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Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Hey, welcome to today's episode.
Today we're actually revisiting episode number 17 on strong-willed kids and stubborn kids.
We wanted to add a little bit of additional commentary to this episode just to fill it out a little bit more completely.
I mean we have a lot of
other episodes in our library that also help add context to this one.
But we thought this one was worthwhile just because it was recorded so long ago.
We wanted to bring it back so people could listen to it and get something useful out of our episodes.
So hope you enjoyed today.
Let's get right into it.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
We are so glad that you are here.
As always, let's start the show with a question from Scott.
We're going to start today's episode with a couple questions from a question box that
you put up on Instagram.
And there are two related questions.
So I'll just ask both of them because they're related and then we can get into the topic.
Okay.
Can we pause it right there and say how much I despise hearing my voice in this?
Oh, how much empathy I have to ed all these stuff.
I despise hearing your voice too.
My voice?
Oh nice.
Thank you.
Sometimes I when I'm editing I just get so annoyed with you and I'm just like Do you really?
Yeah.
Why
I have to hear you all day.
I have to record podcasts with you and then I have to edit and listen to you be skeptical about things I'm saying.
Oh.
It's just too much sometimes.
You know what?
It makes so much more sense now that you don't like talking to me at home.
You like silence.
You like me to be There are certain days where I'm like, I've heard enough from this guy today.
I've edited three podcasts
And I've recorded with him like I never put two and two together there.
Yeah, even when you're not talking to me, you're talking to me.
So sometimes I can only hear so much.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yeah, anyways, we'll keep going.
The first question is, why is my strong-willed child so stubborn?
Okay.
The second one is, how do I deal with defiance from my strong-willed child?
So I feel like they're
related a little bit different, but it's about strong willed children.
Why are they so stubborn?
They w that's the question that the person asked.
And
Why are they so defiant?
Yeah.
How do I deal with the defiance?
They're really good questions.
I feel like the label strong willed children, I hear that term being used a lot.
And I've used that term before too, just to describe a certain type of child
So I guess let's start there.
Like children are born with different temperaments that really shape their personalities and who they are.
There's a piece of a child who's quote unquote strong-willed that might be part of their temperament
And that's not something you've shaped, something that you've made happen.
It's just part of who they are.
So children are born with different temperaments.
Some kids are born with more of a mild temperament.
So we see those kids are
relatively easy going.
They might be your kids that you describe as like your easy kids.
Then we have kids with a more slow to warm temperament
These are our kids that are labeled shy.
They might be more hesitant to try new things.
They might cling closer to you.
Sometimes they're more sensitive to.
And then we have our active temperament.
So these are our kids that are typically described as more strong-willed, stubborn, busier.
So it's not always strong-willed.
Like we could have a slow-to-warm child who's very strong-willed too.
Right?
You've definitely seen that in like a shy child who also is like there's no way you're making me do something.
Yeah.
Right.
So
It's not necessarily the more active temperament, but the more active temperament, yeah, they're busier, they're louder, they are more outgoing
there's different pieces to that temperament.
So first of all, we just kinda want to know that our kids are born with different temperaments.
I used to use the word strong willed
quite a bit to describe children, but have more recently stopped enjoying the phrase strong willed so much.
Okay.
That's not something I knew.
What?
Interesting.
Yeah.
I don't think you've shared what that that means.
Okay, well there you go.
Learn something new every day.
Every episode I feel like I'm learning something new.
So this is valuable for me too.
Something about my brain
is I am like almost constantly thinking about this stuff and like reflecting on it deeper, right?
So sometimes what I'm sharing is just my own personal opinion.
And right now I'm just sharing my own personal opinion that I have been
steering away a little bit from using the strong-willed child language.
And here's why.
I feel like it is a label that we put on our kids.
For example, I put that label on our daughter for a while.
Oh, she's just a strong-willed child
That's why she throws stuff down the stairs.
That's why she won't respond to me.
That's why blah blah blah blah blah.
But upon further reflection
I don't think it's about being strong-willed or not strong-willed.
I think it's about being understood and being in right relationship with the parent or not.
And having certain needs met or not
And so I think it's easy to say, Oh, they're just strong willed and kind of dismiss it and I don't wanna do that to those kids anymore.
I think we're doing disturbing.
There's learned some scripts to deal with them.
But I don't wanna dismiss our strong willed children anymore.
I think that they are children who there's a lot more going on underneath the surface which makes them defiant, makes them have a hard time listening.
I would rather
get to the root cause of why they're appearing strong willed and work on that, then specifically only focus on like the surface level, which is like
They're strong-willed.
They don't listen to me.
You know what I mean?
So am I making any sense?
I think you're making a little sense.
Do you have any reflections on what you said?
Now roughly a year ago, because I actually have some.
Okay.
I actually was noting how much I feel like you've learned over
The last year.
And like how much more you could contribute to the conversation now?
That was one of the first ones we did us specifically on behavior.
And I feel like you
We're like what?
You don't like the label strong well?
Like you have come a long way where I feel like sometimes now you have so much to contribute to these conversations.
And I'm sure that you would say different things now.
So go ahead.
