Let's put the cognitive processing (child and also parent) in the whole disciplinary issue under a somewhat different microscope. I'll just cut to the chase on the two questions here then I'll back up and flesh them out. These are two important questions I think you should ask yourself BEFORE you are in the throes of disciplining your mini-me (though you may ask them again in the heat of the moment if, like me,you sometimes give yourself a time out and go and watch the oven clock for 1 or 2 minutes as you catch your breath and remind yourself calmy of your answers to these two questions). Your answers can have a huge impact on how you are going to proceed. For the record, my son is now rapidly approaching 5.5 and it's been sometime since I needed to commune with the oven clock. Light…tunnel…you get the idea.

Question 1:  Who's driving this relationship anyway? Answer: ESPECIALLY if your child is under 4 – YOU ARE!!! No really, you are.

Question 2:  What are you really hoping to achieve by disciplining your child?  Answer: Depends upon the parent.

Let's take 'em  in order.

Q1:  A parent who believes that their child is in control might have the following thought processes…"I hate it when he/she DOES THIS TO ME. He/She is just TRYING TO GET THE BETTER OF ME. The world does NOT evolve around him/her. I need to make that clear to him/her.". This sets up a huge challenge because the parent is now not only facing dealing with the incident that seems to warrant disciplinary action, but they are faced with the task of showing the child who is in control (that would be you). 

Some parents will immediately acquiese, not so much as a means to obtain a different end in the larger scheme of things (an excellent suggestion in one of Bella's recent posts, see also next q), but because it's just easier, puts an end to episode right away and we can all get on with our lives. Effectively this parent HANDS THE CONTROL OVER to the child and the more you do this, the more you reinforce the idea that they, NOT YOU, are in charge. So, you were right anyway. Net result: you are helpless to change this and can only hope and pray it will pass. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Other parents may see this as the opportunity to set the record straight on who is actually in charge. Little so and so needs to be taught a lesson. So the parent asserts him- or her- self (sometimes even harshly). Read: I am wrestling control from you, you need to be taught that I am in control here, not you. The stern even harsh disciplinary action sets up resistance in the child (it's not very nice of you after all) and now the battle can go on indefinitely. My guess is that it will.

Interestingly, there is research on parent's sense of control in their relationship with their child/children that shows that parents who attribute control to the child, rather than to themselves, are more likely to use harsh measures, even abuse them (as in the second scenario, described above).  In contrast, parents that view themselves as being in control are more likely to negotiate or reason with their children.

My point is that misattributing control to the child, rather than to yourself, will lead to a very different set of actions than if you go in thinking that you are in control in the first place. In the latter case you don't have anything to prove – you take it as given that you are in control. Now you are free to focus on the incident at issue and how to deal with it. You may now be more likely (even able), to see it from your child's point of view ("Darn it, can I just have a little control in this world of random rules imposed by parents all the time…"). So now you can give in but with a bigger plan in mind e.g. "I'll give in on this (not that worried about whether they put on the red or the blue socks, just put on some socks for heaven's sake!) and not make it into a huge battle. I'll give him or her a choice of actions or a time limit etc. but still use reasoning, explain why it has to be this way. OKAY, FINISH YOUR GLASS OF WATER QUICK AS A BUNNY, YOU NEED TO GET SOME SLEEP OTHERWISE YOU'LL BE TIRED AT PLAYDATE/PRESCHOOL/SWIMMING LESSONS etc. in the morning."

The reasoning approach probably describes most of you based on your comments, the other one may seem remote/extreme. But it's worth remembering who is in control in the heat of the moment. Might just help you gain some objectivity (hard to do in the heat of battle) and re-orient you to your larger goals here. Which leads me to question 2. 

Q2: What are you trying to achieve here anyway?  Here's the scene: End of a hectic day, you just picked up the little one (s) from daycare/preschool etc., gotta get some groceries and get home to throw something together in about an hour (why did you invite the neighbours over tonight of all nights anyway, what the heck were you thinking?). Little so and so is tired too, maybe needs a snack. So naturally after you run around simultaneously loading up the shopping cart, while "gently" removing small hands from unwanted items/shelves etc. and finally get into the huge line up, he or she throws the tantrum of a lifetime. Cue: disciplinary action from you. 

