In today's solo minisode I’m talking all about strong-willed kids. I’ve been talking a lot about this in my emails and on my social media lately because I know it’s a topic that many parents struggle with. Strong-willed kids are the ones that I like to call fair fighters - they’re always keeping score and want to make sure everything is right in their world. But this can cause them to easily spiral out of control the second things don’t go their way. I want to share three key points that come up over and over again in one-on-one and group coaching in regards to strong willed kids.

If this episode resonates with you, consider signing up for my group coaching program all about raising strong willed kids and emotional regulation for kids and parents starting November 21! The link to register is in the Resources.

Does Your Kid Value Approval or Power?

We set up an expectation and kids usually comply.
Strong-willed kids don’t seek or value approval from authority or parents. It’s not important enough for them.
Instead they value power but they don’t have the capacity to hold all of it.
They try to find out how much power they can have until they start to lose control.
Strong-willed kids will then look for an anchor to keep them in a safe state when they start to lose control.

Explanations Don’t Work

We try to give kids the tools and the choices to understand why things are happening.
Explanations don’t deter a strong-willed kid from their actions.
An explanation gives information but they are not lacking information. It may be a bigger issue of impulse control, tolerating frustration, sensory overload, or something else.
If there is a lack of information, the next time they face something similar the outcome will be different.
Get to the root of what skills they need to develop to reduce the behavior you don’t want to see.

Self Regulate Yourself

It’s incredibly triggering for parents when a strong-willed kid is emotionally out of control. It’s important for the parent to self regulate themselves when the child is unable to.
They are looking for someone to be calm in the storm.
We have to create a really consistent, predictable structure through boundaries.
This structuring takes time and will take a while to set the expectations and make changes where needed.
Teaching them how to regulate their emotions is an important step to help your child foster their inner free spirit and communicate their needs and emotions.

Resources:

Sign up for my Group Coaching Program starting November 21: stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/group-coaching-raising-strong-willed-kids-51n42

Joe Newman podcast episode: https://theparentingreframe.com/podcast-episodes/episode-49-a-raising-lions-q-a-with-joe-newman/

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

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They Need You To Be Calm