by Maureen Wuelfing

Created on: January 28, 2008

Giving a strong willed child and attitude adjustment is a challenging part of parenting. Most often a strong-willed child is also a brilliant manipulator.

The first part of giving your child an attitude adjustment is giving yourself one. Always keep in mind that you are dealing with a child not an adult. Although his vocabulary and mannerisms may be adult like, his feelings are very much child-like. Also referring to your child as strong-willed instead of a "problem child" will change your outlook and perhaps your approach. As a parent it feels like your strong willed child never left the terrible twos. In a sense this is true. The terrible two's are a child's first attempts at testing their boundaries and thinking for themselves. Your strong-willed child continues to do this throughout his life. This is a good thing. It may be difficult to handle at first, but challenging the norm and thinking for ones self are the characteristics of great leaders.

OK, your attitude is adjusted, now how to adjust your child's attitude. NEVER get into a power play with a child. You are the parent. You are the adult. Act like it. Having a screaming match with a 4 or 10 year old is not teaching anything about maturity or socially acceptable behavior. As a young boy, my son was very difficult to raise. He is very strong-willed. I chose to approach raising him from two angles. I always encouraged him to share his ideas as long as he was respectful. He could tell me he was angry or disagreed with me, as long as his tone of voice was respectful. It was understood, however that I was the parent and if after his conversation with me, my thoughts were unchanged, he must respect my parenthood and obey my rules. There were many times when his thoughts made perfect sense and I changed my guidelines accordingly.

HOWEVER, if at anytime he got disrespectful, he got a strike. We "played" a "game" called "three strikes your out". On any given day, if he was disrespectful, there was no arguing, no power play, I simply said "strike one". If the disrespect continued or appeared later in the day, a "strike two" was issued. Once a strike three was reached, my son had to stay in his room the rest of the day, except to join the family for meals. He was not confined to bed, he could play, read, or sleep; whatever he wanted. He was simply told that if he could not have socially acceptable behavior, he could not socialize. The first day we played the game my son was in his room by 10 am. The next day he was in his room at 2pm. After that he only had 2 strike days.

He quickly learned that he would rather be social than not. He learned what types of behaviors were acceptable and what were not. He learned I valued his opinion and demanded his respect. All without a single yelling match. It was a difficult decision to play "three strikes your out" but I am glad I did. My son is now 13 and a straight A student. He naturally is going through some teen age challenges, but he remains for the most part respectful.

Changing the attitude of your strong-willed child will help him succeed and become the great leader he is meant to be.

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