179: How do you know if your child is strong-willed?

(1s):
My name is Randi Rubenstein, and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast At Mastermind Parenting, we’re on a mission to support strong-willed kids and the families that love them. You’re listening to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast with Randi Rubenstein episode 1 79. Well, hi guys. Welcome to this week. I don’t know why I needed to unseen this week. I think it’s just like, oh, it’s Monday again. I don’t know why it’s like, do y’all notice this. Maybe not for those of you who are in the little kid phase, it’s just like the older you get. The more it’s like another week just started and another week just started time moves so quickly.

(43s):
Okay. Anybody watching the video? If you’re watching this podcast on YouTube, here’s the puppy on my lap. Isn’t she adorable and hideous, like if she opens her eyes, she’s taking a nap right now. She opens her eyes. You can see that like one of her eyes is half blue. She’s snoring now hideous, Hazel. Hideous is Hazel is so cute. She’s our newest puppy. She’s almost five months old. Oh, there her, I just opened. Okay. I’ll stop talking about Hazel. Hazel, keep the snoring down. This week’s topic is something that we noticed. Many of you are searching are Googling. How do you know if your child is strong Willed?

(1m 25s):
So we’re sort of like taking things back to the basics. It’s sort of been doing this month. How do you even know if your child is strong-willed chances are, if you’re listening to this podcast, you have a hunch that you’ve got a strong-willed child, but I just wanted to kind of talk about what really constitutes a child being strong-willed and don’t we all like don’t isn’t every child strong-willed at some point or another, I got S what I always say to the people who come to me, everybody’s got a strong-willed air-quotes child, but The truth of the matter is that Mastermind Parenting is really for all humans. It’s just that our strong willed ones are the ones that bring us here because they re not complying with the old school parenting methods that most of us were raised with.

(2m 14s):
And so we’re like, well, I got to figure something out. And so we come and we look for resources and we listen to podcasts and we read books and we’re looking for the tools and the tips. But how do you know if your kid is a strong willed kid or just a regular human kid that shows up with some strong willed behavior, because we all sometimes have strong willed behavior. So like, how do you determine the difference? So I wanted to just kind of talk about that topic this week. Let me start with the adjective, the adjective. Strong-willed how it’s defined by Webster’s dictionary.

(2m 57s):
Very determined to do something. Even if other people say it should not be done. Okay. So very determined to do something. Even if other people say it should not be done. So if you have ever had a three-year-old and what you know is that this is sort of part of a three-year-old’s job, like a three-year-old and you know, three teenagers and teenagers it’s like as developing humans, it is normal. It is part of human development to challenge the status quo when you’re about three. And when you’re about 13, when you’re going through these big transitions. Okay. So when you’re three, you’re going from being a baby to now being a little kid, right.

(3m 42s):
To being like a preschooler. And so three year olds are just starting to make sense of the world. They’re just sort of figured out that they’re not simply an appendage of mom. So they trying to challenge everything. Where do you stop? Where do I start? And the same thing happens when, when humans go through adolescents, it’s, I’m now going to go from childhood into eventually adulthood. So this transitional phase of, of adolescents, I’ve got to figure out who I’m going to be as an adult. Like I know now what the adults who have been keeping me safe and in charge for the most part, I know what they think.

(4m 26s):
I know what they want me to do, but now I have to become my own adult in the next, you know, however many years. And so my job is to challenge and decide who I’m going to be as an adult. What I believe in where I may be differ from the adults who have raised me. And so I think it’s important to understand that that is an important stage of development. Okay. Just because somebody challenges us doesn’t mean that we’re not still gonna have boundaries and rules, but we don’t have to make it mean that, oh gosh, this one’s a real piece of work. This one, oh, I’ve got my straw.

(5m 7s):
Like all three-year-olds and all thirteen-year-old ish are supposed to be strong-willed are supposed to exhibit strong-willed behavior. They’re supposed to be determined to do something that they are thinking makes sense. Even if the people in charge of them say it should not be done. Okay. So it doesn’t mean that we just let them do all the things, especially things that are going to put them in harm’s way, but we don’t have to define them and categorize them just because they’re going through this very normal stage of development.

