One of the chief concerns (and complaints) from parents I work with is that their children are super rigid and irrational.  Typical examples include: 

Henry threw a huge fit because I picked him up from childcare instead of Grandma, who usually gets him at the end of the day. 

Chelsea refused to take a bath because I turned on the water when she wanted to do it herself.

Andrew's teachers report that his peers don't want to play with him because he is bossy and needs to dictate everything. Yesterday, he knocked down the block structure he was building with friends because he insisted it be a home for their action figures when his playmates had already decided it was going to be a restaurant. 

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you are not alone.

The prospect of potty training is terrifying for many parents. They have heard horror stories of catastrophic boot camps, kids refusing to poop on the potty, and preschools rejecting children for not being trained. Through my work with families facing these challenges, I have developed an approach to potty-learning that takes into consideration what the process feels like from the child’s perspective, which is often overlooked, and that addresses some key factors that can have a significant impact on whether this process is positive or perilous. A follow-up piece will address how to deal with specific challenges that may arise in the potty-learning process.

Look at the pottying process from a developmental perspective:

• You have no control over your child. You can’t make him do anything, including pee and poop in the potty. Children are the only ones in control of their bodies. It is their job to master these skills, with adult support. It is not your job to do it for them.

• Learning to manage bodily functions, such as, elimination, eating, and sleeping, is essential for children’s sense of agency and self-esteem. It builds confidence that they can be in control of and take care of themselves.

• The ability to use the potty is all about control—the ability to “hold it in” and get to a potty to let it go. It just so happens that the age at which most children have the skills to learn to use the potty (2 to 3 years) coincides with an upsurge in their desire to exert control over their world. Therefore, some amount of defiance and opposition is developmentally appropriate and normal for children at this stage, and it is often triggered by others’ attempts to control them. When it comes to potty learning, this means that the more you try to control your child’s elimination, the more likely she is to dig in her heels and refuse. This is how your child maintains her integrity and reminds you that she is the only one who has the power to control her body.  

• Further, between 18 months to 2 years, children are becoming increasingly aware that they are separate beings and that their body belongs to them. They begin to feel greater ownership over their bodies which makes them even more sensitive to people trying to control their bodily functions (diapering, feeding, dressing, etc.)

• Temperament plays a big role in potty learning. For children who, by nature, tend to be more controlling and have a harder time being flexible and adapting to change, the potty learning process can be more challenging. With these children it is especially important not to cross the line into trying to control them as the chances are that it will backfire.

Guiding Principles for How to Approach the Pottying Process

At the end of the day, my work with families boils down to helping parents set limits with love; to maintain a loving, close connection with their children while sticking to clear boundaries that parents know are essential for building their children's self-regulation and resilience, but that are hard to maintain in the heat of the moment when heartstrings are pulled or you just can't bear another meltdown. 

Sticking to limits is even harder when children are pushing the envelope and melting down outside the home. Most parents of young children live in terror of their little one losing it in public. It’s hard to avoid feeling judged and embarrassed by out-of-control behavior, as if it is evidence of your total incompetence as a parent—surely a result of your indulgence which has inevitably created a spoiled child. This naturally puts most parents in an emotionally charged place, feeling mortified and often angry at their child for putting them in this deeply uncomfortable and stressful situation.

How To Deal With Public Displays of Disaster

I have rarely met a family that hasn't struggled in some way with getting their children through daily routines. Common complaints include: “Ethan whines and protests every single step", or, “Talia’s refusal to cooperate is forcing us to nag and bribe her which is driving us crazy and we know is messed up. We’re all miserable by the time we walk out the door.” Families with young children face these types of struggles because most toddlers have some degree of difficulty with transitions. 

There are several reasons children have a hard time moving from one task to another during morning and bedtime routines, including:

• Young children are quite zealous about asserting some control over their world. This means that whenever there is a demand to follow someone else’s agenda, such as yours, there is a natural tendency to defy it.

• It is hard for many children to move from one activity to another. They become absorbed in what they are doing and making a transition takes a lot of effort.

• Sometimes children have not actually tuned in to the direction you are giving them. They haven’t processed all of the information being communicated to them, so they can’t effectively act on it.

• Some children are very distractible. They start to follow a direction, but something catches their attention and they lose track of what they are supposed to be focused on.

