If you have/had a rebellious kid, what might you have done differently...

[melissel]

...when said child was little?

 

I worry constantly about my DD5. She's a sweet girl, friendly and social, empathetic and helpful, a generally happy five-year-old. But she has this rebellious streak that scares the dickens out of me. If I say something is black, she's sure that it's white. She begs me for math lessons, then rolls her little eyes around in her head at me when I sit down to teach them to her. She pretended to be smoking one day, and when I got adamant about her not even pretending it because I find it so awful (definitely overreacted a bit, it's a hot-button issue for me), she spent the rest of the week pretending to do it and stopped when I stopped reacting.

 

She craves responsibility, but when I offer her some or ask her to do something, she tells me no. She has to come to a task on her own in order to want to complete it. Lately she's been filling the huge water filter jug in our fridge on her own--I had no idea she was doing it! She was so proud of herself when I found out, but I can't figure out how to give her more opportunities for that sort of thing that make her feel like she made her own decision about it.

 

I don't know--I don't know how to describe her. She's always been very contrary and quick to frustration, but in so many other ways she's a happy, bright, normal kid. I've posted here about her before, and I think we're making some strides with the meltdown issue (going all natural with diet again seems to be helping a lot). But what I sense is more a deep desire to find out about every single thing, dangerous or not, on her own, and anyone saying anything to the contrary will only strengthen her resolve to master it on her own terms. I won't say that I don't have plenty of this in myself--it's what's driven me to do what many of the naysayers in my life said I couldn't or shouldn't do (breastfeed, co-sleep, homeschool, quit my job, etc.). But I've also always been overly cautious, where she feels overly reckless, you know?

 

Anyway, I don't know exactly what I'm asking. I know no one has a crystal ball, of course. I think what's bothering me most is that I was reading Katie Allison Granju's blog this morning, and I read her post about parenting in the rearview mirror--about how she feels now that underreacted when her son came to her to tell her he had smoked pot, and she believes that if she had reacted differently, she might have changed the way things turned out for him :crying: I could see in my mind's eye the entire scenario playing out in my house, and how I would have reacted the same way, not wanting to set off the contrary reaction and believing what my child told me.

 

So after all that, I guess I'm wondering, if you have a kid who tends toward rebellion, how do you handle it? What do you do differently with that child? I believe in focusing on strengthening the relationship. How do you do that with these kinds of kids? I also believe in not over-praising, but DD5 seems to really need to know that she did well with something--it lights her up. How do I focus on helping her see her own accomplishments too?

 

And now that I'm done with my emotion dump, I see that this has gotten long! :001_rolleyes: I would love to hear any thoughts anyone cares to share on this topic.

 

TIA.

[myfunnybunch]

I think you've got the real key, focusing on a strong relationship. If she's a kid who needs to come to things on her own, that strong relationship will help guide her.

 

With my strong-willed children, I also try to remember that an independent mind is a gift. Teach her to think things through, talk talk talk about how to reason through the choices she makes and help predict the consequences (positive and negative) of making them.

 

:grouphug: She's a lucky girl, that you're thinking this through now and have a desire to honor her strong spirit. :)

 

Cat

[Beth S]

My 2 cents:

No matter WHAT the child's bad habits are, my goal was to address them as soon as possible. Some homeschoolers emphasize early academics in preschool . . . but for me, it was honing in (in a good way) on the child's unique sinful habits and try to teach/train alternate responses. It's very difficult to homeschool a child who has not learned (even if she's been "taught") how to respond rightly to her parents (and others who are her authority).

 

I haven't even read this child-training book, but this title always encourages me: "Children Are Wet Cement" . . . meaning that you can do more training in the early years to prevent them from "hardening up" their bad habits. As difficult as it is to untangle her problems now, it is VERY tough (as you've addressed) to have this behavior in a 12yo . . . or a 15yo daughter. NO child training is simple, straightforward, and done once-for-all!

 

As of next week, we'll have 4 teenagers in the house (and 1 nine-year-old), and even though they are cooperative, it is still a daily/ hourly challenge for ALL of us to respond rightly to each other and act unselfishly.

 

I just wanted to encourage you to persevere, in a gracious way, in the training of your precious dd! May you see improvement in the days ahead. :001_smile:

[bry's-gal]

:lurk5:

 

I have a very strong willed child! I know I can be hard on her at times- it seems like that is the only thing that gets through to her! At the same time, I don't want to ruin my relationship with her! Looking forward to hearing advice from others who have been there!

[rlugbill]

Sounds like you learned something with that pretend smoking thing. Once you stopped reacting, she stopped doing it.

 

Some people act out in order to get attention. If they find that it doesn't work, then they might stop the acting out. Negative attention from an authority figure is better than no attention. To a child the scariest thing is that no one is paying attention to them. Some children learn to manipulate their parents by acting out and getting the attention they need.

 

Remember to give the child attention when she is not acting out. Ignoring bad behavior may be more effective than over-reacting to it in the long run. And rather than punishing your child, calmly putting your child in time-out is more effective. Be careful not to model loud, angry or aggressive behavior or you will probably see your child acting the same way.