What are you after here?  Quick end to the episode – you are red with embarassment, everyone is looking disapprovingly at you and your child, this is a really uncomfortable public display for you and you are looking mighty incompetent. For the short-term change goal, you may be more inclined to give in ("here eat the candy or open the toy or whatever"), really assert yourself ("I am not going to tell you again to get up off the floor or else…one…two…") or drop everything and leave – your dinner plans now down the drain.

If on the other hand, you are invested in cultivating a good long-term relationship with your child, teaching them a set of acceptable coping skills for (hopefully) a healthy, well-adjusted adulthood (as in way down the road), the strategies you employ may be very different. Disapproving audience be damned, this was a bad time to come grocery shopping anyway, a recipe for disaster, but now we're already in the line-up, it's time to deal. "Please get up off the floor and stop screaming (with assistance as needed). Take a breath (while wiping snot and tears with tissue). It's hard to wait in a long line up isn't it? I bet you can't find something red/ the number 3, sing row your boat/whisper something, touch your toes, clap your hands…whatever…faster than/before me."  My son (thank someone, somewhere) was not prone to regular temper tantrums, but he can be sticky in other ways. When patience or calming down was called for and he was just old enough (maybe even 2?) I'd say "It's hard to wait for our turn isn't it ? I know you can do this, I know you're gonna find a way to help me wait." Then quickly start some kind of game. 

Of course, for both of these questions, your answers are going to depend somewhat upon the particular instance or transgression. But even so, revisiting these questions from time to time, sometimes in the heat of battle, really helped keep me focused on what really mattered.

Penny for your thoughts.

—Tracy

Have I told you guys what my actual area of expertise is? I don't think I've gone into any detail. I did my PhD in developmental psychology, with an emphasis on "developmental psychopathology." Which simply means that I mostly studied the factors that contribute to children developing different forms of emotional and behavioural problems (mostly problems with anger and aggression, but also with anxiety and depression). My dissertation was on the family dynamics that are associated with oppositional and aggressive behaviour in children (and also with anxiety and depression, but we'll save that part for another week). In other words, I spent a good 6 years of my training and the subsequent 8 years (eeh gad, I hate to think of how long it's been since I started…) thinking about, reading about, running studies on and working with folks who try to prevent and treat childhood behavioural problems. There's a whole lot of areas of psychology that I will easily admit to being clueless about, but this is not one of those areas. Having said that, I find it strangely difficult (BECAUSE I am so immersed in this research) to try to filter all this information into easily digestable posts that are user-friendly but still provide you with all the empirical research that you can access yourself. In other words, this is just one big ol' caveat to say that you may have to excuse me if I'm not giving you immediately the TOOLS and the STRATEGIES that you came here looking for. I'll do that. I promise (and I'll point you to some of the better resources for further educating yourself if that's what you're looking for). But first, I think it may be important to back up a bit and talk about what we know about children's oppositional, defiant, or aggressive behaviour — where it comes from, what are some of its correlates, and the role of parents in all this. So this will be the first of two posts on those topics…

First off, as I've mentioned before, it is perfectly, absolutely NORMAL for young children to defy their parents — to scream "NO!" at every turn, to bite, scratch, push, hit, tantrum, whine, and wail in response to a request from their parents. This is especially true of children under the age of around 4. I like to lay this out clearly from the beginning because many parents believe that somehow they have an exceptionally "bad" child, or a "difficult" kid that is so much more aggressive or defiant than other kids are. Of course there are variations in how defiant children can be — due to a mysterious mixture of genetics and environmental factors, some kids really are mellow from birth and hardly ever defy their parents and others are extreme tyrants from the start. But the VAST majority of young kids DO test their parents regularly and act out aggressively early on.

One of the best researchers out there on the subject is Richard Tremblay at the University of Montreal. He's insanely prolific, but some of his best work has been on the prevalence of misbehaviour and aggression in early childhood. He's studied hundreds of children and families and followed them for decades and one of his most clear findings is that, IN GENERAL, most normal children are at their most aggressive and defiant between the ages of 2 and 4 years old. Here's the graph to show you what I mean — this is from a National Survey in Canada (in other words, it's a representative sample of "regular" kids, not a "clinical" or otherwise selected sample; from Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations; click to enlarge). The same results have been replicated in many other countries. The gist is that parents report that children hit, bite or kick at the highest frequency at around mid-two years old and then those frequencies drop over the course of childhood — for MOST kids.