• Morning and nighttime routines are associated with separations, such as going to child care/school, saying goodnight, etc. This can be emotionally challenging for young children.

The following strategies address these underlying issues and can help children better cope with daily routines.

If you're like most parents, not being able to get your children to cooperate is one of your most vexing challenges. It’s especially maddening when a child’s lack of compliance seems totally irrational; for example, 3-year-old Sadie, who loves to eat but refuses to come to the dinner table and draws her parents into a power struggle, making everyone miserable. This naturally catapults her parents into revved-up mode. They get increasingly annoyed and resort to all kinds of rewards or threats to motivate Sadie to tow the line. Unfortunately, this typical, reactive kind of response usually makes it less likely that a child will change her tune and is more likely to result in an intensified tussle between parent and child.
 
As with all child-rearing challenges, the key is to figure out the root cause of the problem; what the driving forces are that result in the unacceptable behaviors. My colleague, occupational therapist, Teri Kozlowski of Teekoz Kids, has helped me crack the code on getting kids to cooperate by pointing out two key factors that influence the chance that children will follow directions: (1) whether children are even attending to and processing the information parents are trying to deliver to them; and (2) the tone and approach parents use to communicate directions to their children.
 
Factor #1:

My 3 1/2 -year-old has started to get up in the middle of the night after saying he had a bad dream. He comes into our room and wants to sleep with us.  We’ve been able to get him back into his bed, but he won’t let us leave until he falls back to sleep. Some nights that can take over an hour, and he often gets up multiple times in a night. No one is getting enough sleep and we are all very cranky. We want to be sensitive to his fears but at the same time help everyone get more sleep.

This is a very common phenomenon starting at around 3 years, as this is the age at which children’s imaginations really start to take off. At the same time, they don’t have a very firm grasp on the difference between fantasy and reality. This translates into the development of fears: the monster from the book may appear in their bedroom; the snake in the TV show about animals might climb through their window. Naturally, these fears are more likely to emerge at night when the lights are off and children are alone. Understandably, most parents feel it would be harmful to leave a child when she is frightened.

But this is one of those parenting moments when what is best for the child is not necessarily consistent with our impulses; when the most effective strategy, in this case, for helping a child learn to cope with her fears, is counter-intuitive. We think that staying with children until they fall back to sleep is the best and most loving thing to do. But in fact, allowing a child to sleep in your bed or staying with her until she falls back to sleep after having a bad dream, inadvertently confirms your child’s belief that there is really something to be afraid of and that she is only okay if you are with her; that she is not safe on her own. 

The only way children (or any of us) get over their fears is by living through them and experiencing that the fears are unfounded. For example, when a child finally goes down the big slide he was terrified of and sees that he survived; or, when a child makes it through and thrives by the end of the first week of preschool after screaming for dear life not to be left in this strange, scary place.  At nighttime the same rules apply: your child needs to experience that the fears in his head are not real and that he is okay on his own. He doesn’t need you to be with him to be safe. We don’t want to set kids up to think that they can’t handle these feelings and that they can only cope if you are with them, which will not always be the case. We want to empower them with the tools and confidence to master these fears. This is very important to keep in mind, because if you think that you are hurting your child by not physically being with him as he works through his fears, it will be very difficult to follow through with any plan that entails setting some limits and boundaries around sleep. Note that research shows that allowing children to learn to sleep on their own is growth-promoting (“positive stress”) and not harmful. (Here is a good piece on myths/facts about sleep training.)

The other factor to keep in mind is that young children are very clever. They quickly put two and two together: saying they had a bad dream results in a lot of attention in the middle of night and often lands them a spot in their parents’ bed. This can take on a life of its own and lead to major sleep deprivation for parent and child which has its own set of negative consequences.

The following strategies can be helpful in making a plan for how to deal with middle-of-the-night wakings: 

Pow·er strug·gle (noun): An unpleasant or violent competition for power; refers to people in a relationship fighting about who is in control, with both trying to dominate the relationship in one way or another.

This unpleasant dynamic is not what most of us had in mind when we dreamed about having children, but it’s one almost all of us have fallen prey to with varying frequency and intensity. Power struggles are hard to avoid. Children are experts at drawing us into them. But it’s worth the effort to try to avoid this tug-of-war as it results in endless frustration and is detrimental to both parent and child.  When a power struggle ensues, nobody wins.

