The Strong-Willed Child: Realistic Expectations
As I grow older, I am constantly reminded each day of my own limitations and succumb to the fact that the expectations I once had for myself may not be quite realistic. During my childhood and young adult years the world was full of endless dreams and possibilities, but the stars in my eyes were quickly snuffed out by disappointments and failures. I had allowed my perfectionist mindset to take my expectations so high that anything less was considered a major setback in my mind. This made for an ugly cycle of highs and lows that tormented me throughout my younger years.
Understanding this “all-or-nothing” mindset has become even more crucial within the confines of my role as a parent, especially with a strong-willed child. We are each born with a selfish and sinful nature. As innocent as a baby may seem when they are completely dependent on their caregiver during their first year, God created us to become more independent as we grow older, and with that our selfish nature grows more resilient, too!
Parenting is a daily balancing act between nurturing young lives with unconditional love and disciplining them with resilient patience that holds to healthy boundaries. Imagine a teeter-totter that has love sitting on one side and discipline sitting on the other end, your child has to sit directly in the middle between them both. If your child slides to one end or the other, they can fall off the teeter-totter and get hurt. Even more so, parenting a child with their own unique personality and gifts becomes this daily balancing act. But let’s be realistic! Thinking of this balancing act makes me nervous because I don’t know if I can keep it up and handle every situation perfectly every day! (Just take a deep breath!)
We will ALL fail at this parenting balancing act, and that’s okay. But, it’s the intention and desire that we have to raise healthy, balanced children that matter most. And so, we need to daily ask ourselves these important questions: What are my expectations for my child? What are my expectations for myself and for our family? What expectations does God have for each of us?
It’s so easy to feel out of control and defeated as a parent when our little one is throwing tantrums or writing on the walls or hitting people, but that’s the best time for us to breathe and ask God what realistic expectations He has for us as parents and for our children.
Here are a few steps that will help us during the most frustrating of times:
1. Take a moment to breathe and gage the situation before acting.
2. Do your best to understand why your child acted out with bad behavior.
3. Change the culprit for their bad behavior and/or help your child to gain a new understanding how they need to behave when presented with a problematic situation (i.e. broken toy, pushed down by sibling/friend, no candy, biting or hitting someone).
4. Apply disciplinary actions (i.e. time-out, spanking, withrawn privileges) to help your child understand the severity and impact of their actions.
5. Talk with them, after being disciplined, in a way they can best understand to know why they were disciplined for their bad behavior.
6. Maintain these boundaries to the best of your ability as a parent while also gaging your child's growth, maturity and environmental infuences (i.e. family, friends, school, neighbors).
7. FINALLY, evaluate your expectations of your child, their behavior and your behavior as the parent/disciplinarian. What could be done better?
Discipline is crucial, but it also must be balanced with love. Each day will bring situations that will push us to the limit, but when we simply ask God for help to give us a new level of grace, patience and a realistic viewpoint about our situation, then He will undoubtedly supply what we need through simple, applicable steps such as the ones I suggested above.
“God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it,
He throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.
This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God” (2 Corinthians 9:8-11 MSG).
Ask and it will be given. God wants us to be the parents He designed us to be to form the next generation for His glory with love and discipline.