Well, to be honest
I don't have any comments on the fact that you didn't at the time or s maybe still don't prefer to use the term strong-willed.
But what I find quite interesting is actually the child that we were talking about there, who was our middle daughter.
Yeah
at the time was just four.
Yeah.
And I think she was kind of coming out of that stage of strong willedness, stubbornness, right?
Because now
I mean she still has some of those tendencies, but you see it swimming lessons last night?
She does, but also in that situation
With swing lessons, it was later than her normal bedtime, which we've talked about.
The summer is just kind of throwing normal schedules out the window a little bit
I feel like she's not even remotely close to what she was like even a year ago.
It's interesting to listen back to this now because honestly I feel like
I would be more likely to label our youngest now as the strong-willed one, which I think is funny because I kind of think at every time each of our girls were at that stage, I feel like we kind of felt the same way.
versus they're sort of just developing out of it.
And not necessarily developing out of it, but they're I mean maybe I understand her better now too, so she feels understood like you were saying.
I personally think she could easily still be strong willed
I think that the way that we've sought to understand her, understand her sensitivities, understand what she needs in order to thrive has helped her be able to develop out of that stage of her life.
But I think many kids don't develop out of that stage of like that say that three to four stage where they are just inherently more strong-willed and stubborn, because that's how their brain works.
They don't develop out of that because we're labeling them as strong-willed and it's just confirmation.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, you're saying by not labeling them that way and just trying to understand what works
best for them.
Yes.
You're not creating this confirming cycle of creating a more and more strong willed child.
Yes.
I see.
Okay.
Yeah, I can see that makes sense.
I mean honestly with her, I also kind of think she has developed out of some of it.
Oh totally.
You hit the five to seven shift and they start to develop out of it.
That's how it should be
Right.
She even doing camp this year versus last year, I was talking with, and I'm sure you've talked with the the person who runs the whole camp.
and like wow it's amazing.
I haven't had to take her out and just bring her to a quiet area just to relax and everything and and just to be able to deal with the whole day.
Now she just
She's able to do the whole day and she's happy, she's giggling, she's making friends.
And I feel like that's a situation where we're not even there with her, so it's not like we are there understanding her.
She just kind of developed out of it at this point
So I think it's actually kind of fun that we recorded something and I feel like it will be interesting maybe as we go and revisit some of these older episodes over time because the development we can actually see now.
It is pretty cool.
I guess then my question to you would be, like, is it not possible for a child just to be a defiant, strong milled child?
And you can pour as much attention and into re the relationship as you possibly can and they still are defiant.
Yeah, I mean get curious.
I truly believe, like, in my soul, that a child is never just a defiant, non-listening child.
Like there's something going on underneath the surface there.
That's not to blame the parents, because we have a child who definitely
She is more on like typically described as like strong willed child.
So that's not to blame the parents.
Like we just have our kids that have that more active temperament.
Anyway, can I just kinda get into what I think is going on underneath the surface?
Okay.
So for our strong willed kids, I think there's a couple things that are usually going on underneath the surface.
First, I think sometimes our strong willed kids are our most sensitive kids.
And I think we mistake it for being strong-willed.
When underneath the surface, it's actually sensitivity and the strong willedness is what's protecting our child and keeping them safe.
So what's the difference between sensitivity and temperament?
That's a good question.
So sensitivity is another spectrum that we look at for our children.
And the sensitivity can range, right?
So it's like we've talked about this before, but it's lights, it's sounds, it's the way that our child
perceives what's going on in the world around them.
It's the depth of processing of their emotions.
So for sure there can be a link to their temperament that comes into play, right?
So you have a child with a slow to warm temperament
who ha like leans towards being more shy and hesitant.
But at what point does their sensitivities also play a role into that?
There's an interconnectedness to it all, right?
Because at what point is your child actually shy and hesitant because when they enter into a new room and it's super loud and overwhelming
They have to stay close to you because the sounds and the way that they're perceiving it is just completely overstimulating to you
Right?
And in what way is a child who appears to have that more active temperament or appears to be more strong-willed?
This is what I wonder.
Like I'll give you an example about underwear for our child
She wouldn't wear underwear.
She refused to wear underwear.
We could perceive that as she's a strong-willed child with an active temperament.
She needs to learn, the parent is in control, and she needs to wear her underwear.
Well, let's get deeper.
Let's understand what's going on.
Actually, she's a sensitive child and the underwear that she's wearing impacts her so deeply
that if she has an underwear that's uncomfortable for her, the entire day is going to be thrown off because that's all she's going to be able to feel on her body.
Yeah.
You get that.
I mean, I get that too.
So this is where I think when we just say strong-willed, but we don't look at what's going on underneath the surface, we're missing it.
Because I think for so many of these strong-willed kids, they're sensitive.
And it's looking like they want to be the boss in the home and they want to take control and sometimes that's the case, but sometimes what's going on is they have to be strong willed to protect their own self
from overwhelming stimuli.
So whether that's the underwear, the socks, whether that's a food texture that we're like, just eat the mac and cheese.
But what we don't see what's going on inside the child's brain is like this texture of this food is so overwhelming for me.
