Avoiding Child Power Struggles

Are your requests for proper behavior met with resistance and defiance from your child? Take a moment to analyze your communication skills. Are love, kindness, and respect evident? Consider how you respond when your boss or partner barks an order, nags, yells, and makes threats. You rush to do a better job, right? Probably not. You may feel resentful, angry, resistant, defensive, and might even start plotting revenge. Now imagine that your boss or partner approaches you with a problem and respectfully asks for your input in the solution. You probably feel valued and are more willing to cooperate.

Kids Deserve Respect

Many parents find discipline strategies backfire when they forget that even the smallest child is more responsive to respect. Holding regular family meetings, involving your children in setting rules and solving problems, and always remembering to combine kindness and firmness will go a long way to reducing power struggles.

When you and your child have agreed on a rule or chore and the expectation has not been met, just respectfully restate the expectation reminding them of their earlier agreement, follow through on any consequence that was previously determined, and do not respond to attempts to drag you into a new debate. Above all don’t nag, lecture, or belittle. Just respectfully act. When new problems arise, be sure to listen to your children, validate their feelings, solicit their solutions, and remain respectful even when you override their positions.

Parent Time Outs

Parents should have at least as much patience and self control as they expect from preschoolers and teenagers. Of course, every parent loses his or her self-control from time to time. Kids know just how to push emotional hot buttons. How can you minimize these moments and repair the damage when they inevitably occur? One strategy when a conversation with your child is heading toward verbal confrontation is to use a time out. This doesn’t mean sending your child to a bedroom or a naughty chair. Trying to exert control at these times can only escalate the power struggle.

Focus on controlling your behavior. Parents can model proper behavior by taking their own time out to cool off by announcing they need a break and retreating to their bedroom or taking a walk. Inform your child that you are feeling angry and frustrated and that after you both cool off you will talk again. Then leave. It takes two for a battle and you have a choice whether to participate. When you return to a rational state approach the problem again focusing on solutions rather than blame. Realize that your child may need longer to calm down and that hurt feelings should be addressed to win cooperation.

The Power of Apology

One of the hardest things for adults is admitting to their children that they’ve made a mistake. Realistically you know that no person is perfect and everyone falters. Somehow when you’ve approached your child in a less than constructive way, yelled at them, or belittled them in anger and frustration leading to a power struggle, it is still hard to say you are sorry even when accepting your role in escalating a conflict.

Realize this is a great opportunity to model personal responsibility. Owning up for your part in a fight with your child does not excuse the original misbehavior or make you powerless. It can go a long way toward winning cooperation, opening dialogue, getting back to a solution, and repairing a strained parent-child relationship. By using positive discipline you can improve your parenting skills, break destructive patterns, and return to constructive communication.

This article is generally informed by the various writings of Dr. Jane Nelsen, author of the Positive Discipline series of parenting and teaching strategy books.

Positive Discipline Fosters Cooperation

Avoid Hurt Feelings in Discipline.

Repair Your Parent-Child Relationship

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