The New Strong-Willed Child

Chapter One

Taken from chapter 1, "The Wild & Woolly Will," and chapter 2, "Mothers Share Their Stories"

Getting It Started

Who's in charge here?

Children want to know how tough their leaders are. They respect those who show power and courage. Thus, whether you are a parent, a grandparent, a Scout leader, a bus driver, or a schoolteacher, sooner or later one of the children under your authority will clench his little fist and take you on. You had better be prepared to prove him wrong in that moment or the challenge will happen again and again.

Dr. Dobson calls this defiant game "Challenge the Chief," and it can be played with surprising skill by very young children. He tells the story of a father who took his three-year-old daughter to a basketball game. The child was, of course, interested in everything in the gym except the athletic contest. Dad permitted her to roam free and climb on the bleachers, but he set definite limits regarding how far she could stray. He took her by the hand and walked with her to a stripe painted on the gym floor.

"You can play all around the building, Janie, but don't go past this line," he instructed her. He had no sooner returned to his seat than the toddler scurried in the direction of the forbidden territory. She stopped at the border for a moment, then flashed a grin over her shoulder to her father, and deliberately placed one foot over the line as if to say, "Whatcha gonna do about it?" Virtually every parent the world over has been asked the same question at one time or another.

The entire human race is afflicted with the same tendency toward willful defiance that this three-year-old exhibited. Her behavior in the gym is not so different from the folly of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God had told them they could eat anything in the Garden except the forbidden fruit (in effect, "Do not go past this line"). Yet they challenged the authority of the Almighty by deliberately disobeying His commandment.

Perhaps this tendency toward self-will is the essence of original sin that has infiltrated the human family. This is why proper, immediate response to willful defiance during childhood is required, for that rebellion can plant the seeds of future personal disaster. The weed that grows from it may become a tangled briar patch during the troubled days of adolescence.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

1. Describe a time when you (the parent or teacher) won the "Challenge the Chief" game. Then recall a time when your child was the victor. What made the difference? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

2. Why do you think children need borders and boundaries? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

3. How can a strong will be a negative trait? a positive one? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

4. How do kids treat leaders they don't respect? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

5. When you were a child, how would your parents have described you? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

Laying It Out

NO TURNING BACK; NO BACKING DOWN

Really, you don't understand.

Unless you've had a strong-willed child of your own, you can't comprehend the unique challenges such parents face.

When a parent doesn't stand up to his or her child's defiant challenge, though, something changes in the relationship. The youngster begins to look at his mother and father with disrespect; they are unworthy of his allegiance. More important, she wonders why they would let her do something so harmful if they really loved her. The ultimate paradox of childhood is that boys and girls want to be led by their parents but insist that their mothers and fathers earn the right to lead them.

LEARNING FROM BAD EXAMPLES

Dr. Dobson tells the story of a certain little spitfire. At thirty-six months, he had already bewildered and overwhelmed his mother. The contest of wills was over. He had won it. His sassy talk-to his mother and anyone else who got in his way-was legendary in the neighborhood. Then one day he rode his tricycle down the driveway and into the street, which panicked his mother. The woman rushed out of the house and caught up with her son as he pedaled down the street. She took hold of his handlebars to redirect him, and he came unglued.

"Get your dirty hands off my tricycle!" he screamed. His eyes were squinted in fury. The woman did as she was told. The life of her child was in danger, yet this mother did not have the courage to make him obey her. He continued to ride down the street while she trailed along behind, hoping for the best.

How could a tiny little boy at three years of age buffalo his thirty-year-old mother in this way? Clearly, she had no idea how to manage him. He was simply tougher than she-and they both knew it. This mild-mannered woman had produced an iron-willed youngster who was willing to fight with anyone who tried to rein him in, and you can be sure that his mom's physical and emotional resources were continually drained by his antics.