Like I can't eat this.
Yeah.
You know?
Or I know it's gonna offend people, but I get that with pasta.
Scott doesn't like pasta.
And that's probably because historically it was never made very well for me, so then I have a an aversion to it.
Someone make this man a good pasta.
Come bring us an El Dente pasta and we'll see.
Maybe he'll really like it.
Won't be me.
Won't be me making it 'cause I don't know how to make pasta, but you know
Someone make us a good gluten-free for me, because I have celiac.
That's not possible.
So aka we don't need pots in the house for that reason.
Have you had a good pasta since?
Has anyone made you a good pasta?
Actually I feel like you did.
I actually did!
Hold on.
You're in review.
I did make this man a basta.
Okay, but to be honest
What happened was you went to a local Italian restaurant.
Okay.
It did have some help.
And got some freshly made noodles from there.
And you got
Was it bolonnaise sauce or something like that?
Yeah, meat sauce or something.
I don't know what it was.
Good.
We should do that again.
And usually when the family has pasta, I will be the bad example and make myself something different.
And I actually was going to do that, but then I tasted it and I thought, wow, this is actually really good.
And I had multiple servings of it.
He did have multiple servings.
I did make it al dente.
I like pretty much took notes.
I went to this local Italian place, they make their own pasta.
I took notes on my phone of like how did exactly Oh yeah yeah.
They're like
boil it for this many minutes with this amount of salt or whatever and I was like, okay, I'm gonna write this down.
Like I'm gonna make this right.
And then I got the sauce too and had like fresh like it was like anchovies and all this stuff.
Uh my mouth is watering.
That was so yummy.
Yeah, see I'm not at that point yet where I would
It was good.
Anyways, we should not distract from the melting.
Yeah, sorry, continue, continue.
Please.
Anywho, so they're appearing strong-willed and we're treating them as if they're strong-willed, which a lot of the historical ways that we treat strong-willed children is like
have better boundaries, let them have the natural consequences for their action.
Stand up as the leader in your home.
And those are not all bad.
But if we But isn't that exactly what you say though?
So why with curiosity.
Okay
I would say those things, but I would first say, what are we seeing here?
Like so if you come to me and you go, Jess, I have a child, she's so strong-willed.
This literally happens to me all the time.
She's so strong-willed.
She won't listen to me no matter what I do.
Like she just does her own thing.
She just says no to everything.
My first thing is not gonna be set more boundaries.
Give her a natural consequence.
My first thing's gonna be, let's get curious.
What's she strong-willed about?
And then you say to me, Well, she won't wear her underwear, like she never will, every single morning.
no matter what clothes I lay out for her, she just throws them back in my face and she refuses to get dressed like she's so strong willed in the morning.
Okay, so let's talk about that.
And then we get curious and and we get deeper and we understand that
Sure this child is appearing strong-willed, defiant, like they're not listening, but what's going on underneath the surface, right?
So I think one of the reasons is sensitivities.
And that's where getting in tune with what's going on for our strong-willed children is so important.
And getting curious about that.
So that's one of the pieces that I think is going on underneath a strong-willed child.
Strong-willed being sensitive
Another piece that I think is going on is the search for power and control.
And I think a lot of the times our strong-willed children are the children who feel the least amount of control in their life.
I'll give you an example
I'm probably the prime example of that when I was a kid.
Well, I wasn't gonna use you, but I mean you brought it up.
Yeah, okay, let's bring you up.
I mean you're one example.
You were a very strong-willed child.
You've described yourself as difficult, which thank you to all the listeners who push back on Scott when he describes himself as difficult and we just tell you that you were just misunderstood.
But you would have appeared strong-willed.
You didn't listen, right?
But what was going on?
You've had no power over your life
You didn't have an unattuned relationship with a parent.
You didn't have someone caring for your needs.
You didn't have someone that you could turn to to say they are going to take care of me.
So what happened was you tried to start seeking power and control wherever you could in your own life in order to get that need taken care of
So the example I was going to give is when we had our third baby, our toddler, who is our sensitive child as well, but our middle child, she became incredibly strong-willed after we had our third baby.
Why?
At the time I was like, oh she's just a strong-willed kid.
Now I see it from a different perspective.
She was a kid whose entire world had just turned completely upside down.
She was my baby
Sh I like poured a hundred percent like so much attention and time into her.
I was still rocking her to sleep, all of these things and now all of a sudden I had another baby.
She maybe feels replaced.
That's a normal thing for a child to feel
It's normal for children to appear more strong-willed after a new baby enters the home.
So it's not to make you feel guilty, but that is a reason that a child can be strong-willed.
She has less control over her day
Things are changing, their routines are different.
So she's gonna start seeking control wherever she can because children have a need to feel power and control somewhere.
So the power and control starts coming out and nope, I'm not gonna eat that
You tell me that I can't play with this toy?
Well I'm gonna snatch it from you.
You tell me that I'm not allowed to touch the baby, I'm gonna touch her ten times more.
I'm not gonna wear that and I'm not gonna go to bed
When you want me to.
I'm not gonna go to bed, I'm not gonna wear that.
Why?
Because my whole day is telling her no, no, no, no, no.