(5m 47s):
Does that make sense? So I like to say that, you know, you have a strong-willed child, if you just find that there’s just challenging, like every stage sort of seems challenging. And you kind of are wondering to yourself, like, when do I catch a break? Like who knew that it was going to be this hard? Is it supposed to be this hard? Like, is everyone’s kid this hard? At what point are we going to just get to coast for awhile? Like, why is everything a problem? Everything seems to be a problem. So they just seem difficult.

(6m 28s):
It’s like, they’re the squeaky wheel of the family. You know, if this one child is happy, it’s almost like you can breathe. And everybody else is easy peasy. You know, if this one child is happy, then it sort of sets the tone and, and you know, this could be, you know, a good vacation or a good evening out or whatever it is, or a good bike ride or good afternoon when your squeaky wheel is happy, then you’re like, ah, everything else is going to flow smoothly. And all the moments when the squeaky wheel is squeaking, you’re like, oh, you just sort of feel like they’re constantly hijacking the household and everyone’s kind of walking on eggshells around them.

(7m 15s):
Right. It’s the one that you really worry about the most. And you’re just sort of glancing from the side of your eye. Like, are they getting into trouble? What’s their mental state right now. Happy, not happy. And I’ll tell you for those of us who have a strong-willed kid who isn’t just going through a strong-willed stage, but is strong-willed sort of all the time, you know, let me help you guys to understand something that is really a mistake that I made. And I didn’t realize I was making it, but if I can help any of you to not make the same mistake, then that would make me happy. So my daughter who is now 20, she’s not the strong-willed one, but she has a strong-willed older brother.

(8m 2s):
And what we have now determined happened is it’s like they say, there’s big T trauma and little T trauma. So her little T trauma, which is still trauma, was we accidentally Gaslight her a lot. And I know the term being gaslighted. I know that it’s confusing for a lot of people, but it’s just basically, when you tell someone that they shouldn’t be thinking or feeling what they are. So you invalidate them, you try to talk them out of their feelings rather than just listening and allowing them to have the feelings they’re having.

(8m 42s):
You try to convince them that they should feel a different way, that their reality is different rather than just showing up and receiving them and helping them to work through it, you know, and really listening to them. You try to convince them that it’s a different way and the way we did it. So she’s our easier kid. So I was constantly from the side of my eye, w most worried me and my husband were most worried about her. Strong-willed older brother who just was he’s highly sensitive and cranky in a bad mood, a lot, yada, yada, yada, when he was home with us, when he went out into the world, he was, you know, most of the time, pretty perfect, but what he did, he would save it all for when he came home to us and his younger sister was his punching bag in a lot of ways.

(9m 28s):
And because I kind of was always watching him from the corner of my eye. I was around a lot. And he figured out like these little nuanced ways of kind of taking his upset out on his sister in ways that he could get away with it. Okay. So here’s an example. So we found this old video of, I don’t know, my, my daughter, Avery and her younger brother, they were playing. And we were all kind of like in this common area of our house. And I don’t know if somebody else was over maybe like a grandparent or something. And we had a dog cage in there, you know, like a dog crate. And they were like playing in the dog crate and they were putting her in and you know, the baby we’re like putting each other.

(10m 10s):
I think Corey was like 18 months at the time. And Avery was like four and a half or five. And she was playing with Corey and they were putting each other, like in the dog crate, they were going in the dog crate together. And then they were, you know, they were just goofing around. They were playing, she was like, had some things, she was pretending to be a horse. And she was like, Hey, Corey, write on this with me, write on this with me. And all of a sudden you see on the video, Alec comes kind of creeping around the corner and just like, like the camera picked up where he just goes back and just like, kind of just jumps out, just like in a little, like, you know, like nothing and you hear every go.