SOME KIDS HAVE CROOKED WHEELS

In thinking about the characteristics of compliant and defiant children, Dr. Dobson sought an illustration to explain the vastly differing thrusts of human temperaments. He found an appropriate analogy in a supermarket. Here's how he describes it:

Imagine yourself in a grocery store, pushing a cart up the aisle. You give the basket a small shove, and it glides at least nine feet out in front and then comes to a gradual stop. You walk along happily tossing in the soup and ketchup and loaves of bread. Grocery shopping is such an easy task, for even when the cart is burdened with goods, it can be directed with one finger.

But buying groceries is not always so blissful. On other occasions, you select a cart that ominously awaits your arrival at the front of the market. When you push the stupid thing forward, it tears off to the left and knocks over a stack of bottles. Refusing to be outmuscled by an empty cart, you throw all your weight behind the handle, fighting desperately to keep the ship on course. It seems to have a mind of its own. You are trying to do the same shopping assignment that you accomplished with ease the week before, but the job feels more like combat duty today. You are exhausted by the time you herd the contumacious cart toward the checkout counter. What is the difference between the two shopping baskets? Obviously, one has straight, well-oiled wheels that go where they are guided. The other has crooked, bent wheels that refuse to yield. Do you get the point? We might as well face it: some kids have crooked wheels! They do not want to go where they are led, because their own inclinations take them in other directions. Furthermore, the parent who is pushing the cart must expend seven times the energy to make it move, compared with the parent of a child with straight wheels. Of course, only mothers and fathers of strong-willed children will fully comprehend the meaning of this example.

THE CLASSIC STRONG-WILLED CHILD

How is the strength of the will distributed among children? Dr. Dobson originally assumed that this aspect of human temperament was represented by a typical bell-shaped curve. He presumed that a relatively small number of very compliant kids appeared at one end of the continuum and an equally small number of defiant youngsters were represented at the other. The rest, comprising the majority, were likely to fall somewhere near the middle of the distribution. However, having talked to at least 100,000 harried parents, Dr. Dobson is now convinced that his supposition was wrong.

Dr. Dobson, however, warns not to take this observation too literally. Maybe it only seems that the majority of toddlers are confirmed anarchists. Furthermore, there is a related phenomenon regarding sibling relationships. In a family with two children, one is likely to be compliant and the other defiant. Who knows why it works out that way? There they are, born to the same parents, but as different as though they came from different planets. One cuddles to your embrace, and the other kicks you in the navel. One is a natural sweetheart, and the other goes through life like hot lava. One follows orders, and the other gives them. Quite obviously, they are marching to a different set of drums.

DEFINING THE COMPLIANT CHILD

The compliant child is not necessarily wimpy or spineless. That fact is important to our understanding of his nature and how he differs from his strong-willed sibling. The distinction between the two is not a matter of confidence, willingness to take risks, sparkling personalities, or other desirable characteristics. Rather, the issue under consideration here is focused on the strength of the will-on the inclination of some children to resist authority and determine their own course, as compared with those who are willing to be led. Dr. Dobson believes that these temperaments are prepackaged before birth and do not have to be cultivated or encouraged. They will make themselves known soon enough.

Your child may not fit either pattern. Another category of temperaments in children includes those who are not really strong-willed-at least, their assertiveness is not expressed in the same way. The distinction here is not one of independence and aggressiveness. It is a matter of tactics. They rarely challenge the authority of their parents or teachers in a stiff-necked manner, but they are willful nonetheless. Dr. Dobson calls them "sneaky."

Adults think these youngsters are going along with the program, but inside, subversion is afoot. When no one is looking, these children break the rules and push the limits. When caught, as inevitably they are, they may lie or rationalize or seek to hide the evidence. The appropriate approach to these sneaky kids is not appreciably different from handling the strong-willed child. Sooner or later, his or her self-will can be expected to break into the open, usually during early adolescence. Then, it's "Katie, bar the door."