And she's not in right relationship with me anymore.
That is a disruption in our relationship because I had a new baby in the home
It's natural that that disruption's gonna happen, but because things were so chaotic and busy, I didn't have the time to pour back into that relationship with her and help her find places to feel power and control.
So she's gonna appear more strong-willed.
And what I think happens with our strong-willed kids is that the more we try to assert more power over them by saying
Here's a natural consequence.
Here's another boundary.
You need to go to timeout or threatening them.
If you don't stop doing that, I'm gonna do this.
They
become more and more strong willed because there's more and more disruption in the relationship and there's less and less control that they're feeling so they're just gonna bump that up more and more.
And Gordon Newfeld calls this concept of like when we push our kids and they push back, counter will.
And you and I talk about counter will all the time because we see it in all three of our kids.
I mean I have it too.
And especially Scott.
But you're still like that.
Right?
And we're all like that.
Like if you push me too hard on something, I'm gonna push back.
That's our counter will.
It's a natural thing for our children to have.
But we want to work with the counter will, not against it.
And I think a lot of the traditional strategies for strong-willed children have us both working against each other, right?
Like your child's been bad, quote unquote, all day.
They're hitting, they're not listening, they're defiant
And so instead of getting curious and trying to find ways for them to have power that are positive and partnering with them, we're just like, go to timeout, go to your room, no TV tonight.
We're adding more power and control and we're gonna get into even more power and control struggles.
So I think that that's another thing that's going on for our strong-willed kids and why I don't want to just label them and be like, yeah.
They're just strong-willed.
Like underneath the surface, there's a need for power and control and a need for relationship.
And if that's not being met in healthy ways, there's healthy ways for them to get power and control, they're gonna be
seeking it out in every little detail of your life.
So that's another reason why I think kids are strong-willed.
Can you just explain a few ways for children to get that power and control
Yeah, I mean it's as simple as giving them choice, let's say, for what they're wearing in the morning, right?
So you're still like you have to wear clothes in order to leave the house
That's your boundary.
But you can choose between this shirt or this shirt.
Or even I think about last night's swimming lessons, right?
Like you have to wear a bathing suit for swimming lessons.
Okay, our daughter comes down with two bathing suits on
Yeah, one over top of the other.
Yeah, one bathing suit on top of another bathing suit.
And our question we have to ask ourselves is like, is that okay?
Right?
And it is.
Like really, what's the big deal?
She can wear two bathing suits to swimming lessons.
Who cares?
Right
But if we were to be like, no, you can only wear one, then all of a sudden we get ourselves into a really a needless power struggle.
So it's about finding
your boundary, like you have to wear shoes to leave the house or you have to wear clothes or we have to have breakfast before we leave, but then where can they have some choice, some autonomy within the structure that we're setting
I want you guys to know how long I think about this.
I lay awake at night and I'm like, there's something more.
Like strong willed, there's something more going on.
I'm so sick of this label.
I've spent so many sleepless nights thinking about this topic.
So thank you for asking me this question today.
It wasn't me, it was other people.
Another thing that I think is going on underneath the surface of our strong-willed children, and I kind of talked about this already, but the need and the craving for a leader.
So strong-willed children will appear like they want to be the leader of your home.
And sometimes because we are afraid of their emotions, their meltdowns.
the way that they are gonna respond.
We literally were laughing about this this morning with our toddler.
We will act out of fear and let them be the leader.
Yeah, because we n we saw
Our two older daughters being afraid of toddler this morning.
Because let's be real, if a child is presenting as strong willed
They are loud, they sometimes hit you, they have big meltdowns, and they can be a little bit scary for us.
And so you even this morning in our house
Our toddler, who I would not really say is strong willed, but she was very overtired and grumpy this morning, was in a mood and toddlers have meltdowns.
It's developmentally appropriate.
We expect them to have meltdowns.
So this is all normal, natural stuff.
She wanted a toy, so bad.
And her two older sisters, four and seven, this is a two-year-old
We're like tiptoeing around her.
Afraid because even though one of them had the toy first, like
In our home, whoever has the toy first gets to keep the toy.
So our four-year-old should have had the toy, but our two-year-old snatched it, and she was afraid to ask her
To get it back.
And they were both looking at our two year old like afraid because it didn't want to cause a meltdown.
Because it's big, it's loud, it's overwhelming
And so how often as parents Well they had little smirks on their faces too, like, oh this is uh It was actually really it was cute.
It was a cute moment.
But like how often as parents
When we have a strong-willed child who's very assertive, speaks their mind, do we become afraid of our child's reaction and we start to cater to them
Right?
There's a difference between getting curious and meeting their need and being afraid of them and catering to them so that they don't have a meltdown.
It's two different things.
So for example, you have your strong willed child who's like, I want to bring this ball of kinetic sand into bed.
Right?
You know that's not a good idea.
Let's not bring a ball of kinetic sand into bed.
Like there's no way in no world this is gonna be good.
This happened to us last night.
But you know
If you set that boundary, no, you may not bring kinetic sand into bed.
Let's say night night to it right now.
We'll tuck it in.