(10m 51s):
And then we, we don’t really see the whole thing that happened or it didn’t seem like a big deal. Alex got a smile across his face. He seems happy. So the corner of my eyes always looking to see if Alex happy, everybody else that needs to be happy, everybody. Everything’s going to be easy as long as Alex happy. So then you hear me and my husband Scott, start to admonish, Avery, Avery, take it down. Avery, come on. There’s no need for that, Avery. Oh, that’s okay. What are you, why are you getting? So come on, you know, like we’re dismissing her, we’re telling her it’s all, okay. It’s not a big deal. We’re basically sending her the message, like stop being so dramatic.

(11m 33s):
Like we don’t say stop being so dramatic, but that’s our, that’s our tone. You know, that’s the message we’re conveying like, relax. This is just all fun and games. It’s fine. But she has this little T trauma of where she would just be playing and in her own little magical world. And at any moment he might come around the corner and jump out and scare her or startle her. And so it’s like her nervous system was rattled. You know, very, her brain would go into all kinds of dark places. You scare me even as a 20 year old, which this actually kind of makes me happy about it is that she was telling me that on her college campus, there was, they just caught the guy, but there was this creepy 30 year old, they just caught him.

(12m 19s):
He was like lurking around this area where a lot of college students live and, and there was a bunch of attempted kidnappings. And so she was telling me that she goes, well, you know, I have my knife on me. I’m like, of course, of course you had your knife. You know, she’s like, oh yeah. I had like my serious knife on me. I’m like, and like when she was eight, I remember one time we were on a bike ride and she like throws her bike down and she had this little like cross body bag. And I like picked up her purse and I went to go into it cause something, what does an eight year old need to carry a purse on a bike ride? And she was like, mom, don’t go into that. And I was like, what? What’s in here. I open it. And there was like this knife that my husband had bought her at the Renaissance festival.

(13m 0s):
I’m like, why do you have a knife on you? She’s like, well, just in case. So she’s always sort of been in this kind of high alert state, but it really came from, he was figuring out a way to kind of take his, whatever out on her and was always kind of, you know, jumping out and scaring her, ruining her fun a little bit and you know, hurt people, hurt people. He was walking around in a high anxiety state. He was constantly sort of dysregulated. And this was his outlet. You know, this was his outlet and we didn’t see it clearly. Right. So we didn’t see it clearly, but because I was like, as long as he’s happy, no one else messed this up.

(13m 42s):
Cause I’m just worried. If he’s happy, then everybody else is easy-peasy. So when she would get upset, I would Gaslight her accidentally because I was like, no, no, no, no, he’s happy. Smiling. He’s fun. He wants to play. He wants to be a part of the fun, but really there was more to the story and I couldn’t see it. So be on the lookout for that pattern, because if I could do it differently, what I would have done is I would have pulled her aside instead of shutting her down. And I would have calmed her down and said, come here, something just bothered you. You were just having fun. I would have just used empathy and stated the obvious you were over here, just having fun. And then something startled you or you got scared.

(14m 23s):
Tell me what happened. And then I would have heard her. And I would have helped her develop skills at a very young age to use her voice and empower her when your brother comes and scares you like that. And you’re playing, it’s not okay. And you can say to him, Hey, that’s hear me. That’s not okay if you want to play with us, just say, Hey, can I play too? But jumping out and scaring me, it’s not cool. You know, I would have given her the words I would’ve helped her. I would’ve helped her develop the skills. So she didn’t just feel at the mercy of this pattern. And we would have disrupted this negative pattern that he was using, but we didn’t know what we didn’t know. So if you can learn anything from it, there you go.

(15m 11s):
Are you ready to master practical strategies? That’ll support you in helping your strong-willed child and their siblings to feel better so that they can ultimately do better all at your own pace. Learn how to be a mastermind parent by joining our new self study and very affordable mini master’s program, you’ll get access to our basics, bootcamp content with hundreds of trainings and resources to help you through any scenario, as well as access to our private podcast, where you’ll hear a lots of live coaching by yours truly, and where the juiciest juiciest conversations happen. Expect some colorful language on that private podcast.