 

Also, since your child is young and about the age when they start getting into activities, I would suggest that you try to involve your child in some groups where she is likely to find appropriate friends. Day care and kindergarten are often full of inappropriate displays of behavior and children sometimes copy what they see there.

 

Instead, if you model appropriate behavior yourself and involve your child in groups where she is likely to see appropriate behavior, this will help your dd in the future. We have found that music, church and homeschool groups provided social opportunities while also minimizing the amount of anti-social behavior our dd was exposed to.

 

Children tend to conform to the group they are in. If they are placed in a group of a bunch of kids running around hitting and screaming, they are more likely to regard this as normal behavior. If they are around appropriate adults and well-behaved children, then they are more likely to conform to the norms of those around them.

 

I hope this is helpful.

[LittleIzumi]

With asking her to do something, do you ask her to do X, or let her choose between helping with X or Y? The latter works much better here.

[Puma Mom]

My oldest is over-the-top strong willed. We weren't sure he was going to make it to 20, but here he is. ;) At this point, he is still strong-willed, but he has matured in how he handles it. His nature means he's not subject to peer pressure, and we've had absolutely no problems with anything illegal or immoral so far. For a 20yo college student, I'll take that!

 

I asked him a few years ago what we could/should have done differently in raising him. For the record, our basic game plan was as follows:

 

1. Decide what behavior you want and determine appropriate consequences for behavior you don't want. Give choices whenever possible even if it's an offer of water or ice water.

 

2. Make it very clear to the dc what the expectations are and the consequences for making a bad choice. Make eye contact.

 

3. Follow through immediately with the consequences with no emotion or visible frustration. It should be matter-of-fact--dc did A, so B happened.

 

4. Repeat. Over and over.

 

Our consequences with him were generally a spanking. It's what worked for him. Only the long-drawn out, go to the bathroom and have a chat afterwards kind worked.

 

He said that we what we did probably worked as well as anything could have. Sometimes he wanted what he wanted and was willing to take the spanking to get his way. I'm not saying you should spank, only that you should find a consequence she doesn't like, use it lovingly and liberally as needed, and not be surprised that it doesn't always work.

 

Also, don't sweat the small stuff. I wouldn't have commented on the pretend smoking. I would probably have taken another time to show what a smoker's lungs look like. If she wants to argue that black is white, I just wouldn't engage. I would crack down on the disrespect (eye rolling). With my dd, I had her do pushups.

 

Be forewarned that you have entered a marathon!

[homeschoolally]

:bigear:

No advice, but I understand what you're going through! So much of what you wrote goes on in our home all the time!!!

 

We even had the same smoking act when this one was three and now it has progressed to drawing tattoos and sporting saggy pants because I'd told the kids I didn't approve of them doing those things. It would actually be hysterical to me if it were someone else's kid!

 

I hope to learn something here too. I hadn't thought to ask for that kind of perspective and it is a great idea.

Edited June 6, 2011 by homeschoolally

[elise1mds]

If it helps at all, I *was* that child... and now I have two of my own. I even got married when I was barely 18 to some guy from another country who had no job, no car, no money, and no green card (and no way of getting one). Eleven years later, all is well, but I can only imagine the heart attacks that my parents must have undergone while raising me. My mom admitted to me later that she and my dad decided when I was about 10 that as long as I kept bringing home good grades (I was internally motivated to get into an out-of-state college) and the cops never showed up with me in tow, that they would happily adopt a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy toward me. Was it the wisest decision on their part? I'm not sure, and I know every kid is different, but it worked for me.

 

Now that I'm raising my own two, one with an ASD diagnosis and one with a mood disorder, I'm realizing the stakes in the ballgame. There are a lot of good tips already on this thread, so I'm not going to add a ton, but I will say that consistency is key and that I truly believe kids come back to how they were raised. If you're able to relax and let her push a few buttons without getting your feathers too ruffled, she'll eventually relax, too, and stop trying. They know what gets under your skin, and they have to find out what the boundaries are. I recommend "The New Strong-Willed Child" by Dobson if you haven't read it already. It wasn't enough for what I'm dealing with (my daughter is the kind who would not try to run away; she would actually DO it), but it does have a lot of good advice.

 

Lots of :grouphug: your way!

[Paz]

I have an 18 year old dd and a 21 year old ds. My rebellious and strong willed child was the dd. She has always been really opinionated and while she had a sweet disposition at times, she really wanted to do just about everything on her own terms. Of the two, she is the one I worried about least. She cannot be persuaded to do anything she doesn't agree with. She does not understand peer pressure at all. When she was growing up I used to pick the worst thing that she did that day and punish for it. If not, I would have spent all my time punishing her. She loved behavior charts and we did those for several years. She could get stickers and then privledges for enough positive behaviors. We made sure she was busy with sports to help channel her energy. As she got older, I let her plan most of her schooling, deciding what curriculum and topics she would like to study. She taught herself photography, wrote 3 books, drew characters and scenery for her books, listened to a college course on Fantasy Literature, started her own business, got really interested in politics, and began a collection of mystery authors that she continues to read in her spare time. When it came to schooling and life in general we spend lots of time together as a family discussing our ideas and viewpoints. A lot of our values were taught indirectly through literature and schooling. My ds grew up to be a good kid too but he had the tendency to want people to like him which got him in trouble a bit during the adolescent years.