I literally tucked in the whole kinetic last night.
I can't even tell you how I did that.
I forgot about that one
You know, let's suck it in, let's put it back in the sand tray, and then we're gonna go to bed.
You know that that's gonna lead to a meltdown.
And that's where as parents
We have to be okay with those emotions.
Because what happens is if we stop setting boundaries over things like that and stop being the leader in our home, our child stops trusting our leadership as well
So if every time I'm gonna set a boundary over something like kinetic sand or you can't watch more shows, it's time to turn the TV off, Mom, I really want to watch more shows, I'm gonna turn the TV off.
I said TV was gonna be done after this episode.
I'm gonna turn it off.
But I wanna watch more shows.
And then I go, okay, fine, yeah, whatever, watch one more episode.
My child's gonna stop trusting in my leadership and they're gonna start learning.
Oh, so if I push the boundary three times
Then my parent will give in and then they are gonna be pushing back harder and harder.
So part of what our strong-willed children also need is to know that they don't need to be the leader of the home
They're not the one who makes the rules.
They're not the one who sets the expectations.
And they need to learn that they can start to trust in the leadership that you're going to provide
A healthy, strong leader does two things.
One, they are the one that sets the rules and expectations.
It's too much to place on your child.
We can talk about that.
And two, they stay curious.
So being the one to set the rules and expectations doesn't mean that all you do as a leader is like
Okay, TV time's over.
Okay, gotta sit at the table.
Okay, this is what we're eating tonight.
It means that you're also getting curious.
So if if you set the menu for dinner and you feed them food and you're all sitting down together and they don't want it, they throw it at you
you can set a boundary around throwing food for sure, but you also want to be curious about why they're not eating that food.
So it's two things.
I think we have historically seen leaders as just like I'm the boss and what I say goes
Yeah.
Put your foot down.
Put your foot down.
Good leaders are curious.
Good leaders are empathetic.
Good leaders want to get in tune with what's going on.
And that's what I want for parents to do with their strong-willed kids as well.
So that's that's kind of where I'm at.
Like I just feel like there's so much going on behind the label of Strong Willed.
There's sensitivity, there's relationship, there's leadership
There's where do they have power and control, you know?
And there's ways that we can give our children a sense of control and power that's healthy.
And I want us to think about all those pieces when we start to think about strong-willed kids.
What do you think?
To be honest, I feel like I have nothing else to really say in this one.
I think you very eloquently explained what you wanted to.
Yeah
Hey friends, so at pickup last week, our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan and he said
To our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurtry First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
So
Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent education for years
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unsafe.
safe touch and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise.
We made this course at Nurture First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak
up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturefirst.
com slash body safety and to save 10% use the code
Robot Unicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
I do want to just add a couple practical things.
Yes.
Well I was gonna ask if you go through each, like the sensitivity, the each of those and provide an example, but I have nothing to add to
Sure, let's provide an example of how we can help a child for each of those reasons why they might be appearing as strong-willed.
And let's use the question at the beginning of the podcast, which was defiance and stubbornness.
So how can we help a child who's defiant and stubborn as we look at those different areas?
So maybe remind me of each area as a pop quiz to see if you remember what I said.
I remember none of them.
This is my counterwheel coming out.
Yeah.
I refuse to answer.
I love whatever I say to Scott, tell me this.
And then I can immediately see his counterwheel, like I'm not telling you anything.
Okay, sensitivity.
I know that one because that's me.
Okay.
So we have a child who is appearing strong-willed.
They are
defiant and they are stubborn.
So we decide to get curious about sensitivities.
Let's use the underwear or socks as an example.
Every morning your child needs to put on underwear and socks in order to go to school.
Every morning, your child is defiant.
I don't want to wear underwear, I'm not putting it on.
And they're stubborn.
No, I'm not putting my socks on
No matter how many times you tell me and remind me, I'm not doing it, I'm going to school and bare feet.
Right?
Easy to see this as a defiant stubborn child.
Let's get curious about their sensitivity
Okay, underwear and socks are hard for you.
Those are both things that are on kind of sensitive parts of your body, right?
So in a quiet, calm moment, coming to your kid and saying, hmm, every morning's feeling tough.
I don't like how it's feeling.
Every morning you and I are getting into a fight about wearing underwear and wearing socks.
That's not really a great feeling.
I don't like starting my morning that way and I have a feeling you don't either, which how it goes.
Yeah, it sucks.
And again, you're doing this in a calm, quiet moment.
And you go, hmm, I wonder if there's like something about the underwear or the socks.
It's just like
not feeling right to you.
And the child goes, My socks feel fuzzy.
Fuzzy.
Okay.
That's an interesting description.
Like tell me more.
And you try and get curious with your child.
And this also shows them that you're on their team.
You want to work together, right?
And you can even say that.
I'm on your team.
I want to work together.
I want mornings to feel better.
I don't want to fight with you every single morning.
That doesn't feel right to me.
So that shows your child that you're the leader
as well.
So that also solves your leadership debate.
Your leadership struggles that I was talking about too, right?
You're the leader, you're taking charge.
Then you open up, let's say, Amazon, you say, okay.
