is to be humble and apologize when you screw up. I know that sounds funny to say that. Anytime you mess up, if you're like me, that'll be a lot. You can just repair it with a sincere apology. I think of this as making little repair attempts. I've been apologizing to my kids their whole lives. Just the other day, I'll give you an example. Just the other day, I came unglued at my son. His mom told me something, and I ended up misunderstanding what she was saying. I thought he was doing something that I've told him a million times I didn't want him to do, and I kind of flipped out on him. Then I realized that I misunderstood her, and I felt bad. We weren't together at this time, so I called him up. I called him on FaceTime. I wanted to see his face. I wanted him to see my face. I just said, hey, man, I'm sorry. I totally screwed up. I misunderstood what mom told me. I should never have been that mad at you. I'm really, really sorry. That was it. That's easy to do, and it repairs the relationship, even in little things like that. It models for our kids a really good relationship skill, which is making apologies. Finally, in dealing with strong-willed kids, I want you to not fix their mistakes for them. They are not going to learn from your lectures, from your pleadings, from your bribes, or from your threats. They just won't. That's not how it's going to happen with them. They have to learn from their own experiences the good and bad consequences of their choices, so please don't swoop in and fix their mistakes for them. Let them suffer the consequences, and let them experience the good consequences. To summarize, strong-willed kids will make you a better parent, and they will make you a better person because it will require you to be credible, consistent, kind, patient, creative, and connected. Do you sometimes struggle to discipline your child effectively? Do they misbehave or act out or leave you scratching your head wondering what to do or even how to reach them at all? I've spent the last 25 years as a psychologist, and I work primarily with children, adolescents, and young adults and their families. I've seen how these principles I teach have benefited my own family and also many other families, and I want you and your family to have this too. That's why I've created a free e-book about how to discipline effectively. Believe me, it is not what you think. This will help you correct and connect with your child. It contains information from my 25 years as a psychologist, and it's designed to give you an understanding of effective parenting tools and practical steps that you can start taking today. So just go to DrToddTalks.com or click the link in the video description below. Fill in your details, and I'll send it right over.