Emily Chan
If your child is strong-willed, you might find yourself fighting many small battles every day, whether it’s trying to get them to leave the park or put a jacket on. Strong-willed children typically demonstrate traits such as independence, outspokenness, and determination.
With strong-willed children, you don’t have to worry about them standing up for themselves or navigating the big, wide world. Their fierce characteristics will help them achieve success in the future, but their intense personalities can be a challenge for parents to manage during childhood.
These are personality traits we often admire in adults, so it’s important that you don’t squash their spirit or sense of self. Here’s how you can get your strong-willed kid to learn their lessons without snapping at them.
Rachael (@theconsideratemomma) is a certified parent coach, and she’s sharing a parenting hack on TikTok about how to effectively handle strong-willed children and get them to listen and follow directions.
“Instead of making demands or commands for your strong-willed child, telling them what to do, and having to yell at them, threaten them, or punish them in order to get them to do that thing, start asking them questions and getting them to critically think about the scenario for themselves,” said Rachael.
Compared to other kids, strong-willed children have a heightened need for a sense of power and control, which explains why they always seem to be fighting back.
Rachael says that if you are a strong-willed parent, you may find yourself locked in a power struggle with your strong-willed child more often than you’d like. Taking a more collaborative approach may result in better outcomes. She then gave an example of how you can use the hack in real life.
“We’re about to go to grandma’s, and I see a lot of toys on the floor. What do you think could happen to your toys if we leave them out with the dog? Yeah, the dog could chew them up. Are you okay with that? I’m not, either. So, what should we do about that?” she said.
Of course, it’s not guaranteed to work for every strong-willed child. Several TikTok users chimed in with varying opinions about the effectiveness of the hack.
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