Oh my Willful Child!

Honoring your young child’s will

To bring more ease and joy into your parenting.

Maybe your little one has just begun saying “no”…with relish. Maybe you are navigating the transition from sweet little baby to boundary-testing toddler. Maybe your almost 3 year old no longer follows your lead or your 4 year old doesn’t listen. For parents, this can be so frustrating or even dangerous.

What is a parent supposed to do now? What do you need to add to your parenting tool box? This is one of the most common parenting challenges that comes up in my parent coaching sessions! Unfortunately, there  isn’t a quick tool because it isn’t about re-directing a child’s behavior. It isn’t even about setting more boundaries(although it may be, if you don’t have any in place yet) This is really about understanding the human will. Let’s try this contemplation:

Have you ever felt compelled to do something? Consider a time when your inner voice led you forward and you couldn’t explain why you felt so driven. You just had to do it. You might even go so far as to say that if someone had stepped in your way, you would have been really upset, as if your whole world would fall apart. Or maybe you just ignored them because you were so intent on doing the thing. Can you live into that feeling for a moment? 

Ahhhhhh…Welcome the world of the young child - a being so governed by it’s own will, it defies the adult laws of reason, logic and the concept of time at every turn! 

We hear about children who are willful but isn’t every young child  full of will and isn’t it up to us as caregivers to help them harness this will in a healthy way? After all, we human beings need healthy will forces to navigate the world. We need them for creative thinking, problem solving, inner motivation and overcoming obstacles. Ultimately, we need them to be free! Combine this with empathy and love and joy that these young children have in abundance and the future looks bright indeed!

The will lives in the metabolic-limb system. That is why the young child is always moving and exploring. The young child learns by doing much more than listening to someone explain, narrate or “teach”. Everything we do as an adult is a learning moment because the young child actively imitates our actions which naturally integrates the will.  Once we understand how important the young child’s will is, we can honor where our children are developmentally right now while consciously guiding them into the future. It will also bring more ease and joy into our parenting along the way.

Here are some suggestions to help:

Supporting the young child’s will:

• Creating strong family rhythms and rituals that honor repetition and loving boundaries
• Allowing your child to learn by imitation rather than instruction
• Freedom of self-movement and exploration which includes achieving milestones, falling, getting up and struggling along the way
• Imaginative, child-initiated play without adult interruption
• Living in the present moment
• Slowing down and simplifying
• Wonder and gratitude
• Being in nature 

Hinderances to the young child’s will:

• Absence of loving boundaries and rhythm in a young child’s life
• Intellectual over stimulation (constantly explaining, narrating and asking and answering too many questions)
• Hurrying
• A busy schedule (too many adult-led activities)
• No time or opportunity to explore dressing, eating, playing, climbing up, down, in, out by themselves 
• Screen time