Happy 2024! This is the first episode of the new year and I’m so excited to be back with you. In this episode, I am talking all about raising strong willed kids. I feel so passionately about this topic that I am doing a group coaching program starting this month all about how to raise strong willed kids more effectively. The reality of the situation is conventional parenting advice just isn’t that effective when it comes to parenting a strong willed kid. Parents of strong willed kids seek out advice or methods to make their lives better and more manageable. However, the results of trying these conventional tactics leave them feeling defeated or scrambling for other ideas of what to do next. Here are just some of the topics related to raising strong willed kids that you won’t want to miss:

Giving Choices

• There’s nothing wrong with giving choices but the advice is over-given to the point where it isn’t useful anymore. 
• Too many choices is the opposite of what a strong willed child wants. 
• Strong willed kids want to feel like they’re the ones in charge. 
• When there are too many options, they begin to feel scared, out of control, and everything feels overwhelming. 
• Who is the safe person? Where is the boundary? 
• They are looking for stability and for someone else to be in power with them. 
• Strong willed kids value power over approval. 

Setting Boundaries

• With strong willed kids, boundaries have to be clear with clear actions or consequences when the boundary is broken. 
• We cannot rely on a lot of language or explanations because strong willed kids are smart. Explanations won’t change the outcome or the behavior. 
• You must hold the boundary for an extended period of time. On average, we give up trying after three attempts at a new method without a “positive” result.
• We associate dysregulation with something not working in our parenting and change our method or use fear-based tactics. 

Staying Calm

• A dysregulated child will not calm down with a dysregulated adult. The biggest thing you can do is stay calm when your child is struggling or having a big outburst. 
• A calm parent will help a child calm down ten times faster than a dysregulated parent.
• When the parent is dysregulated, the strong willed child’s negative emotions are either rewarded or completely shut down and do not learn how to process hard emotions. 
• We want to help our kids be able to sit with their emotions. 

Here are the details on January Group Coaching: 

• Group coaching is limited to a small group of only 10 people to help build connection and lean on one another. The goal is to grow a community where you feel supported and connected to other parents going through the same things as you. 
• I’ll give you real tools to implement in your home. It’s a hands-on approach to help you learn new methods for parenting your strong willed child.  
• There will be four sessions that meet once a week for one month. 

Resources: 

Sign up for the January Group Coaching waitlist: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe

Sign up for a FREE 20 minute discovery call: https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/p/free-discovery-call-ck6qf

If you would like to do my 2 month 1:1 coaching with me to get a custom road map on how best to tune into your child’s needs, book a free call to see if we are a good fit. https://stan.store/theparentingreframe/theparentingreframe_store/page/51536

Be sure to sign up for my Substack newsletter for longer and more specialized parenting content: https://albiona.substack.com/ 

I hope you found this episode helpful; for more parenting tips, check out my website and blog for more information. https://theparentingreframe.com/

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theparentingreframe/

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theparentingreframe