Thinking It Through

1. In what ways is parenting what you expected? How does it differ from what you expected, especially regarding your children's temperaments? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

2. When have you felt guilt, self-condemnation, or self-doubt in your parenting? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

3. When have you felt that others were judging you for having a strong-willed child, especially other parents who have compliant children? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

4. Do you believe everything will work out for the best for your strong-willed child? Why or why not? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

5. Why do many parents fear being firm with their children? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

6. How do you respond to parents whose children are obviously out of control? How do you respond to "helpful comments" from your friends or family members? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

7. If it is true that a child is strong-willed from birth, what are the signs? What might be the signs for a compliant child? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________

Case Study: Portrait of an Angel

Consider the following case study of a strong-willed child from Dr. Dobson's files:

Dana slept through the night at maybe fifteen months old. At eighteen months old, you could tell her no and she would fall on the floor, throw a fit, and roll around. We would sit and watch her for a while because we weren't going to give in. We were going to be strong. She would stand up, and she would have that beautiful angelic face, and she would say, "I'm sorry."

Continues.

Chapter One

At one time, the Dobson household consisted of a mother and a father, a boy and a girl, one hamster, one parakeet, one lonely goldfish, and two hopelessly neurotic cats. We all lived together in relative harmony with a minimum of conflict and strife. But there was another member of our family who was less congenial and cooperative. He was a stubborn, twelve-pound dachshund named Sigmund Freud (Siggie), who honestly believed that he owned the place. All dachshunds tend to be independent, I'm told, but Siggie was a confirmed revolutionary. He was not vicious or mean; he just wanted to run things-and the two of us engaged in a power struggle throughout his lifetime.

Siggie was not only stubborn, but he wouldn't pull his own weight in the family. He wouldn't bring in the newspaper on cold mornings; he refused to chase a ball for the children; he didn't keep the gophers out of the garden; and he didn't do any of the usual tricks that most cultured dogs perform. Alas, Siggie refused to engage in any of the self-improvement programs that I initiated on his behalf. He was content just to trot through life, watering and sniffing and barking at everything that moved.

Sigmund was not even a good watchdog. This fact was confirmed the night we were visited by a prowler who entered our backyard at three o'clock in the morning. I suddenly awoke from a deep sleep, got out of bed, and felt my way through the house without turning on the lights. I knew someone was on the patio and Siggie knew it too, because the coward was crouched behind me! After listening to the thumping of my heart for a few minutes, I reached out to take hold of the rear doorknob. At that moment, the backyard gate quietly opened and closed. Someone had been standing three feet from me and that someone was now tinkering in my garage. Siggie and I held a little conversation in the darkness and decided that he should be the one to investigate the disturbance. I opened the back door and ordered my dog to "Attack!" But Siggie had just had one! He stood there throbbing and shaking so badly that I couldn't even push him out the back door. In the noise and confusion that ensued, the intruder escaped (which pleased both dog and man).

Please don't misunderstand me: Siggie was a member of our family and we loved him dearly. And despite his anarchistic nature, I did finally teach him to obey a few simple commands. However, we had some classic battles before he reluctantly yielded to my authority. The greatest confrontation occurred when I had been in Miami for a three-day conference. I returned to observe that Siggie had become boss of the house while I was gone. But I didn't realize until later that evening just how strongly he felt about his new position as captain.

At eleven o'clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which was a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years, I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed. On that occasion, however, he refused to budge. He was in the bathroom, seated comfortably on the furry lid of the toilet seat. That was his favorite spot in the house, because it allowed him to bask in the warmth of a nearby electric heater. Incidentally, Siggie had to learn the hard way that it was extremely important that the lid be down before he left the ground. I'll never forget the night he learned that lesson. He came thundering in from the cold and sailed through the air-and nearly drowned before I could get him out.

On the night of our great battle, I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed. Instead, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me. He braced himself by placing one paw on the edge of the furry lid, then hunched his shoulders, raised his lips to reveal the molars on both sides, and uttered his most threatening growl. That was Siggie's way of saying, "Get lost!"