Guiding principles for avoiding power struggles:

“No—Daddy reads to me!” Tamisa exclaims when her mom, Audra, plops down beside her, eager to start the bedtime book. Audra, hurt, pleads: “But it’s mommy’s turn and I love reading books with you.” Tamisa responds: “I want daddy!!” Audra slams the book on the floor as she says, “You’re making mommy very sad.” She promptly exits the room as she is shouting to dad that Tamisa is all his.

Playing parental favorites, while very painful for the parent who is experiencing the rejection, is actually quite common. It’s almost always situational, not personal. Some children forge a fierce attachment to the parent who is acting as the primary caregiver—the one doing most of the diapering, feeding, bathing, and comforting. It doesn’t happen solely in families with a stay-at-home parent, but usually occurs when one parent shoulders the bulk of the caregiving responsibility. Children may make a strong association about who they feel safe with and trust and glom on to that person exclusively, even if the other parent is very loving and involved.

Then sometimes, the parent who is less available becomes special in the child’s mind and so the child demands to have that parent to herself.  It is also common for a child to favor one parent over the other after the birth of a new baby. In some cases, the older child comes to rely more heavily on the parent who hasn’t given birth, whom they perceive as more available. Other times it’s the converse, the child clings to the parent who gave birth as a result of the jealousy she feels about the attention the new baby is getting. And sometimes the genesis of the preference is unclear, but it is usually a way to cope with a complex or challenging experience the child is trying to manage.   

In one family I recently worked with, a fierce preference for dad evolved when mom went on her first post-Covid work trip. This was a fierce little guy who has very big reactions to his experiences in the world. To adapt to this event which loomed large for him, he decides that dad—the present parent in that moment— is his person and he is sticking with that. He is also angry with mom when she returns for having left him.

 Regardless of the reason for the preference, it is important for your child’s healthy development (and for a healthy marriage or partnership!) that she develop a close, trusting relationship with both parents. (For single parents, this same favoritism dynamic can occur with other trusted caregivers.) It is also important that she not be in a position to decide who does what when it comes to parenting. So, what can you do?

1.  Be sure your expectations for your child match her age and stage of development. Recognize that young children are driven by emotions, not logic, so irrational behavior is totally normal. The part of the brain that enables us to think about and manage our feelings and impulses is not well-developed until five to six years of age. Expecting more from children than they are capable of can lead to lots of frustration for both parents and children. Having appropriate expectations is critical because the meaning you assign to your child’s behavior influences how you react. If you think your child is purposefully breaking rules, you are much more likely to react in harsh ways that further distress your child instead of calming her. If you see these behaviors in the context of normal development, you are more likely to approach your child with empathy and appreciate these moments as opportunities to teach good coping skills.

2. Tune in to the meaning of your child’s behavior. Getting to the root cause of your child’s actions can help you to respond in ways that are sensitive and effective. A tantrum in the grocery store might be caused by sensory overload, fatigue, or disappointment about not getting a cookie from the bakery. Biting might be a self-soothing strategy, a way to keep others at a distance, or an expression of anger. Understanding the root cause of a behavior can help you come up with discipline strategies that address the underlying issue and help your child build strong coping skills. This means considering some factors that impact behavior: What’s going on in your child’s world—has she experienced a recent move? A new caregiver? A recent loss? Parental stress? It’s also important to think about your child’s temperament. Is she a big reactor or a go-with-the-flow kind of kid? Is he persistent or does he get frustrated easily? How does she react to new people and experiences—does she jump right in or need time to feel comfortable? All of these factors influence children’s ability to cope with life’s natural stressors, such as adapting to new experiences, learning to wait, and managing daily transitions.

Almost every parent who reaches out to me for help starts with a description that goes something like this: "Henry can be the most delightful child. He is curious, extremely clever, and very funny. But he won't listen to anything we say. He argues and negotiates about everything and throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. We feel like all we are doing is yelling and getting into power struggles with him. Help!"  

The bottom line: toddlers are marvelous, and also maddening.   

