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Setting Limits

I found this book Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child in a used book store and decided to buy it for my friend A who has very challenging teen to deal with. Was not sure if the book was aimed at teenagers or younger children but thought there could be some useful learning anyway. I was not disappointed as I started to browse through. By the end of chapter one, the author gets to the core of the problem. When the child is strong-willed and just about impossible to manage or bring into compliance it is a reflection of the emotional style and temperament mismatched between the manager and the managed. 

 More importantly, the distress on the part of the parent stems from their disappointment over their strong-willed child not being the ideal they had hoped and dreamed of. They struggle to let go of that image of perfection and accept reality. All actions they take therefore only worsen the parent-child relationship.  The advice is quite simple "Letting go if your ideal picture may be one of the most difficult tasks you'll face as a parent, but it is a necessary task". 

 No child strong-willed or not should match up to the ideal picture their parent may have had. If they do, it would be concerning. And letting go of the best part of the dreams is indeed hard. For a parent who wished to play sports with their kid that is absolutely not interested, that can be hard. Their dream of rooting together for the same team will never come true. So as they watch the cheering fans on TV while the kid is holed in their room, it could feel sad and desolate. This is even for the most amiable and easy to manage child. Things would get significantly worse if there is a battle on every other front as well.
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Anonymous said…
Awesome post.
7:20 PM
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