(15m 51s):
Can’t wait to see you in Mastermind, Parenting mini master’s program. It’s Mastermind, Parenting dot com for slash mini masters, all one word to join. Okay. So let me read, I want to read a little bit more about strong-willed behavior. This is from this website that I found recently called very well, family.com, which is this it’s written by a therapist and it’s doctor endorsed. And I know that that can give everyone a sense of peace because we all think it’s the doctors who have all the answers. So let me read it to you, what they say about this here.

(16m 30s):
So they say, although all kids can be strong-willed sometimes some children exhibit certain characteristics consistently also referred to as spirited children. These kids temperaments are often evident from a very early age being strong-willed isn’t the same as being a bad kid. Strong-willed kids are simply determined to do things according to their own terms while their sheer stubbornness can be admirable. At times, it can also be downright frustrating for parents and teachers. It’s hard to convince a strong-willed child to do anything they don’t want to do. If your child exhibits these behaviors, the key is to find ways to help them channel their energy into something positive rather than crushing their spirit. So strong-willed kids often have intense, angry outbursts while all kids throw temper tantrums, some exhibit intense anger that doesn’t subside for a long time, they have low frustration tolerance and they struggled to express their anger in a socially appropriate manner.

(17m 24s):
And sometimes you might have no idea what even set them off in the first place. So there’s a sign you’ve got a strong, loved one. They demand to know why hearing, because I said so is fresh. That’s authoritarian parenting. If you haven’t listened to the last two, podcasts listened to those. So if any, any authoritarian parenting on the scene, because I said so, case closed, it’s so frustrating to it’s. It’s frustrating for all kids. It’s extra frustrating for strong-willed kids. They want to know why they can’t play in the rain. This is all the things I’ve talked about in the last few podcasts. Why it’s a bad idea to jump on the couch while you might be tempted to say, I don’t know. Or just because those types of answers won’t satisfy your child.

(18m 6s):
You’ll need to share why it’s a safety, moral, social, or legal issue. If you want your child to stop arguing, see that they push us tomorrow. Don’t just tell me not to do something like I’m a very smart, reasonable, little human. If you just explain the why, like, I don’t want you to try and control me if you get me on board and take the time mom and dad, to explain why we have this rule. Well, I’m very reasonable. I can get on board, but if you just case close me, I’m going to dig my heels in and act like a Royal pain in the ass. So I’m calling you to more mom and dad.

(18m 47s):
I’m calling you to develop better communication skills, okay? Stubborn, arguing, and other sign of strong-willed behavior. Kids with a strong-willed temperament. Don’t give up. When they disagree, they love to engage in power struggles and they’re stubborn. Persistence. Often tires people out. They’re great. Debaters who are good at finding loopholes and exceptions. So don’t be surprised when your child recalls at one time, you let them eat ice cream for breakfast or justified lying, because you didn’t want to pay the adult rate for a movie ticket, even though they were too old for a kid’s ticket. Okay? So bossiness strong-willed kids have a vision in their mind about the way things should be. And they’ll often orchestrate ways to turn that idea into reality.

(19m 29s):
They have no problem telling their peers where to stand or how to behave. And they’re not shy about telling adults what to do either. They refuse to comply. Don’t waste your energy, trying to convince a strong-willed child to do something they don’t want to do. Nagging, begging and rationalizing. Isn’t likely to get you anywhere. Strong-willed kids will dig in their heels and refuse to budge in patients. Many kids want to do everything. According to their timetables, they hate waiting in line at the grocery store. They don’t like waiting for their turn one, playing a game. And they aren’t interested in sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. They don’t want to waste a second waiting for someone else. Strong-willed kids often make their own rules. They aren’t interested in hearing your opinion about when it’s time for bed.

(20m 11s):
Instead, they’re likely to insist. They’ll go to sleep. When they’re tired, they prefer to make their own policies and set their own guidelines rather than following and authority, figures, rules, entitlement, many kids struggled to understand the differences between a need and a want, whether they want to play outside in the rain or eat a hot dog for breakfast they’ll claim, they need to do it. They’re also very concerned with fairness, even when things are going their way, they’ll often insist that they’re not getting their fair share. Selective hearing, tell some children to be careful or use your walking feet. And if they’re not interested, they’ll ignore you. Strong-willed kids are good at using selective hearing and they easily tune out anything that doesn’t suit their needs.

