Every mother of two or more children will affirm that each of her infants had a different personality at birth. One of these newborn characteristics relates to the "strength of the will." There is a strong-willed child in almost every family. In contrast to the compliant sibling who is easy going, the strong-willed child is defiant and assertive, always ready to challenge the authority of his parents.

The compliant child is usually a charmer. He needs the praise and approval of his parents and is eager to please them. Whereas the strong-willed child is aggressive and seeks to be in control. The compliant child is often praised while the defiant sibling faces constant finger-wagging lectures. These differences in personality can give rise to serious sibling rivalry. Parents need to be sensitive to this and try to reduce tension between them.

How does a parent manage and lead a strong-willed child? Dr. Dobson suggests that he learns to shape the will of the child without "breaking the spirit." It is important to begin to shape his will during the early years. In order to do this, parents need to establish a pattern of firm parental authority when dealing with willfully defiant attitude or behavior.

Question 1: I want to manage and lead my strong-willed child properly, but I'm afraid I'll break his spirit and damage him in some way. How can I deal with his misbehavior without hurting his self-concept?

Answer: I sense that you do not have a clear understanding of the difference between breaking the spirit and shaping the will of a child. The human spirit, as I have defined it, relates to the self-esteem or the personal worth that a child feels. As such, it is exceedingly fragile at all ages and must be handled with care. You as a parent, correctly assumes that you can damage your child's spirit quite easily--by ridicule, disrespect, threats to withdraw love, and by verbal rejection. Anything that depreciates his self-worth can be costly to his spirit.

However, while the spirit is brittle and must be treated gently, the will is made of steel. It is one of the few intellectual components that arrives full strength at the moment of birth. In a past issue of Psychology Today, this heading described the research findings from a study of infancy: "A baby knows who he is before he has language to tell us so. He reaches deliberately for control of his environment, especially his parents."

This scientific disclosure would be no surprise to the parents of a strong-willed infant. They have walked the floor with him in the wee small hours, listening to this tiny dictator as he made his wants and wishes abundantly clear.

Later, some defiant toddlers can become so angry that they are capable of holding their breath until they lose consciousness. Anyone who has ever witnessed this full measure of willful defiance has been shocked by its power. One headstrong three-year-old recently refused to obey a direct command from her mother, saying, "You're just my mommy, you know!"

Another mere mommy wrote me that she found herself in a similar confrontation with her three-year-old son over something that she wanted him to eat. He was so enraged by her insistence that he refused to eat or drink anything for two full days. He became weak and lethargic but steadfastly held his ground. The mother was worried and guilt-ridden, as might be expected.

Finally, in desperation, the father looked the child in the eyes and convinced him that he was going to receive a well-deserved spanking if he didn't eat his dinner. With that maneuver, the contest was over. The toddler surrendered. He began to consume everything he could get his hands on and virtually emptied the refrigerator.

Now tell me, please, why have so few child-development authorities recognized this willful defiance? Why have they written so little about it? My guess is that the acknowledgement of childish imperfection would not fit neatly with the humanistic notion that little people are infused with sunshine and goodness and merely learn the meaning of selfishness and disobedience. To those who hold that rosy view I can only say "Take another look!"

Returning to your question, your objective as a parent is to shape the will of your child while leaving his spirit intact.

Question 2: How early in life is a child capable of making a stand like that?

Answer: Depending on the temperament of the individual, defiant behavior can be displayed by very young children. A father once told me of taking his three-year-old daughter to a basketball game. The child was, of course, interested in everything in the gym except the athletic contest. The father permitted her to roam freely and climb on the bleachers, but he set up definite limits regarding how far she could stray. He took her by the hand and walked with her to a stripe painted on the gym floor.

"You can play all around the building, Janie, but don't go past this line," he instructed her.

Dad had no sooner returned to his seat than the toddler scurried in the direction of the forbidden territory. She stopped at the border for a moment, then flashed a grin over her shoulder to her father and deliberately placed one foot over the line as if to say, "Whacha gonna do about it?" Virtually every parent the world over has been asked the same question at one time or another. That's the way some kids are made.

Question 3: My little boy always wants to know just how far I will let him go. Once he has tested me and found I'm serious about what I say, he'll usually cooperate at that point. What is going on in his mind?

Answer: Your child, like most other kids, has a great need to know where behavioral boundaries are and who has the courage to enforce them. Let me illustrate how that works.

Years ago, during the early days of the progressive-education movement, an enthusiastic theorist decided to take down the chain-link fence that surrounded the nursery-school yard. He thought the children would feel more freedom of movement without that visible barrier surrounding them. When the fence was removed, however, the boys and girls huddled near the center of the play yard.

Not only did they not wander away, they didn't even venture to the edge of the grounds. Clearly, there is a security for all of us in defined boundaries. That's why a child will push a parent to the point of exasperation at times. She's testing the resolve of the mother or father and exploring the limits of her world.

Do you want further evidence of this motivation? Consider the relationships within a family where the dad is a firm but loving disciplinarian, the mother is indecisive and weak, and the child is a strong-willed spitfire. Notice how the mother is pushed, challenged, sassed, disobeyed, and insulted--but the father can bring order with a word or two.

What is going on here? The child simply understands and accepts Dad's strength. The limits are clear. There is no reason to test him again. But Mom has established no rules, and she is fair game for a fight--every day, if necessary.

The very fact that your child accepts the boundaries you have set tells you that he or she respects you. That youngster will still test the outer limits occasionally to see if the "fence" is still there.

Question 4: I think you are right about the motivation of a strong-willed child. My five-year-old is one of those rambunctious kids who give us fits. There are times when I think he's trying to take over the entire family. I've never really understood him before, but I guess he just doesn't want anyone telling him what to do.

Answer: That is precisely how he feels. It is surprising how commonly this basic impulse of children is overlooked. Indeed. I think the really tough kids understand the struggle for control even better than their parents, who are bogged down with adult responsibilities and worries.

Children devote their primary effort to the power game while we grown-ups play only when we must. Sometime you might ask a group of children about the adults who lead them. They will instantly tell you, with one voice, which grown-ups are skilled in handling them and which aren't. Every schoolchild can name the teachers who are in control and those who are intimidated by kids.

One father overheard his five-year-old daughter, Laura, say to her little sister, who was doing something wrong, "Mmmm, I'm going to tell Mommy on you. No! I'll tell Daddy. He's worse!" Laura had evaluated the authority of her two parents and concluded that one was more effective than the other.

This same child was observed by her father to have become especially disobedient and defiant. She was irritating other family members and looking for ways to avoid minding her parents. Her dad decided not to confront her directly but to punish her consistently for every offense until she settled down. Thus, for three or four days, he let Laura get away with nothing. She was spanked, stood in the corner, and sent to her bedroom.

Near the end of the fourth day, she was sitting on the bed with her father and younger sister. Without provocation, Laura pulled the hair of the toddler, who was looking at a book. Her dad promptly thumped her on the head with his large hand. Laura did not cry but sat in silence for a moment or two and then said, "Harrumph! All my tricks are not working!"

This is the conclusion you want your strong-willed son to draw: "It's too risky to take on Mom or Dad, so let's get with the program."

This article was written by Dr James Dobson of Focus on the Family. For further enquiries, kindly contact:
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