One of the more interesting implications from these results is that Tremblay and many others have argued that it is actually NATURAL and NORMATIVE for young children to be defiant and aggressive in early childhood and it is the job of parents to SOCIALIZE this defiance and aggression OUT of the child. In other words, the argument is that most children come into the world with these defiant and aggressive tendencies and, without our help, these children will grow up to be defiant and aggressive adolescents and adults. They don't LEARN to be aggressive, they come that way, and we need to show them more appropriate, socially-acceptable ways of behaving in our social world. I won't get into all the philosophical background here except to say that this view contrasts with the approach of Rousseau and others who thought that children come into the world as "pure" beings, fundamentally "good" and untainted by the "badness" of the world we live in.

This all may seem too abstract, at least this last part but, for me, thinking about how we understand and interpret our children's misbehaviour can have an impact on how we RESPOND to it. If you think that children come into the world as essentially perfect beings, with "natural" ways of behaving, and natural impulses that shouldn't be quashed, you may be less likely to respond to angry outbursts, mean words or tantrums (or you might not respond by attempting to stop them; rather, you may allow your child the freedom to express himself). But if you think that kids are basically primitive little beings who are naturally going to act out, defy you and other authority figures, and lash out verbally and physically if provided the opportunity, you may consider it your job, your DUTY, to socialize these little beings so that they can function in our society as productively (and peacefully) as possible.

OF COURSE I'm presenting the sides as a tad too extreme. And most of us may agree that we want to let our children feel free to express emotions, to some degree, and perhaps curb other expressions (or behaviours). What do you think of these data? Do you have implicit or explicit beliefs about children's "natural" tendencies? Do you see any part of your job as a parent expressed in this post?

Before we get into the many different approaches we might take to curbing one sort of misbehaviour or another, I thought I'd give you one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given. I learned this little trick from all sorts of places, including brilliant moms, intervention and prevention programs that I've reviewed professionally, how-to books on parenting and so on (too many to link to for this specific point). It's not rocket science, but it's a lesson that I CONSTANTLY have to keep reminding myself about. It seems like every 2 months or so, when I get stuck in some bad place with the boys and I can't seem to get them to change something or other that I'd like them to change, I have to smack myself with this lesson once again. It almost ALWAYS helps me work out something more effective.

Best discipline strategy EVER: ANTICIPATE and structure the child's environment to AVOID the conflict / battle of wills / oppositional behaviour to begin with. That's it. When you start noticing a pattern of "No!"s to the same
thing, a pattern of tantrums to the same triggers, a pattern of timing
when your child refuses your wishes consistently (overtired? just before or after transitions? etc.), try to anticipate
those triggers and change the context so as to avoid the conflict to
begin with. I know, it's not as easy as it sounds. Let's think about this more.

First off, after our child has thrown the 10th sweet potato on the floor, lunged at his baby brother's throat yet again, refused to put on her boots AGAIN, blatantly ignored being called to dinner, and so on, we may sometimes forget that we don't have the devil's spawn on our hands; instead we have a very normal child acting perfectly age-appropriately. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that at almost any age under around 6 or so, most often, the battle of wills is not worth fighting. At so many developmental stages in a young child's life — especially (but not limited to) 8 – 11 months, 18 – 22 months, 2.5 – 3 years and 3.5 to 4  years –  one of the main developmental challenges for your child is to assert her independence and forge a little more autonomy from you. It's their JOB to figure out how far they can push the boundaries, how hard they can push before they get a push back, how absolute the rules really are, and so on. This pushing gives them a sense of power as well as a sense of their role in the family. Being defiant teaches them about their own efficacy in the world, how crucial it is to compromise at times, how often they will hit upon obstacles to their wishes, and if we respond by setting appropriate boundaries at critical times, these oppositional outbursts also provide them with a sense of security: although their world may be frustrating at times, it's also safe, predictable, and mommy WILL prevail and take care of me in the end.

So, once we accept that our kids will and NEED TO defy us at many, many turns, we can move on to what we do about it. And I think one of the best sanity-savers for parents is to minimize the frequency and severity of this defiance in the first place by THINKING AHEAD. We can try to anticipate those times in the day that are most likely to trigger conflicts and try to change things around enough that they simply won't happen. In that way, we avoid the battle of wills. Which means we avoid having to either force our kids to do something they insist they don't want to do or backing down eventually and worrying that we're creating a "spoiled brat" who gets whatever he wants if he wails loud enough.

