I was a strong-willed child. I mean actually, I'm still a really
strong-willed person. But the difference now is I don't argue with people anymore.
I don't feel like I have to be right all of the time. So, how did I change? That's
what this video is about. We're going to talk about my story. How I changed and
six tips for how to get a strong-willed child to listen.
Yes, I was strong-willed. In fact, I am pretty sure that I gave my parents all
of their gray hairs. They were probably praying every night
"What do we do with this child?" All she ever does is talk back and she argues
with us. One time I even hit my own parents. That is not something that I am
proud of. I was definitely strong-willed. And I
didn't really want to hear what they had to say so long as they were manipulating
me. So, what is strong-willed even mean? Strong-willed is the desire of a person
to push themselves in the direction that they feel like is true. That's a key
piece for strong-willed people. They have to be the one who is following the truth
or who is right. That's why they become obsessed with the fact that they're
right. They think they've found the truth and so they will not depart from it once
they find it. This can make them a little close-minded sometimes. And maybe even a
little bit oppositional to other truths that they really need to know. So, when I
was a teenager, I needed a vital truth. This truth that I needed was that I had
control over my own relationships more than I ever thought I did. I felt like
everything my parents were doing were just attacks on me. That they were doing
things to me so then I had to do things to them. It was very much the classic
power struggle. That was a lie. They weren't trying to do things to me most
of the time. Probably sometimes they were because I probably pushed them to that
place. They wanted to teach me, they wanted me to grow, they wanted me to find
more truth. Yet, I thought that they were just controlling me. And that was the
only truth that I could see. It wasn't until a good friend of mine
told me a couple of truths about myself and they changed my life that I realized
I had been missing vital truth and needed to pay more attention. I had a
friend who liked to speak the truth to me. Most of the time we got along,
sometimes I didn't like what she had to say. But one day, she confronted me about
a lying problem that I had. And she said, "You know, Nicholeen, we all know you're a
liar. None of us believe a thing you say. You should choose to tell the truth." And
then she walked away from me. And my strong-willed nature had a desire to
conquer that problem. I knew that my friends didn't even
respect me at all. They didn't want to be with me. Well, she respected me enough to
tell me that one truth but I was so glad she did because at that point, I realized
here I've been thinking a whole different way about these relationships
with friends and I'm ruining my relationships instead of helping them. I
decided to create a skill set for myself for how to tell the truth. She corrected
me just by telling me one vital truth in a way that I needed to hear it with pure
honesty, respect and love. Oftentimes we lecture to our children, we
yell at our children to try to break into their wall, to try to get them to
see our way. But that's not the way truth is delivered. It's very different.
Manipulation does not work. My parents tried emotional tricks. And they tried
intimidation to make me feel afraid of them. And none of that was truth to me. It
all felt like lies and controlling. and a strong-willed person is looking for the
truth. When you feel the truth, you know it's true. There's just something that
touches you deep inside where you say, "Yes, that resonates with me. That's true."
That's what I was waiting for from my parents and it didn't come until I
changed myself. Here are 6 tips for how to get a strong-willed child to listen.
Number 1: Use description, not reaction. So, when you are
correcting someone, you need to be describing what happened and what should
have happened and not reacting. Reacting is a classic mistake because some of us
have trained ourselves to react. We have to overcome that in the moment of
helping a person overcome their problem. I've trained myself to describe by using
a trigger phrase. My trigger phrase is "Just Now." So, I will say when something
happens, in my head, "Something happened." Describe. And then I say, "Just now, I gave
you a no answer that you couldn't go back outside to play. You looked at me.
You kept a calm face voice and body. And you said okay but then you went out
there anyway. Which means you didn't drop the subject." Those are the 4 steps to
accepting a no answer. So, I would describe what they did well and what
they didn't do. Then I would say, "What you should have done was you should have
dropped the subject. Which means that you shouldn't have thought about it again
and again." You shouldn't have gone outside. You should have found something
else to do or ask me what other thing you could do. So, you see how this
describing stops anything like, "You never listened to me,
here it is again. I told you you couldn't go outside. You said you wouldn't and I
you did." Those are emotional reaction statements. Even if they're describing a
little bit, they feel manipulative. They feel judgemental. And the child will not
respond especially if they're strong-willed. Step number 2, be calm. If the
parent is calm, it allows the truth to speak. I hope you could see that in my
last example. When I was just describing what happened and what should have
happened, I was calm. I was understanding. I was
supportive. But I was definitely firm at the same time. But in my second example
where I started emotionally reacting and saying, "Why did you do with this again?
