I wrote a few weeks ago about how to get an intractable toddler to leave somewhere they are unwilling to leave. A reader commented that it’s great to know how to deal with stubborn children, but how do you deal with being a stubborn parent?

I’m constantly fascinated by this aspect in myself, and other parents. How is it that I can be critical of my child being stubborn, and yet it takes me so long to realise that I am often being equally stubborn. Whose stubbornness carries the most weight? And how fair is that?

Nearly always it is the adult’s stubbornness (or a nicer word: ‘wants’) that carries more weight. But why? Why is it that the adult’s desire is more important than the childs? And is there an argument for taking our children’s desires as seriously as we take our own?

I believe there is. I believe that this sort of negative, coercive interaction, that comes out of putting our own wants before those of our children is bad for them, and for us. I don’t pretend for one minute that I don’t do this myself – I do, constantly. But I don’t really feel comfortable with it, and when I do it a lot, I notice my relationship with my children deteriorate and, along with it, their behaviour.

So I try to train myself to really examine situations – the times I say ‘we can’t do that because…’ and decide whether that reason really is valid, and whether there is a creative way I can think around the problem to solve it in a way that suits both me and my child.

And I try to get them involved, which usually shows me what wonderfully creative thinkers children are! (Let me just make it clear here that this is what I am able to do on a good, calm day, not what I do on a normal, frantic, stressed, over-tired day!).

An example (with a made-up child!):

Lily, who is six, doesn’t want to brush her teeth. I want her to. She doesn’t want to brush her teeth because she hates the taste of the toothpaste. I want her to brush her teeth so that they don’t get decayed. So we go together to buy some toothpaste that tastes different.

That’s an easy solution…what if it’s not the toothpaste she doesn’t like. What if she can’t think of a reason – she just doesn’t want to do it? So I go and do some research into tooth brushing, not being one to accept wide-ranging, one-size fits all advice, and I discover this (for example – have not actually done this research so don’t take it as given – I just know from experience that what we think we know is often not actually correct!):

• that tooth-brushing is about bathing teeth in flouride regularly and about removing stray food
• that there are other ways to bathe teeth in flouride – dental chewing gum being one of them
• that there are other ways to remove food from your teeth – using a mouthwash, eating an apple after each meal
• that there are a lot of other factors that come into teeth hygiene and that the largest one by far, even larger than tooth-brushing, is diet

So I say to Lily:

‘I am worried about your teeth and that is why I like you to brush them twice a day. But I understand that you hate doing that. I’ve found some things out about tooth brushing – if I tell them to you, do you think we could come up with a plan to keep your teeth clean and healthy that makes us both comfortable and happy?’

And we decide together that she’ll brush her teeth every night, and chew dental gum every morning, and we agree that she’ll only have juice with meals and cut back on sweets. The dental gum as a replacement for a tooth brushing session is Lily’s idea

The result?

• I get her to have the clean teeth I am so worried about calmly and happily
• She feels listened to and that I take her desires seriously
• She has, in turn, learned to listen to me and take my desires seriously
• She has been able to practice making a very rational decision
• She trusts the information that I am able to share with her as a more experienced adult

If I’d done it the old way?

• I get her to have the clean teeth I am so worried about but with screams, and tears, and a lot of coercion, or bribery
• She doesn’t feel listened to or respected
• She has no interest in listening to or respecting me
• She has had the chance to learn how to make rational decisions taken out of her hands
• She has no reason to trust that I ask her to do things for rational reasons, and could well grow up with a strong desire to make irrational decisions simply in order to do the opposite of what I want or suggest

Personally, I believe that this creative-thinking way of parenting is better for children, parents and families, but to parent like this, we need a hefty dose of self-respect and ability to talk honestly and openly with our children.

We need to believe in them as rational human beings whose only lack is knowledge and experience but who have a huge advantage over us as adults when it comes to creative thinking.

And we need to open our minds and believe that our reasons for coercing a child or refusing a child something may not be rational in the wider sense of the word – it may just be a culturally conditioned version of ‘rational’.

Give it a try – next time you’re about to say ‘no’ or ‘you must’ to your child, take a step back and ask yourself if the reason is a truly rational one. And let me know how you get on! I’ll try and come up with some other examples for future posts.

Images: Smoorenburg, Flickr; Analog Weapon, Flickr