Sadly, I am not writing this post to reminisce about my favorite 80’s sitcom, although I guess it WAS kind of about a power struggle…so en pointe. Because this post is about a power-hungry five-year-old and her frustrated mother.
Sophie was stubborn and strong-willed from the moment she left the womb, and we’ve had our share of power struggles in the past, but since she’s come through her language delay, things have been much easier. Until now. Recently, girlfriend has decided to test me HARD in a couple of areas. The power struggle is ON, and I am determined to let her know I am still the Alpha Female in this household.
The times Sophie most tries to assert herself as the one in “control” are when we are getting ready to get dressed or leave the house, and at dinner time. Two or three times a week she will refuse to go potty/get dressed before school or gymnastics, or any random time when we need to get out the door. Then, every night at dinner if there is something on her plate she doesn’t “like” (i.e. anything not fruit, yogurt, or peanut-butter related) she absolutely refuses to eat it until she is threatened with punishment and/or I shovel the bites into her mouth for her. She would rather go to her room for the rest of the evening thaan eat those bites. She would rather lose iPad privileges than eat those bites. She would give up TV, computer, Wii – anything before she’d eat those bites. So I ALWAYS make her eat them, rather than “grounding” her from something. But it takes lots of extra time and usually I am a little hot under the collar by the time all is said and done.
And, even though I have yet to let her “win” this one, she still does it every time she is offered food she doesn’t want to eat. I know she is winning a partial victory just by causing so much inconvenience and irritation for me in the first place. The other night I was pretty much convinced she is a sociopath. *Ahem*.
I pretty much just don’t know what to do with her, other than, as I have said many times, save my pennies for either a) her stay at boarding school or b) my stay in the looney bin in aabout 2021.
Which is why I had to laugh when TheMotherhood.com asked me to co-host a chat this Thursday, 3/15 at 1PM EST with a few other fab bloggers and Susan Stiffelman, the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles. I saw the info about this talk in their newsletter and was totally going to attend anyway, so BONUS! Susan is a family therapist, and an officianado on parent-child power struggles, and she did, after all, write the book! She’s also the Parent Coach at the Huffington Post and I cant wait to hear what she has to say! The talk is all-text, here at the Motherhood.com. I hope you’ll join me and my co-hosts for some straight-forward talk about how to eliminate power struggles. Perhaps after Thursday’s talk I’ll be able to start saving my pennies for something a little more exciting than a stay at the funny farm. Like a stay at a spaaaaaaaaa. Or a lifetime supply of Mountain Dew and Cadbury Creme eggs. You know, something really valuable.
I hope you’ll join us on Thursday! I’m not being compensated or sponsored for my participation, it’s just a topic I am really interested in and need to learn about right now, and I am glad to have a great interactive forum in which to do so.
I’d like to have some other viewpoints besides my own going into this, so tell me, what are some of the power struggles you have with your kids?
Mrs. Duggar…blah, blah, blah…and I can’t identify, Shelby was a breeze.
UP
Um, you have 2 children…
Mack – “like”!
Donovan was breezeish.
Puny baby, met his deductible by the end of January each year. Has never slept through the night…he’s 23.
UP
Food, why is this a battle with our children? Shouldn’t it be a magical happy thing that brings joy and satisfaction to all. Have I mentioned I have a child who doesn’t eat? Like at all? Like I actually took pictures of the food she ate yesterday because it may have been the first time she ate an entire plate of food in one sitting.
Food certainly brings joy to me!
Especially ham biscuits!
UP
Wow sounds exactly like my house with my almost 4 year old! She fights me on getting dressed, going potty, on food, and whatever else she feels like she needs to control that specific day. Maybe sophie and her could go away together =)
Unfortunately I don’t feel like I keep my cool very well with her which I just finished praying about that before I read this so I will DEF be joining thursday’s chat to see what insights I can learn!!
Sophie &the Avery really are kindred spirits and they seem to go through the same stuff at the same time! Avery has been VERY challenging the past few weeks (or months or years;)
I have two boys ages 7 and 5. My 5 yr old is quite particular about what clothes he wears. He wears a size 5T but HATES shirts that are too long, which is a normal length to anyone else. He insists on wearing his size 4T white shirts.
Around the house it’s fine most of the time but by the end of the day that same shirt is an array of colored stains; a historical map of what he did that day. I only insist he wears a print shirt when we go out of the house so that we don’t look like some backwoods family crawling out of a bunker.
A good book, that has been a wealth of knowledge to me, is Love and Logic, which is used in some schools where I live. I do find it hard to remain in control of my emotions when all I’m thinking of is, “I want to win! I’M the mommy! I’M the mommy!”
I can SO relate. Jack definitely wants to win – fights about going potty multiple times a day (does he not realize it will make him FEEL better, let alone allow him stop hopping around on one foot while trying to hold it all in!?) and eating (seriously, we sat at the table for an extra hour one night for him just to taste ONE BITE of a sweet potato fry!) and we find ourselves in a cycle of threatening and bribing. He rarely wins, but he keeps trying, and I end up feeling like such a mean mommy! We did start a marble jar (I’m not ashamed to say I stole the idea from SuperNanny!) where he can earn marbles when we catch him being a good listener, behaving well, etc…the earned marbles add up to earn a toy he really wants. He earned a Christmas train that way, and is working on a remote controlled car now. It helps…some days. 🙂
Why in the WORLD does a child this age have IPAD PRIVILEGES?!?! And you’ve already lost the battle by forcing her to eat the food instead of taking away privileges. She won’t go hungry if you make her go to her room. She will figure it out eventually and come back out to eat once she is hungry enough. That is exactly what my parents did with me. Unfortunately, they did NOT use this same technique on my younger brother. Instead they gave in to what he wanted or try to force him to eat instead of taking away privileges and sending him to his room. He is now 16 year old and the only foods he eat are cheese, pizza, bread, chicken nuggets, and sweets. He is also very overweight now and nobody can convince him to try healthier foods and to start exercising. He would rather stay inside on the computer all day then to go out for a walk or play basketball or any activity that requires him to exert energy. I’m not saying your child will end up like my brother, but I will say that the differences in learned behavior are very drastically vast. You could have a child who outgrows it or they don’t, and their likelihood of outgrowing it and staying healthy really does weigh significantly on YOU as the parent and how you handle this sort of behavior.
I can tell that you are new to this blog, or you would know that Sophie has iPad privileges because she uses the iPad for speech therapy. That is the whole reason we BOUGHT AN iPAD. Also, I hesitated to even WRITE this post because of reactions like yours. When I said “two to three times a week” I have a power struggle with her, I was hoping to let readers know that in general she is NOT a behavior problem, but that I would like to find a way to avoid and de-fuse these power struggles when they do arise. She knows how to push my buttons and I am not good at being cool and calm when she does. Sophie is by no means perfect, but in general she is a joy to parent.
As far as eating, I know she won’t starve. But she also needs to learn to obey me even when she doesn’t want to. Also, she weighs 38 lbs and she’s 5 years old. That’s like the 30th percentile. It’s not like I let her eat candy bars all day and complain when she won’t eat her veggies.