How can I make my child do what I want? What happened, what went wrong, he was such a good baby?

Only a wave of complete unconditional love and joy fills our whole being when we first hold our newborn babies. The only thoughts are about protection, nurturing, caring and the want to raise this innocent little one the best way possible. What is not on our minds is our precious babies turning into children with oppositional defiant behaviours.



As babies grow from stage to stage such as tantrumming toddlers, tricky 3 year olds, independent 4 year olds and then kindergarten, prep and finally school kids they have acquired their set ways of likes and dislikes, wants and needs. Must of all they are satisfying their psychological needs related to fun, play, choices and self-power. It is also very probable that an early age they were ignoring mum's requests to finish play, put the toys away, go for a bath or get dressed for school. They learned that saying no, taking no notice or yelling back were successful ploys.



What a parent might not realise is that a little child has already worked out when to follow a direction or not. Each child knows how far he/she can push the boundaries. The mums and it is usually the mums who experience the defiant behaviour, they do not recognise that the tone of their voices, the wordiness of their requests and and the way they express themselves are at fault. What usually follows is the mum's yelling and threatening. It is only when she really looses it the child complies. The mother is exhausted and the child is smiling.



Many things go very wrong with mother who are experiencing difficulties getting children to comply. Like for instance, mothers do not realise that they are over talking and pleading rather than using short to the point firm directions ending with a thank you. Children know how far to go before the explosion. Mums tend to give threats and not follow through. Children worked this out early on and are not bothered because they know mums do not mean what they say. And so the nightmare of non-compliance continues day in and day out.



All children push the boundaries, it is what they are good at. Depending on the make-up of the child, he/she may have been doing since the tantrumming 2 year old stage. If they are rewarded by winning the fights then it is very likely that the oppositional behaviours keeps going much to the angst of the unaware parents. This is the pits for parents because children hold the power.

Cheers and Blessings



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