But they don't have to be...maddening that is. The frustration and powerlessness many parents experience often stems from a crucial expectation gap: they approach their young children using reason ("Why won't Serena just cooperate with getting dressed and avoid all the yelling and threats of having stuff taken away? It would make everything so much easier. She's just hurting herself.") The problem is that young children are not driven by logic but by their impulses and emotions. Their desire to get what they want when they want it and to exert some power and control over their world rules the day. That's why so many of the strategies parents typically use to try to coax cooperation from their children backfire; they rely on reasoning or on the faulty premise that you can control your child when you can't actually make her do anything--eat, pee on the potty, cooperate with getting dressed, etc. The fact is that the more you try to control your child the more likely it is that he will resist complying with your expectations. The approach and strategies that ultimately help children make good choices and behave in ways that help them thrive are often counter-intuitive.

Below are 7 common parenting pitfalls and a description of how to avoid them:

Four-year-old Harris is starting at a new school next week. He is a sensitive little guy who has a hard time with transitions. When he first went to preschool at age 2 he was frantic at separations. It took him several weeks to feel calm and fully engaged in the program. His parents were on the verge of pulling him out and mom was considering quitting her job; but they stayed the course and Harris ultimately adapted and thrived. His parents are naturally worried about this upcoming change for Harris and how to best prepare him.

It's that time of year, when many young children are starting school or changing schools, which can be stressful. But it’s what we think of as a “positive stressor”--a challenge that is not detrimental to kids but that leads to growth. It is an opportunity for children to develop close, trusting relationships with other adults and peers. It builds confidence and helps children adapt to future separations.  And high-quality programs provide endless opportunities for developing the skills—intellectual, social and emotional—that set children up for success far into the future. Below are some ideas for how to help your child cope with this transition.

“I’M HUNGRY!” shouts 3-year-old, Jolie, every night after her dads, Kyle and Wayne, put her to bed. Their concern that she is not getting enough nutrition, given how little she eats most nights at dinner, wins out. They reluctantly give in, even though they know Jolie “driving the car” is not a good dynamic.

This is reactive parenting—when we get triggered and act on our emotions without thinking through what our children’s behavior is telling us and what response is going to teach them positive ways to cope with whatever need they are trying to meet or challenge they are facing. More often than not, reactivity leads to an escalation of the problem and more stress and frustration for both parent and child. It is one of, if not the, greatest obstacles, to parents’ ability to be the parent they want to be--in control and able to set and enforce appropriate limits while remaining loving and positively connected to their child.

But it is really hard not to be reactive. Parenting is by nature a highly emotional endeavor that stems from our deep love for our children and the accompanying worry for their well-being. The toddler years can be especially challenging given that young children are driven by their emotions and behave in irrational, maddening and often confusing ways that most parents have no roadmap for navigating.

So, what is the antidote to reactivity?

I am going to lock you in your room with no food for 10 million days!—Four-year-old’s response to his mom when she told him he couldn’t have a popsicle before he ate his growing foods.  

You’re a poopy, daddy face! –Three-year-old’s reaction when her father took away the tablet when the timer went off, even though she was in the middle of a game.

Children making alarming threats and hurling vitriol at their parents is not a new phenomenon. Kids have been known to say a lot of outrageous things when they are angry or frustrated. But the venom kids are spewing seems to have reached epic proportions during this pandemic. No surprise. As the effects of the coronavirus extend and continue to deeply impact children’s daily routines, their threshold for coping with stress has plummeted. This means they lose it much more quickly and frequently. (See this blog for more on how to help kids who are spiraling out of control during this time.)

Children may be reacting to a limit you have set that they are non-plussed about or a task/activity they are struggling with. Or, it might be that they are feeling sad about missing their friends or grandparents. Sadness turns very quickly to anger (for adults, too.) I have heard many stories from parents over the past eight weeks about their children having huge meltdowns over seemingly minor things. Once they calm down, they blurt out statements like, “I miss Ms. Melissa” (the child’s teacher); or, “When is nana coming to visit?”

While provocative statements and threats, especially out of the mouths of babes, feel so wrong, it’s important not to interpret and react to them at face value. Your child is not a budding sociopath. Children don’t mean what they say in these moments. While your logical reaction might be that you need to teach your child a lesson through some kind of disciplinary action that shames him for this inappropriate outburst, any big reaction—especially being successful at yanking your chain—is reinforcing and likely to result in more of these surly (or “obnoxious”, as one parent recently put it) statements. Further, when you react harshly, it can escalate, versus reduce, the distress your child is experiencing that led to the inappropriate proclamation to begin with.