Why don't together we try and find some underwear that's maybe gonna feel good for you?
You look on Amazon, you find seamless underwear.
That is often really helpful for kids who are highly sensitive, right?
The seams are often what bothers them
That's you're describing exactly what I did with our middle daughter.
Yes, exactly.
This is we've literally done this.
And you order the seamless underwear, it comes in, you let them try it on.
And oh my goodness, it feels so much better than this other underwear.
All of a sudden underwear is not bothersome anymore.
All of a sudden we don't have a strong child in the morning anymore because they have underwear on that actually fits their sensory needs.
So that's where I'd say to go if it's sensitivity and you could do the same thing with food, partner with them in a calm moment and basically just ask them what's up, get curious with them.
So that's one tip for the sensitivity piece.
Do you remember the other pieces I talked about?
Leadership.
You talked about that one already, so that's an easy one for me.
Yeah, leadership.
So as I was saying with the sensitivity one.
In that scenario, you are taking control.
You're being the leader.
You're no longer waiting for your child to have a meltdown every single morning and fight with them
In a calm, quiet moment, you are taking control.
So it's more like proactiveness.
Being proactive.
Yeah.
I'll give you another example for leadership
Let's say every single time it's time to turn off the TV, your child has a full-blown meltdown and they ask you for more and you get frustrated.
So it goes like this.
No more TV.
Okay, hun, you have one more episode left of your show.
Okay, episode's over.
Okay, hun, time to turn off the TV now.
No, I don't want to.
I want to watch more.
No, I told you one more episode.
No, I want to watch more.
Mom, let me watch more.
No, I told you one more episode.
full blown meltdown from the child.
Okay, fine, fine.
Like stop bugging me about it.
I have to make dinner.
One more episode.
Okay.
Child watches one more episode.
In that situation, who's leading it?
The child
Why is a child leading it?
You're asking me this question.
You're looking at me like I'm supposed to answer.
Answer me.
Why is a child leading it?
Because we're afraid to deal with the meltdown that comes
What's going to happen long term?
The child is going to know not to trust your first boundary, not to trust your second boundary, not to trust your third boundary, and to keep pushing until eventually you change your mind
And this is gonna happen then across many different things.
Real question.
What if I blame Siri for turning the TV off?
That's what we'll do in our home.
Okay, before we get into the the Siri thing, I don't know, maybe the TV situation is a bad example, but is there ever a time where you should be picking your battles?
Right?
Like in that situation, maybe you want to be
relatively strict on how much TV the kids watch.
But are there other examples where you might be like, okay, no, you know what?
You're right.
That's fine.
We'll do this thing one more time.
Or you can go down the slide one or two more times because they pushed.
Yeah, I mean something we've talked about on the podcast many times is everything's not black and white, right?
I think it's more like in general, are you someone who always changes your boundary?
Every time your child pushes, do you just say whatever?
Or are you someone who in general
is pretty good at holding your boundaries and on occasion you're like you know what you're right I'm being unrealistic like the other day I went to the park with our toddlers now
three and I was like okay let's go basically I was over it and I just wanted to go home so it's really hot and tired but we had pretty much just got there it was just a million degrees out and she was like
I'm gonna go on the swing and I was like no hun like let's just go home and then no we just got here like that right I'm not gonna swing yet and I was like she's so right
You know, I'm just my expectation is just totally like selfish because I don't feel like being here.
But really she's gone down the slide twice.
Like it's not really
fair to say, let's just go home.
So then I was like, you know what, you're right.
We haven't gone on the swing yet.
Let's do that.
I put her on the swing.
She went on the swing for a while.
And then I was like, let's go.
And she was like, okay.
And then we went home.
Right.
So sometimes you might realize mid-boundary that you've
been unrealistic and then it's okay to be flexible.
But I would say for the most part, also don't set boundaries that are unrealistic.
So maybe pause before you set a boundary, unlike
what I did during the park that day and ask yourself if it's realistic and you're willing to hold it.
I mean I think that's easier said than done.
But yeah, I mean clearly.
But then you're allowed to change your mind too.
Yeah.
What you're saying is just you can't do it all of the time
It's all about like in general, how do you act?
And then on occasion, if you're like, you know what, I said we weren't gonna get ice cream tonight, but you know what, screw it.
It's a hot night.
Let's go out and get ice cream.
On occasion, it's fine
It's just if every night you're doing that, then yeah, your child's gonna learn not to trust you.
Okay, that makes sense.
But that's a boundary that we set, right?
I don't actually.
They know.
But leadership in this situation would look like before your child turns on the TV, hey, you can't you have you're allowed to watch one show
One episode and then we're gonna turn it off.
The episode ends and the child doesn't want to turn it off, no problem.
You turn off the TV for them.
You just take that over and you turn off the TV for them.
They're upset with you?
No problem.
You can handle the disappointment.
Yeah, I know.
You really wanted to watch more shows.
It was fun to watch that show.
And as we
already planned, we are only doing one episode today and saying true to the expectation that you already placed.
That sounds so easy.
It's not it's not easy.
That means you're gonna handle a meltdown.
But what's gonna happen is it will become easier for you down the road.