I had seen this defiant mood before and knew that I had to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else worked. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me "reason" with 'ol Sig. My wife, who was watching this drama unfold, told me that as soon as I left the room, Siggie jumped from his perch and looked down the hall to see where I had gone. Then he got behind her and growled.

When I returned, I held up the belt and again told the angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end, and he tried to bite the belt. I popped him again and he tried to bite me. What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I am still embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie jumped on the couch and backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him into his bed, but only because I outweighed him two hundred to twelve!

The following night I expected another siege of combat at Siggie's bedtime. To my surprise, however, he accepted my command without debate or complaint and simply trotted toward the family room in perfect submission. In fact, Siggie and I never had another "go for broke" stand.

It is clear to me now that Siggie was saying on the first night, in his canine way, "I don't think you're tough enough to make me obey." Perhaps I seem to be humanizing the behavior of a dog, but I think not. Veterinarians will confirm that some breeds of dogs, notably dachshunds and shepherds, will not accept the leadership of their masters until human authority has stood the test of fire and proved itself worthy. I got that message across to Siggie in one decisive encounter, and we were good friends for the rest of his life.

This is not a book about the discipline of dogs. But there is an important aspect of my story that is highly relevant to the world of children. Just as surely as a dog will occasionally challenge the authority of his leaders, a child is inclined to do the same thing, only more so. This is no minor observation, for it represents a characteristic of human nature that has escaped the awareness of many experts who write books on the subject of discipline. When I wrote twenty-five years ago, there was hardly a text for parents or teachers that adequately acknowledged the struggle-the confrontation of wills-that strong-willed children seem to love. For them, adult leadership is rarely accepted unchallenged; it must be tested and found worthy before it is respected. It is one of the frustrating aspects of child rearing that most parents have to discover for themselves.

The Hierarchy of Strength and Courage

But why do some children, particularly those who are strong-willed, have such a pugnacious temperament? One of the simplistic answers (there is a more complete explanation in chapter 3) is that it reflects the admiration boys and girls have for strength and courage. They will occasionally disobey parental instructions for the precise purpose of testing the determination of those in charge. Why? Because they care deeply about the issue of "who's toughest." This helps explain the popularity of superheroes-Robin Hood and Tarzan and Spider-Man and Superman-in the folklore of children. It also explains why they often brag, "My dad can beat up your dad!" (One child said in response, "That's nothing, my mom can beat up my dad too!")

Whenever a youngster moves into a new neighborhood or a new school district, he usually has to fight (either verbally or physically) to establish himself in the hierarchy of strength. This respect for power and courage also makes children want to know how tough their leaders are. Thus, whether you are a parent, a grandparent, a Scout leader, a bus driver, or a schoolteacher, I can guarantee that sooner or later, one of the children under your authority will clench his little fist and take you on. Like Siggie at bedtime, he will say with his manner: "I don't think you are tough enough to make me obey." You had better be prepared to prove him wrong in that moment, or the challenge will happen again and again.

This defiant game, which I call Challenge the Chief, can be played with surprising skill by very young children. A father told me of taking his three-year-old daughter to a basketball game. The child was, of course, interested in everything in the gym except the athletic contest. Dad permitted her to roam free and climb on the bleachers, but he set definite limits regarding how far she could stray. He took her by the hand and walked with her to a stripe painted on the gym floor. "You can play all around the building, Janie, but don't go past this line," he instructed her. He had no sooner returned to his seat than the toddler scurried in the direction of the forbidden territory. She stopped at the border for a moment, then flashed a grin over her shoulder to her father, and deliberately placed one foot over the line as if to say, "Whatcha gonna do about it?" Virtually every parent the world over has been asked the same question at one time or another.

The entire human race is afflicted with the same tendency toward willful defiance that this three-year-old exhibited. Her behavior in the gym is not so different from the folly of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God had told them they could eat anything in the Garden except the forbidden fruit ("do not go past this line"). Yet they challenged the authority of the Almighty by deliberately disobeying His commandment. Perhaps this tendency toward self-will is the essence of original sin that has infiltrated the human family. It certainly explains why I place such stress on the proper response to willful defiance during childhood, for that rebellion can plant the seeds of personal disaster. The weed that grows from it may become a tangled briar patch during the troubled days of adolescence.

