Journey of a Strong-Willed Child
Written with her son (now an adult) Aaron and her husband John, Smiley discusses the process of raising a strong-willed child from birth to college. John adds so much wisdom to each point. Aaron adds insight into the mind of a strong-willed person. This book explains the challenges at various points of the childhood experience.
“Strong-willed” has become the “it” word in parenting. Unfortunately, it is used for those children who lack strong boundaries provided by the adults in their life. Smiley explains that strong-willed children are not simply stubborn. Strong-willed child choose “fighting and punishment over acquiescence… [and will] resolutely defend his position and question any and all authority over him to determine his or her “right” to retain command.”
As a recovering strong-willed child myself and as a mother of more than one strong-willed child, this book was extremely helpful to me. While it received a lot of “amens” from this reader, I also found myself looking into the air and pondering what I read. I gained several “ah-ha” moments.
Kendra has such an easy way of writing. I felt like I was sitting down on her living room sofa, with a hot drink, talking about the joys and challenges of raising a strong-willed child. I would love to meet John (the father) because it was obvious this man is filled with godly wisdom and patience.
There were two points that I came away with after reading.
- A strong-willed child is persistent and is even willing to take punishment to win.
- A strong-willed child does not necessarily want to control everyone else; he simply does not want to be controlled.
There are times when I take my child’s disobedience personally. Kind of like he/she “did” such-and-such just to get back at me. In reality the child simply wanted what he/she wanted. Period.
Here are a few more points that I feel are important:
- Disciplining a strong-willed child can be frustrating. This often leads to the incorrect conclusion that a discipline doesn’t work. A parent intermittently reinforces a child’s noncompliance by switching strategies. [Don’t bounce from idea to idea. Pick one and stick with it.]
- Being clear about your instructions is as important as being clear about your consequences.
- Every day you have to decide where you’ll draw the line – what behavior is permissible and what will not be tolerated. You’ll have to be ready for battle every day until your child makes his own decision to stop battling.
- Keep things in perspective. Always look at the big picture.
- Don’t change the rules. Think before you make them. [This is extremely important for a strong-willed child. They see things black and white.]
- A strong-willed child is a child who desires control of his world while desiring to be lovingly controlled.
These points represent a small percentage of the points that I underlined while going through this book.
I found this book very enlightened. I found myself finding answers to why I do some things! I feel this book would be extremely helpful for those parents who are not strong-willed themselves yet find themselves trying to raise a strong-willed child. This is not a step-by-step discipline book. While a few specifics are giving, I wish the authors would have gotten deeper into the nitty-gritty because she obvious had the wisdom to.
