Hmm how to know if you have a strong-willed child? Well, maybe you already kind of know you
have a strong-willed child. Because sometimes it can be pretty obvious.
I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach parenting specifically self-government parenting
all over the world and we're going to be talking about strong-willed children in this video.
In this video, we're going to be talking about strong-willed children and what it really means to
be a strong-willed child and I want to share with you some solutions for some of the strong-willed
behavior that your family can use and thrive with. So, do you think you might have a strong-willed child?
What does that look like to you? There are a lot of different behaviors that can be
strong-willed. In fact, some strong-willed children are not angry at all. They're not
even sassy at all. They might just say something to their parent like, "I'm not in the mood for that.
I don't think I want to do that right now." That is a strong-willed child. A child that has no problem
telling what they want and expecting that that's going to be honored. That person is very smart but
they also are strong-willed enough to know not to get angry about it. Now, we usually see children
having tantrums, maybe attitude problems, talking back to their parents. These things are typically
considered to be strong-willed and not very hard to miss. But some of the more subtle behaviors can
sometimes be missed. In fact, sometimes parents think, "Well, how can I correct my child when they're
being so kind? How can I tell my child they've done something wrong when they're just not
necessarily complying. But they're not really being angry or sassy either?". Well, they're still being
strong-willed and here's the thing strong-willed is not bad. Strong-willed is actually incredibly
good you need to know that. I'm a strong-willed person. There's no way that I would suggest
to myself or anybody else that the route to happiness is to choose self-mastery over yourself.
Unless I knew it was possible. Unless I had chosen self-government for myself beforehand and I have.
This is the path that I'm always talking about for parents and for children to find that family unity
that change of heart and helping them learn to go in a direction that will be productive. But this
self-government path is not for the lazy it's for the strong. Now, of course, laziness
can be conquered. Sometimes strong-willed people are just acting lazy, "No, I don't want to." You tell
them to do something and they just don't. It is good old-fashioned laziness. But there's
a strong-willed bit behind that laziness and that's the part that we always want to touch.
Because that's the part that helps them become the best version of themselves. That helps them become
more powerful than all of those attitudes problems may feel like they are in the minute.
Strong-willed people do great things we always revere strong-willed people. People who will do the
hard thing for the long term game. That they will look ahead and say, "I'm going to help my family now
to have good relationships then in the future." That is a strong-willed very deliberate action
and anyone can choose to develop more strong-willed tendencies. But there are
some people that are definitely just strong-willed by nature, by genetics. Maybe just because they live
with you. You know one thing I've found is that strong-willed people don't usually act too much
different than their parents. The apple does not fall far from the tree. Before I get to some of
the skills and solutions that I have for you for working with strong-willed children. I want to just
let you know that I have so many resources on the teaching self-government website. So be sure
to go and look at teaching self-government.com and look into some of those resources that I
have there. That will teach you even more than I'm going to be able to cover in this video.
So what can you do to help this strong-willed child? Well, they need something to hold on to.
They need truth. Strong-willed people are always looking for truth. So, you've got to make sure that
you give them a truth that they can recognize. That means you can't make it up, it's got to
be a real one. So the real truth is that your family is meant to be a certain type of family.
A certain group with a certain feeling. Present that to them help them get a vision of who they're
becoming as this group, as part of this family. They also need truths about how to get their way.
Do they know that if they learned a skill called disagreeing appropriately, that they would be
able to get their way more often? That they could convince you of things you may normally not want
them to do. Maybe I mean obviously minor things, nothing morally wrong, or something like that. But
lots of times the children don't know that. They don't know that there's a way they can get their
way without just going behind the scenes and being strong-willed and just not doing or talking
back or whatever their particular behavior is. So, teach them the skills that they need for success.
There are four basic skills that I teach for parents to teach their children and these four
basic skills are following instructions, accepting no answers and criticism, accepting consequences,
and disagreeing appropriately. They are all based in true principles. The principle that
I can instruct myself. I am supposed to tell myself what to do next. I can make a plan for
how to get the best results for my life. Those are all truths that are contained
in learning skills and following through. I can choose to be okay when things don't go my way.
There's another truth. I can drop the subject in my own brain if I want to, that's another truth.
So, many times people get trapped in their emotions or in thought processes anxieties things like
that and those are real things. But you can teach someone what to do with those things. They can hold
on to truth instead of feeding and feeding this same repetitive thought or emotion again and again.
That ends up leading them to push back against you. What's another truth? That you love them no
matter what. That is a truth they must know. Even if they mess up, even if they make a mistake.
You are always there for them. You will always understand, help them pick up the pieces,
and move on. You are not there to condemn. You're there to help them, to help them move forward.
That's what a good parent does, that's your role. So teach them their role and your role and they
will find truths that they can live by. Sometimes we don't teach our strong-willed children enough.
Because we're so worried about managing them. Because they seem so intense sometimes
and they always have to have everything be their own idea right. But actually, they want leadership.
They're craving it. The fact that they're trying to assert so much power is saying,
"I need a leader." They're trying to pick to be their own leader. But they're not prepared yet.
They're not qualified just yet. Because they're still a child and isn't it beautiful that every
child can't even get here without two teachers, without two parents, without a mother and a father.
So, we're the ones that need to lead them toward the self-mastery that they can accomplish. In fact,
they thrive with self-mastery because it's full of truths. Speaking of self-government, I have a
gift for you. In fact, I'm super excited about this it's completely free. In the description below this
video there is a link to something called the calm parenting toolkit. Go ahead and click on that link
and it will take you to a mini-course that will start you on your road to self-government. Yes,
you need self-government in order to help them learn self-government and the skills that I teach
in the calm parenting toolkit will prepare you to teach your children the skills that they need
for their success as strong-willed people in this world. Click on the link now.