Yeah.
Well, and they'll expect it more.
Yeah, yeah.
I understand what you're saying.
But I find is like with with our kids now, I feel like we're pretty consistent when we say set a boundary.
We're pretty consistent on it.
And I feel like we have so much less meltdowns over these types of things because they know
They just trust us.
They trust our leadership.
They know that we're gonna actually just turn off the TV for them then.
I just want to interject and say I have noticed a year later that this is really working well.
Yeah, honestly it it has been.
And it's not even like they typically get that upset about it either.
No.
Some I mean sometimes maybe the five year old well, maybe all of them do a little bit, but it's not as
Depends on the day.
Yeah, but they can get over it pretty quickly.
I find for the most part it's actually better for them.
They get less upset because they know I'm serious.
I think if I wasn't
serious, they'd get more upset because they'd be like, Well if I get more upset and I keep pushing you, eventually you're gonna say yes.
But they don't get to that point anymore because if I'm just like, we're going into the grocery store, we're not getting treats, we're literally going for milk and eggs, they're like, okay, we're going for milk and eggs, and we go.
Whereas like three years ago it would have been like meltdown central every time we went to the grocery store.
So it's Yeah, just a note that it's hard at first, but over time they do learn to respect it if you can stay consistent.
Yeah, for sure
Yeah, I would say in general we have pretty good boundaries around most consequential things, but then inconsequential, I can't even think of an example right now, but I feel like some things were like, okay, yeah, whatever, that's fine.
Yeah
Like obviously there's times where you're gonna be flexible.
Yeah.
But for the most part, if your child can learn to trust your boundary.
Yeah.
I think it's easy for people to hear you have to be the leader, you have to set boundaries, all that stuff.
as like now I am the dictator in this household.
I will have laws of my household and you will follow those laws and that is it.
But I personally I think it's important for kids and this is based on nothing but my own opinion and brain.
But I think it's important for kids to see s a little bit of leniency at times and a little bit of spontaneity, maybe.
Yeah, of course
Think of the best leaders that you know, like the leaders who were the best in your life.
They don't just bark orders at you all day.
That's not being a good leader that you're gonna trust and want to listen to.
Right.
Like if I'm thinking of a leader that I want to listen to and that I trust, yes, they have clear expectations and rules.
I know what to expect from them, I know what it's gonna be, but they also are interested in me
They talk to me.
They are curious about my life.
They also have some flexibility and they want to teach me new things.
Like part of being a good leader would also be like in a calm, quiet moment.
Hey, screen time's always tough
Like we're having a really tricky time turning the TV off and transitioning back to play.
I feel like we're fighting every single time.
I don't want to fight with you.
Like I'm on your team.
And I know you love screen time.
I want also to be able to give you screen time.
But I can't do that if every single time it's a fight
So how do you think we can make this work together?
Let's let's figure it out.
Like there's a collaborative aspect to being a leader too.
It's not just like dictatorship and telling someone what to do and what not to do.
I feel like
Again, just because even a podcast episode is still somewhat short to explain the nuance in situations.
I sort of wanted to mention that because I think it could easily be misconstrued that you saying you have to have boundaries.
You have to be the leader.
Yeah.
That means you're creating law in your household and you must hold fast always to every single rule that you have.
I even think about leadership for strong-willed children.
our quote unquote strong will child, now you know how I feel about that phrase, sometimes will be very insistent on who does her bedtime routine
Right?
And you and I swap off bedtime every other night with them.
That's just what we do.
They know that, they know what to expect.
But sometimes the counter will will come up and she'll know it's dad's turn
And she wants it to be mom's turn because no one's telling me whose turn it is to that time tonight.
But I think leadership in that moment is you're never yelling at her.
You have to be okay with dad putting you to bed, right?
You're never being so scary or threatening her, but you'll pick her up, she'll be crying, and be like, I know, hon.
Mommy is so fun
I love a mummy.
Puts you to bed too.
I can see all the reasons why mommy would be fun.
Fuck.
Can mommy do this?
And then you get really silly and playful with her.
As you carry her up to bed, holding that boundary while also being funny and silly and caring, and that's leadership too
So I just feel like it's important to note that leadership isn't yeah, like you said, it's not harsh, but it is it consistent in there's one more piece that we haven't talked about yet.
Do you remember?
Yes, but you tell me what it is so we know we're from the same thing.
I don't trust it.
Yeah.
The power.
Yes, I knew that.
Yes, of course, you knew that.
Of course you remembered.
So our children appear strong-willed, they appear stubborn and defiant, and they don't have control over things in their life
Right?
Or or life feels out of control.
I'm sure a lot of people can resonate with that even in their own life.
Like even as adults.
Yep.
When things feel out of control, you might be like
stuck on something like and that's like one little piece that's within your control in your life, right?
Adults are like that all the time.
I remember and we were struggling after having our baby and you were like stuck on I have to go for this bike ride at this specific time or something like that, right?
It's like 'cause that was like the one thing you could control is like going on your bike.
Anyway.
So then what we want to do for our kids who seek control.
is give them control, but in healthy ways.
Right?
So I like playing a game with the kids.