What’s the best way to respond to these provocative proclamations?

Cherie, a very social and athletic mom who highly values team sports, feels very anxious that her 4-year-old, Martin, is hesitant about playing soccer with the other kids on the playground. He watches on the sidelines. Cherie keeps pushing him to join in, but this leads to greater resistance. So she tries bribery, which results in Martin inching his way toward the soccer field and running around the kids but not playing with them, looking anxious and sad. 

Caring for young children (really, children of any age) is an intensely emotional experience. We love our kids so deeply and want the best for them, so when faced with an incident or behavior that we worry is detrimental to the their well-being, it triggers a reaction which often leads to negative outcomes.  In the case of Martin, forcing leads to a decrease, not increase, in his desire join the play, and erodes his trust in Cherie to be sensitive to and respect his needs. Further, bribery communicates that the goal or desired behavior is so important to the parent that she is willing offer a reward for it—making it about meeting the parent’s not the child’s needs; and when the child can’t meet the need, there is a risk that he feels like a disappointment to his parent—a big burden for a little child. (Bribery can also lead the nasty little phenomenon of your child expecting a reward for everything—cleaning up toys, brushing his teeth.)

Marta has told her 3-year-old, Ruby, to pick up her toys 5 times in the past 10 minutes. Marta is getting increasingly agitated and annoyed, and finally shouts at Ruby that if she doesn’t put all the toys away, Marta will throw them in the garbage.  When Ruby continues to ignore her mother’s request, Marta pulls out a plastic trash bag and starts to fill it with Ruby’s toys. Ruby becomes hysterical and Marta feels horrible and ashamed. She takes the toys back out of the bag and comforts Ruby. Marta ultimately cleans the toys up after Ruby has gone to bed.

Every week I am in the homes of families with young children who are struggling with these kinds of scenarios. They are frustrated and angry that their children won’t cooperate, and that they are “driving the car”—taking the parents for a ride. Further, parents feel ashamed when they lose it, when they say harsh things to their children in the heat of the moment and make threats they have no intention of following through on (i.e., to never give them the iPad or take them to the playground again). Ultimately, these parents are depleted and sad, because by the end of the day all they have done is yelled and dealt with ugly power struggles, leaving little room for the pleasures of parenthood.

As I have watched these dynamics unfold on one home visit after another, it has become clear that one key factor at the root of the problem is that the limits and expectations parents set are often dependent on the child’s cooperation—to clean up their toys, get into their PJs, or climb happily into the car seat. The problem is that you can’t actually physically make your child do these things. And any time you are waiting for your child to follow a direction or trying to convince her to cooperate, she is in control. You can demand repeatedly that she not throw a ball in the house or to stay in her room after lights-out, but unless you have a plan for how you are going to follow through on the limit you are trying to set, your child is in the driver’s seat and she knows it. This is not good for her or for you.  So, as you go about setting limits, keep in mind that a limit is only as effective as your ability to implement it.

The following are key elements to a positive and effective approach to setting limits:

Claire Lerner, LCSW
Preparing for a second child is a little different than when you were expecting your first. One major new variable is child number one, who up to this point has experienced the world pretty much revolving around him. Another big factor is that many first-borns are only toddlers themselves when that second baby is on the way, making the concept of a baby growing in mom’s belly pretty hard to grasp. With that in mind, here are some ways you can help make this abstract concept more understandable and help your older child get ready for his new brother or sister.

Claire Lerner, LCSW

Marriage is hard enough. Adding kids to the mix brings a lot of joy but also more complexity as parenting requires making countless decisions each day about what kids eat, how to get them to sleep, how much screen time to allow, etc. Not to mention the biggie: what the rules, limits and consequences will be for inappropriate behavior (of which there is a lot in the early years.)  

Some couples are fortunate to share similar approaches on childrearing issues. But many parents experience conflict rooted in the fact that they have different perspectives about how to raise kids based on their own upbringings, beliefs and values, and expectations for their children. This kind of tension between parents can have negative effects on children (not to mention the marriage) in several ways: