Stubborn Children | Imamother

5*Mom

Tue, Jan 05 2016, 8:17 am

amother wrote:

Thank you all! I'm reading and absorbing all the advice.

One problem that I've noticed is trying to "Plan C" a lot of stuff before is that it makes DD expand her areas of stubborness. If I don't keep a fairly tight reign, then she's stubborn about EVERYTHING. I tried doing this for a few months of really picking my battles, but she became way more inflexible. It was like she knew that you were letting her get away with things so she dug her heels into more situations where she might have been flexible.

You can't let it eat you up each time you decide to let something go for now because of course she will sense the nonverbal message. If you're letting it go, you have to let it go graciously and be okay with that.

Fox

Tue, Jan 05 2016, 11:39 am

amother wrote:

If I don't keep a fairly tight reign, then she's stubborn about EVERYTHING. I tried doing this for a few months of really picking my battles, but she became way more inflexible. It was like she knew that you were letting her get away with things so she dug her heels into more situations where she might have been flexible.

Your language is suggesting more and more that this is about control. You are locked into a battle that you cannot win.

It's time to declare "peace with honor" and pull the last helicopter out of Saigon.

I missed The Explosive Child because it came a little after my kids were small and didn't ostensibly speak to any issues I was having. I've read a lot about it, though, and I honestly agree with others that this is the place to start. But please go into it with an open mind, understanding that you will be called upon to change some of your own attitudes and the way you see your DD.

Parenting is ultimately about leadership, not about authority. There are plenty of soi-disant chinuch experts in the Torah world who will point to the obligation of children to "fear" their parents and claim that any ceding of control amounts to hippy-dippy permissiveness.

That couldn't be further from the truth. True "fear" is not fear of an authority figure; that's more likely "evasion." The kind of fear described in the Torah is generated by respect: the "fear" of disappointing or letting down people whom one respects. And you can't generate respect if you're locked into a negative cycle of behavior.