Some days when I've been like
super bossy to them and I feel like they haven't had any control and then the counterwheel starts coming out.
I'll be like, all right, let's just pause, let's play a game.
It's called Kids Are the Boss and you're gonna be the boss of me for 10 minutes
And whatever you tell me to do, I will do, I always say.
As long as it's not gross and as long as it's not like eating something that I don't want to do or it's unsafe.
But I'll do whatever you want me to do.
And usually it's just like being an animal or putting my clothes on backwards or doing something ridiculous.
And for whatever it is, ten minutes, I'll just do whatever the kids want me to do.
And that gives them a sense of control, but in a controlled way, right?
They get to have power, they get to tell me what to do, they get to boss me around
And I'm still the leader of it.
And then usually what happens is A, it connects us in relationship.
It brings us closer together.
B, I'm still being the leader because I'm telling them that now it's your time to have the control.
But see, it meets their needs for control and And they have fun.
They have fun doing it.
And at the end of it all, we've laughed, we've had fun, they've had a chance to get that need for control out, and then we can go on with our day 'cause there's like a clear start and finish to it.
So if parents are really stuck with stubborn kids, sometimes they'll say like add in playfulness, add in something like that, or they do have a sense of control
Maybe give them a job, what can they do around the house, give them a job, give them something to do?
And ideally things that also bring you closer in relationship
because I mean the underlying theme of all of this always is relationship.
Your child needs to know that you're tuning in with them, you care for them, you want to help them.
And so sometimes this can come out and like, hey, why don't you be in charge of putting all the spoons on the table tonight?
Like you're in charge, you figure out how many spoons that we need, you do it, I'm gonna totally trust you.
And so what if they put 15 spoons on the table, right?
Like
Give them pieces where they can control and you'll see less of those power struggles.
Beautiful.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Yeah.
What did you contribute to this conversation?
I was actually thinking that at the end I was going to comment on how how much I spoke during this episode and how I contributed.
Like so glad you're here.
Yeah, so glad I'm here.
Thanks for being part of this and really
You know, contributing something.
There's a real lack of respect I'm sensing from you in this episode.
Scott never's listened to these back, so he has no idea what I've actually kept into all the episodes
Yeah, this is actually I think the first one that I've listened to fully listened to.
Oh yeah.
Do you like how I paint you?
Yeah, wow.
You really cut out all of the pieces that I said that were so eloquent.
Quentin beautifully said.
There's probably gonna be people that message you saying don't not to be so mean to me.
I know, I always get that.
Yeah.
I know.
But Scott's okay, don't worry.
Jess says so herself.
Yeah.
But I do hope that you found this helpful and also
There's still so much more I could have got into here, right?
Like being strong-willed, having power struggles.
Like we could have specifically got into defiance and not listening, like I want to, but
Future episodes.
We gotta cut it off somewhere.
So let us know if you have any questions, comments about this episode, things that you think about strong will children, and
just know a lot of this is just my own personal reflections.
Of course, like there's research on it as well, but a lot of kind of my insights into strong willed children is just based on
working with so many kids called strong willed and knowing that there's something else going on underneath the surface.
Yeah.
I do have a point to add.
Yep.
I think the one piece that
If you're a regular listener that you might be flagging, we didn't talk about enough, I think, is the relationship and separation anxiety.
That would be one piece I would add
if I were to re-record that episode today, that I don't think we talked about how separation anxiety is often also related to strong-willed kids, aka if the child doesn't feel connected to their parent or they feel like
frantic to kind of keep their parent close that can make a child appear strong-willed when really they're just trying to keep their parent close.
And so one practical thing that we can do, I literally have this
Is something like draw a heart on your hand, draw a heart on your child's hand, find ways to make them feel connected to you even when they're apart, write them a love note in their lunch.
Like that kind of thing can also just ease the nervous system and calm down strong will.
Yeah.
I think that's a
A good idea.
So final thing, looking ahead, what is the ultimate gift that you think a parent can give their strong-willed child when they choose to parent them with connection and respect instead of
control and what can the child then carry into the world with them.
I think the best gift any parent can ever give their child is to truly want to understand them, see them, and know them
I think when we can do that and tell them you're so important to me and I see the human underneath your behavior, we can really help our kids.
I think stopping the labels, I still stand by that
and just seeing the human and that behavior is communication is the best thing we can ever do for our children.
It makes them feel seen, loved, heard and know that you just endlessly care for them and that even in itself just helps to cool down the nervous system and
cool down the strong will.
So I think that's the best gift that we can give kids.
I still stand by everything I said in this episode.
I really liked it.
And I hope that people found it helpful to hear it.
Again with a few little side comments from us.
Commentary.
Maybe I should be listening to more of our episodes.
The only thing I would say is I feel like you contribute a lot more now.
Well I feel like this specific episode I didn't, but
I feel like a lot of the other ones I did, did I not?
Well you had more questions.
Now I feel like you Well I prepare a lot more than advance.
Great.
Well I have to go.
I have to go see some some kiddos for my work.
So enjoy that.
Thanks for listening to the added commentary to this.
uh episode.
Appreciate you listening.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
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