The continuing saga of Sally and Mom...

Back to bedtime power struggles from this earlier post.  Mom as you recall, not recognizing that Sally was pursuing the goal of reward without responsibility, had gotten herself into a power struggle with Sally.  Mom's goal was to get Sally to pick up her toys and then for her to move into the bedroom to get ready for bed.  Sally's goal was to ignore Mom's regular nightly admonition because she was enjoying playing with her toys and didn't want to stop... very normal, garden variety foolishness.  Mom, not appreciating Sally's indifference to her directions, slipped seamlessly into a power struggle. Here's the thing:  the default response in a parent to a child's disobedience is to meet that disobedience with superior force (warnings, threats, spankings) as a way to get them to obey.  It seems so right.  Obedience is good.  My child isn't obeying.  So, I will get my child to obey!  But as we've seen, and any parent has surely experienced, this often leads to an escalating episode of emotion, warnings, and threats resulting in little real obedience.

My premise is that most parents (even those who understand this stuff) are already part way into a power struggle before they realize, "Oops, bad idea."  So when you find yourself in a power struggle, the first thing to do is to stop going in that direction.  Stop trying to get "Sally" to obey.  In other words, get out of the power struggle.  The power struggle is due to the wrong goal that you've committed yourself to, i.e. get "Sally" to obey.  Extricating yourself from the power struggle entails jettisoning that wrong goal*.  As parents, we entirely underestimate our own culpability for these kinds of situations.  But Jack, are you saying just let Sally disobey?  Of course not.  But the path to effective parenting is not through parents winning power struggles.  Better to back out of a power struggle not knowing what to do next than to continue in a battle of the wills.  You can't go in a good direction without first stopping the wrong direction.  Think repentance first, then a new direction.

*Remember, a goal is something you're committed to and believe you must accomplish.  What I call a good goal is one in which you can take 100% responsibility for completing, i.e. a good goal and the actions to carry out that goal are not dependent on the cooperation of another for success.   A bad or wrong goal would be one you're committed to accomplishing in which you do need the cooperation of another for success.