You always do this." And that kind of thing. I was thinking only of myself.
And then I lost my calmness and then that truth couldn't come
through. Plan what your calm voice will be. Plan what your calm face will be. And
what your body language will be when you're being calm with other people. Tip
number 3 is to have a structure for how you will handle the problems with
the children. In our family we have certain skills. We have 4 basic skills
the children learn so that they can learn self mastery over themselves. As
parents, we also use those four basic skills. But then, we also have 5
parenting skills that we use to teach the children how to fix the problems
when they occur. And these skills are all predictable. They're scripted. We decided
we didn't like the script that was already in our head that felt a little
emotional and we needed to replace it with a better script. And we tell our
children that we will use these all the time. There is one key component to all
of these very structured skillsets that we use. And that is they appeal to the
logic. When you're correcting a person you don't want to appeal to their
emotions. That is not going to help a strong-willed child listen to you. You
have to appeal to their logic. Strong -will people put a lot of stock into what
make sense. So, having skillsets already in place
that already makes sense make that way easier. So, use corrections, use skills,
appeal to the logic and they'll find more truth. Tip number 4, consistency
helps a person break a habit. Our brains form pathways. When we do the
same behavior again and again or think the same thought at a certain moment
again and again, it forms a rut or a well-worn pathway in our brain. We have
to create a new pathway for a person who is strong-willed who has a habit of not
listening. It takes a lot of mental power to form a new problem-solving path in
the brain. In order to help the child invest personally in forming a new path
in their brain, maybe they don't even want to at first, it's a good idea for
parents to a meeting with their child and to talk
to the child about where they see their relationships going, how they can improve
their communication to get more of what they want. Appeal a little bit to the
selfish interest of the child. Children are selfish by nature. And so,
sometimes we have to appeal to that selfishness to get them to want to
invest. But if you can get them invested with a meeting and in this meeting you
can have a plan, then that child can more consistently stop themselves in the
moment from shutting you out and choose to listen instead. So, talk about your
relationship. What do you want it to be like? How should we understand each other?
What does that look like? And then make plans for ways that you can communicate
to make that happen and then follow through. Consistency is key. They have to
practice again and again and again. Otherwise, they won't break the habit. Tip
number 5, be patient. Don't expect immediate results. Change takes time. To
self-govern yourself isn't a quick fix. In fact, I always tell people that about
everything I teach. When people learn self-government, it can make sense. But to
apply it to their lives regularly can take practice. So, once you've made a plan
with the child, then allow them to fail from time to time. Still don't take it
personally. Coach them in the right direction. They will develop the habit of
listening and the bond will come that you've been looking for. Tip number 6
is you've got to have a plan for what to do if they escalate their tantrum. If
they won't listen to you and they are just dead set on it,
"Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla! You can't talk to me or whatever it is that they do", you have
to have a way that you've decided ahead of time for how to handle this problem.
In our family, we do something called the rule of 3. This is an intensive
teaching parenting skill set that I teach in my implementation course that
teaching self-government implementation course. There are certain phrases that I
say in a certain order. I do 3 things 3 times. My children know
this format. They know that it means to get calm. They know that it means it's
time for everybody to be understood and listen to each other. This is how we
solve the biggest of emotional breakdowns or communication problems.
They know this. We've decided ahead of time but that's
the way that this is going to be. So, since it's in place it's a safety net
for everybody so we just don't fall off the edge and destroy the relationships.
Don't you want your children to listen to you because you want a certain type
of a relationship? That's usually the reason that we would even go through the
work of disciplining a child so that they will listen to us in the first
place. It's possible. Children want to listen to you. Just don't lecture them to
death. And they want you to listen to them too. So, they need skills like how to
disagree appropriately. I have a gift for you. It's called the Calm Parenting
Toolkit. This toolkit will give you more tools that you need to reach the heart
of that child to improve your calmness when you are instructing and correcting
them and to improve their calmness too. In the description of this video, there's a
link to a Calm Parenting Toolkit. Go there. It's free. Get the extra help you
need.