(20m 55s):
They move at their own pace. Kids with a strong will often eat fast, talk fast and walk fast when they want to, but they move at a snail’s pace when doing something they aren’t interested in. Okay. So hopefully that helps to clarify if you have a strong willed kid or not. Now the good news is what I teach in Mastermind. Parenting this whole methodology of mastering your own mind, communicating as a confident, loving, and firm pack leader. All it does is help kids with a strong will feel respected, understand the why behind things treated like a little human, who absolutely is allowed to have opinions.

(21m 42s):
And who’s also held accountable and set, you know, understands what the boundaries are and when consequences need to be followed to help really, really hold them accountable. We’re not scared to do it. We’re not scared of our strong-willed kids. We’re very clear in what the rules and the expectations are in the household. We just don’t use shame and anger and blame. When they’re exemplifying their strong will. We just know how to manage it. And they give us an opportunity to practice these skills over and over and over again. And we don’t make them responsible for our feelings, for our behavior.

(22m 24s):
We manage and master our own minds. That’s what our strong-willed kids are here to help us learn this skillset, which most of us don’t have. Right? And they are harder to parent. And the good news is, is that because they call us to more because they refuse to comply with authoritarian parenting. And so we just have a household filled with tension and anger and no fun for anyone really unhealthy actually, right? Because they refuse to comply with those, the old school parenting of yesteryear, they call us tomorrow.

(23m 8s):
They call us to dig in and learn new skills, which will ultimately benefit us and every other family member. So they are the impetus for us bettering ourselves. That’s what they’re here to teach us. That’s what the squeaky wheel is really all about. Okay. So here’s a scenario that we pulled off of social media from a parent of a strong-willed child. Anyone else instantly overloaded when they’re around their strong-willed child? My five-year-old just spent the weekend with my parents and I missed her as I always do. I was so excited to see her, but as soon as she walked in the door, I was instantly overloaded because she is just so exhausting.

(23m 52s):
I get my breaks from her, but I feel terrible that I’m so grouchy with her. I try my best not to be, but she wears me down. Same for my husband. I feel like we balance each other out with her inpatients he’s patient with her when he knows I’m overwhelmed and vice versa. And I feel extra bad because her love language is touch and time. She loves us. So quality time and physical touch. She loves us just spending time cuddling together, but she never stops moving or talking the whole time. I’m a chill person and it drives me crazy. Yeah. Guess what? This child is here to help this parent get better at boundaries, boundaries, and boundaries and boundaries.

(24m 33s):
I guarantee you, this child is exhausted. Moving constantly is a sign of exhaustion, 99.9% of the time. And kids that have a strong-willed are almost always highly sensitive. They need extra rest, like even an hour of not enough sleep for a strong-willed kid. And I know they seem hyper and not tired and they won’t settle down. Exhausted. Kids are always at hyper, almost always whine. If you, if you have an exhausted kid, that’s whiny, like that’s easy to figure out, but an exhausted kid that acts like the Energizer bunny it’s it’s sometimes it can be hard to figure out, but that’s what’s going on.

(25m 15s):
So I guarantee you, this kid is exhausted. And because mom was raised with what many of us were raised with, which is faulty conditioning, a female’s teaching us to be people pleasers teaching us not to have boundaries. Mom probably has a hard time getting this child to bed at night, following through, you know, establishing what the rules are, having the structures in place to help this exhausted child who is walking around constantly dysregulated to help this child finally be able to feel more settled and regulated in their nervous system. And so that’s why snoring puppy.