When a parent refuses to accept his child's defiant challenge, something changes in their relationship. The youngster begins to look at his mother and father with disrespect; they are unworthy of her allegiance. More important, she wonders why they would let her do such harmful things if they really loved her. The ultimate paradox of childhood is that boys and girls want to be led by their parents but insist that their mothers and fathers earn the right to lead them.

On behalf of those readers who have never experienced such a confrontation, let me describe how a determined kid is typically constructed. At birth he looks deceptively like his more compliant sibling. He weighs seven pounds and is totally dependent on those who care for him. Indeed, he would not survive for more than a day or two without their attention. Ineffectual little arms and legs dangle aimlessly in four directions, appearing to be God's afterthoughts. What a picture of vulnerability and innocence he is!

Isn't it amazing, given this beginning, what happens in twenty short months? Junior then weighs twenty-five pounds and he's itching for action. This kid who couldn't even hold his own bottle less than two years earlier now has the gall to look his two-hundred-pound father straight in the kisser and tell him where to get off? What audacity! Obviously, there is something deep within his soul that longs for control. He will work at achieving it for the rest of his life.

When our children were young, we lived near one of these little spitfires. He was thirty-six months old at the time and had already bewildered and overwhelmed his mother. The contest of wills was over. He had won it. His sassy talk, to his mother and anyone else who got in his way, was legendary in the neighborhood. Then one day my wife watched him ride his tricycle down the driveway and into the street, which panicked his mother. We lived on a curve and the cars came around that bend at high speed. The woman rushed out of the house and caught up with her son as he pedaled down the street. She took hold of his handlebars to redirect him, and he came unglued.

"Get your dirty hands off my tricycle!" he screamed. His eyes were squinted in fury. As Shirley watched in disbelief, this woman did as she was told. The life of her child was in danger, yet this mother did not have the courage to make him obey her. He continued to ride down the street while she trailed along behind, hoping for the best.

How could it be that a tiny little boy at three years of age was able to buffalo his thirty-year-old mother in this way? Clearly, she had no idea how to manage him. He was simply tougher than she-and they both knew it. This mild-mannered woman had produced an iron-willed youngster who was willing to fight with anyone who tried to run him in, and you can be sure that his mom's physical and emotional resources were continually drained by his antics. We lost track of this family, but I'm sure this kid's adolescent years were something to behold.

A Lesson in a Supermarket

In thinking about the characteristics of compliant and defiant children, I sought an illustration to explain the vastly differing thrusts of human temperaments. I found an appropriate analogy in a supermarket. Imagine yourself in a grocery store, pushing a cart up the aisle. You give the basket a small shove, and it glides at least nine feet out in front and then comes to a gradual stop. You walk along happily tossing in the soup and ketchup and loaves of bread. Grocery shopping is such an easy task, for even when the cart is burdened with goods, it can be directed with one finger.

But buying groceries is not always so blissful. On other occasions, you select a cart that ominously awaits your arrival at the front of the market. When you push the stupid thing forward, it tears off to the left and knocks over a stack of bottles. Refusing to be outmuscled by an empty cart, you throw all your weight behind the handle, fighting desperately to keep the ship on course. It seems to have a mind of its own as it darts toward the eggs and careens back in the direction of a terrified grandmother in green tennis shoes. You are trying to do the same shopping assignment that you accomplished with ease the week before, but the job feels more like combat duty today. You are exhausted by the time you herd the contumacious cart toward the checkout counter.

What is the difference between the two shopping baskets? Obviously, one has straight, well-oiled wheels that go where they are guided. The other has crooked, bent wheels that refuse to yield.

Do you get the point? We might as well face it; some kids have crooked wheels! They do not want to go where they are led, because their own inclinations take them in other directions.

Continues.