Of course, this strategy won't work all the time. And even if it DOES work for one thing, because at the root of these conflicts is a desire for power and autonomy, another issue will invariably pop up. But you'll be surprised at how often it actually does work and how pleased you'll be with yourself when you finally are done pleading with the child to JUST. GET. YOUR. SHOES. ON. NOW. (Now you can move on to the hats!) There are so many examples we could talk about here and I'd love to hear from parents who effectively avoid conflicts with their kids. Here are just a few examples, from my own and blog readers' experiences:

• As I've mentioned before, I used to yell almost daily at my kids in the morning to get their shoes on. We'd be late for school every day as a result of this silly battle. It baffled me for a good 2 weeks. I'd say get them on, it's late, they'd say no or lay about basically ignoring me. It was 2 against 1 and guess who was "winning?" So… I made it into a game — changed the context entirely. They had two types of shoes each and we gave them animal characters (the doggy shoes, the monkey shoes, etc.). Then each morning I would make a big deal about who was going to be the monkey, the doggy, etc. I would close my eyes and tell them as soon as they had their animal shoes on they should make those animal noises and I would guess which boy had what shoes on. Worked like a charm. After 2 weeks, they were bored with the game, but I can now say put the monkey shoes on and there is NO CONFLICT AT ALL about it. (We will not speak of the hats…)
• In the comments of the last post, @Paola mentioned (and @Cloud responded the way that I would have), that her girl refuses to go to bed before her request for water is granted… AFTER it's already bedtime (beforehand, she says she doesn't want any). Pure power issues, as Paola nailed. Of course, after lots of wailing (and a brother to consider), any mother would just finally acquiesce to the demand. Here's a few things that might help to change the context: "Give in" right away, immediately after she asks the first time. Just accept that you will go back in to the room once. That may stop the power struggle right there — she feels like she's won and you know that you actually have saved yourself 30 min of a harrowing battle. Or, as @Cloud suggested, provide her with a sippy cup of water by her bed. Or give her a choice of water or a story (before she's hit her "real" bedtime) so she feels she's got a little more of you than usual.
• Judy recently emailed us this question: "we haven't been able to come up with a good way to stop him [19 month old] from
  throwing toys.  A behavior we'd like to limit to outdoor play.  It
  seems that when he does get frustrated he'll wind up, hold the toy by
  his ear, say "no" and proceed to huck it across the room.  We've tried
  ignoring the behavior, telling him he can only throw certain safe
  balls, saying no etc…. If we try to get eye-level and explain, he'll
  ignore us and just point at something else across the room- as if to
  change the subject :)." SO typical of this stage… A couple of ideas of how to change the context: Take away all dangerous toys that can't be thrown — leave him only with soft, plushy things that won't do damage. Or, while he's in this phase (and it IS only a phase, believe me), play with him mostly in the kitchen or another room that won't be damaged by his throwing. The other part of this is ANTICIPATE: When you see he's about to get frustrated, try removing the toy and giving him another attractive one immediately, one that isn't as frustrating, preferably. But good luck with that… 18 – 21 months is ALL ABOUT FRUSTRATION and much of this is about soldiering on and waiting it out. And maybe drinking some good wine (I shudder when I remember that stage — it was my hardest with my boys).

Of course, I could go on and on with examples. The last point I wanted to make is that what we're REALLY doing when we use this ANTICIPATE and AVOID strategy is changing OUR behaviour, more than our child's. This is really about changing our own minds about how we perceive a conflict, power struggle, undesirable behaviour. Our tendency is to ascribe harsh intentionality to our kids: "He just wants to get his way." or "She just wants to piss me off." or "He's trying to push my buttons." or "She's testing whether I'll be the one who'll back down." Or some other variant. Although there may be some truth to all of these things, the key here is that kids are doing what they're developmentally supposed to be doing and they're learning a whole lot from the process. OUR challenge is to keep our own sanity, bring up reasonably healthy, peaceful and happy children, and keep them (and those around them) safe. We often can't change THEIR minds in the heat of a battle, but we CAN change our own. For me, it helps enormously to think about these battle of wills as MY OWN failure to be flexible and smart (rather than my children are just little sh&%s).

(By the way, these are not my own original ideas of course. Many of the points I've made are from well-known, fabulous books that I plan to list in a separate post, but they may resonate with many of you out there.)

So, tell me, have any of you come up with ways to avoid particular battles with your children? Are there stories out there about anticipating conflicts that may help out other parents who are reading? What are YOUR most challenging moments with your kids and how do you deal best and worst with them?