(25m 57s):
And that’s why this child is so much work, right? It’s so difficult to be around. And why mom’s so grouchy is that mom doesn’t even know that everything is a boundary violation. For the most part. Mom doesn’t know how to truly listen to her body. She’s a chill person. Guess what? I don’t care how chill, how laid back you are, little kids need structure. They need a plan. They need the way the day is going to go. We need to establish and put our, our time and energy on the front end, which sounds like a Royal pain in the ass. And it sounds almost too rigid to be like, this is the way the day’s going to go.

(26m 37s):
You know, we’re going to, and I’m really showing up in that pack. Leadership, wait, well, I’m too chill. I don’t like all that. I hate, you know, I like to fly by the seat of my pants. When you realize I got little kids, this season’s not going to last forever. They thrive on structured, helps them to feel more regulated in their body. And when I hold them accountable and we stick to the plan and I make sure that this child is getting the rest that their body needs and the fuel that their body needs and the activity that their body needs needs, and not just too much screen time. And I have that kind of structure built into our lives in our day, not consistency.

(27m 22s):
Guess what happens? My kid becomes easier, more enjoyable, less of a complete spazz. That’s difficult to be around. And that ultimately gives us more freedom. We’re able to relax and chill more because everybody is set up for success. The definition of insanity is repeating the same things over and over and expecting different results. Like it’s not going to change like this little five-year-old was just, it’s just learning how to be alive. You can’t expect them to change it and set the tone. You have to set the tone. So as long as we argue with reality, you know, you were given a strong-willed child for a reason, are you going to accept the call?

(28m 8s):
And, and when you know, you love your child with all your heart and you might want to punch me even for saying this, but quite often, you don’t like them. You don’t like being around them. It’s not enjoyable. Okay. That is a sign that something has to change and you got to woman up or man up and learn the things and hold yourself accountable, to learn the things and come on, get on the train and, and take the call, take the call, do the thing, learn the program.

(28m 52s):
Right? Come into Mastermind, Parenting, learn the program. We got it. It’s right here for you. We’re here. We’re here to receive you. You know? So, so if you’re a self study person then, and you know that you can hold yourself accountable, then join up ourselves. I mean, do you want to, for our self study program, it’s called mini-masters it’s in the show notes. You can click on the link. And if you know, left up to my own devices, I won’t do it. Sign up our program. Let me coach you, let me get to know you, right? Like we have a whole beautiful program waiting to help you, but you can’t continue living like this.

(29m 32s):
Like you deserve a better life. Your kids deserve a better life. So take action. Make 20, 22 your year. And let’s turn this around. I, when I wish I could tell this mom, like, that’s why we created a self study program. Cause I know like if you’ve got a limited budget, like, so do your, I did it myself. Mastermind, Parenting didn’t exist. When my kids were little, I had to learn this stuff myself. I had to hold myself accountable. And let me tell you something. I’m a rebel tendency. So I’m not the kind of person that’s just going to do X, Y, and Z. Because like I never follow a recipe. I always have to combine different recipes and do it. So, but I, I did it and I’m not a genius and I didn’t have a perfect childhood.

(30m 17s):
You can do it too. You got this, come on. We got the best thing out there. Yeah. I want to invite y’all to the mastermind party. And it’s right here. It’s waiting for you. Go in the show notes, sign up, schedule an assessment with my team. Find out about our resources and what we’ve got. And can’t wait to get to know you. That’s what I got for you. Bye guys. Thanks for listening today, guys. I hope you picked up some tips tools, maybe some baby steps for creating more balance and boundaries in your life. And I just wanted to let you know, if you want to continue moving the needle forward in creating this for yourself, having a happier household.

(31m 3s):
I want you to go to my website and check out Mastermind, Parenting dot com. We have three beginning programs and if he needs some accountability and more support, then please look for the one that would be a good fit for you. And as always, we’re on all the social channels under Mastermind Parenting on Instagram, it’s mastermind, underscore parenting. And you know, periodically I do pop up on different Instagram lives, Facebook lives, where I give you teaching and coaching. And I love engaging with you live to help you help your strong-willed kids so that they can feel better because when they feel better, they do better.

(31m 48s):
And I love, love, love, getting to know you guys. So thanks for listening. If you liked this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review super, super appreciative.