Raising a Fighter

I have been known to describe one of my children as a “strong willed child.” I have come to learn some parents have a negative connotation with that phrase. They feel it implies a child is stubborn or just plain naughty. I’ve just never had that feeling about it. I’m guessing that has to do with growing up being called a “strong willed child” myself. I vividly remember my dad (a man of few words) telling me when I was a very young kid that every person has a personality that’s made up of their natural gifts and tendencies. He said your personality is like a bag of groceries– you have lots of ingredients in there you can use to make something wonderful or something yucky. He said having a strong will was a great ingredient to have, but you had to use it the right way to see something wonderful. I found that inspirational, if maybe only because I’ve always enjoyed food. If you want an analogy I’ll understand, please don’t use sports, just use food.

It is frustrating to parent a strong willed child. If you’re wondering if you have one, then I’m going to guess that you don’t. Strong willed kids don’t leave much doubt about the extent of their will. If you have one, you know it. My test for identifying a strong willed child is to put them in the bed at night. Simple enough. My compliant kids stay in the bed. They yell things from the bed on occasion (“I need potty!” “Time wake up?”), but they stay in the bed as if compelled by some magical force. Your strong willed child does not stay in the bed. You give consequences, you use sticker charts, you beg and plead. Your child does not stay in the bed. Am I a different mother with this child than with the siblings? If only one way of parenting worked the same way for each kid. But these kids have their own gifts. They come with their own little ingredients and we are so involved in shaping them into something wonderful.

So for those of you who are in the trenches (or in the kitchen, if we can go back to the food analogy), I just want to tell you why I love the will and the fight in my little one. First of all, he had a rough start in life. I have often wondered if a child with less persistence and less will would have even survived what those weeks of pregnancy and those early weeks of life were like. So value that this tough child is a fighter because maybe it has already sustained them through trials we don’t know about or wouldn’t understand.

As a former strong willed child myself I am also free to tell you what your kid won’t– they need you to be stronger than they are. Even if you’re naturally more compliant or want desperately for everybody to just get along, you have to convince your child that you know best. Your little fighter needs a cause, needs to trust you, needs to know you’re right, even if that’s what you would most think they are fighting against. And once you’ve convinced them you’re worth trusting, you’ll be amazed how far you can trust them. Even through highschool I would sit at the dinner table and argue with my parents about just about any topic, but when the kids at school brought up that same topic, I had no trouble arguing with a passion exactly the position my parents had expressed. I needed to know there were rules and reasons and once I was fully convinced I had no trouble articulating it to my peers. I was fearless.

So take heart when your kid is fighting you about eating broccoli and you think they’ll be sitting at that dinner table forever. This is the same kid who will have no trouble saying “no” in the face of peer pressure when kids are asking him to make choices against what you’ve taught him. IF (if if if if if) you’ve won his heart. If you’ve given him reasons to believe you love him and you are trustworthy. This is my hope for my tough fighter, although I know it will be not just because of my teaching, but by the grace of God that he learns to submit his will to those in authority over him.

So if your kid is pitching a fit in the church nursery about putting on his shoes, you might see me smile. I don’t mean to be cruel, I’m just seeing a future leader expressing the strength of his persistence. And if you hear me mutter, “Get him, Ma” (which I literally often do) it’s because I want to see you step up to the challenge and win the battle for his heart so that someday he’ll be ready to battle for your ideals, too. You can do it!