Kiss Power Struggles Goodbye

                Power struggles are a sure way of telling your young child they have control over you.  What you are actually telling your child when you lecture or threaten them is simply that you have no idea how to handle them.  They grow up feeling out of control.  It also affects their self esteem.  Think about it; if a child feels that their parents, who are the ones taking care of them, cannot control them, they must be pretty bad.  Someone bigger and with more experience has no idea how to help me control myself.  Scary!

                A good idea to help avoid power struggles would be to give plenty of small choices when things are going well.  You can refer to the choices article in this blog for more ideas.  Then, set limits that are going to work for you.  For example, your child doesn’t want to eat breakfast on time in the mornings and the struggle to get them to eat leaves you late for work.  Set a limit and enforce it.  Breakfast is available for so much time or until a certain time.  Once that time is up, away goes the food.  Will your child be hungry?  Once – probably, as long as you communicate with and have everyone on your team and he is not going to be getting snacks from his teacher at school.  It probably won’t happen again.  Next time, he will likely eat. 

                Be consistent.  This will not work if you are different every time there is food in front of your child.  At a restaurant you can do the same thing.  If they don’t want to eat their dinner, they have so much time and you leave the restaurant.  Later, they will likely be hungry.  Show empathy so they know you truly care, but stick to your guns.  They are only missing one meal.  Let them know that is what happens to you too when you refuse to eat what you have been given.  Follow up by reminding them that breakfast will really taste good.

                This may not work so well with older children or teens.  They may find ways of getting food later.  You could still give it a try.  Or maybe offer them food options that you are ok with instead.  Allow kids to have time to make a choice but not too much time.  If they don’t make a choice in a reasonable time, it becomes your choice.

                The above idea regarding breakfast is one example.  You can adjust this to anything else including getting dressed, getting in the car and safety belt, etc.  Experiment with ideas that work for you.  Make sure you are fair and give plenty of choices.  Don’t make things a battle.  Set limits; let your child know the consequences of their choice.  And very importantly… follow through.  Without the follow through, you are toast.  It’s not going to work.  Your child will not believe you.

                Good luck and thanks for reading.  Let me know how it works for you.