Opposition/Strong-Willed Children

Children that refuse to do what adults ask or expect of them, are temperamental or easily annoyed, and break/ignore common rules run the risk of not fitting in or getting along with others. Their actions may impede school success, normal social development, and family harmony. When ignored, defiant behavior tends to progress into a more debilitating conduct problem in later years. We offer a clinically proven nine step program to reduce temper tantrums, argumentative behaviours, and deliberate annoyance, while increasing cooperative play, compliance to adult requests and rules, and assuming greater personal responsibility.

We offer a clinically proven six step program to reduce temper tantrums, argumentative behaviours, and deliberate annoyance, while increasing cooperative play, compliance to adult requests and rules, and assuming greater personal responsibility. These sessions involve both children and parents, and involve modeling the treatment exercise followed by active participation of parents.

People teach people. They teach each other how to walk and talk. They teach each other how to read, when to smile, what clothes to wear, how to throw a ball, dinner etiquette, how to drive a car, and when to kiss someone they love. Parents and other family members are the key agents of behavior change in the family.

Most of the activities we assign children to do, especially chores, are not especially pleasant. These requests often require the child to stop what he/she was doing (usually something enjoyable) to perform this unpleasant activity. As a result, children may experiment with ways of escaping from or avoiding chores by developing oppositional behavior towards parent commands. Over time, parents may come to request progressively fewer commands of the child, knowing in advance they will be met with resistance (e.g., temper tantrums) by the child. Parents instead may assume more of the child’s chores and responsibilities or assign them to a more compliant sibling. Parents may also come to acquire a set of rapidly escalating coercive behaviors to use with the child because of those rare occasions where yelling, threatening, or punishing the child has eventually led to compliance.

CHARACTERISTICS OF STRONG-WILLED CHILDREN

Strong willed children are more likely than other children to react intensely, to have a difficult time adapting to transitions, to be persistent when they want to have their own way, and to have inconsistent moods. In addition, a number of these children may be highly active and/or more inattentive and impulsive than same-aged peers. The key is to nurture your strong-willed child’s positive qualities while minimizing the impact of the negative qualities on him and on others. You will need to work with him to direct his strong will in more appropriate ways.

TIPS IN BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT

Disruptive or aggressive behavior occurs neither continuously nor randomly throughout the day but instead appears in “bursts” or “chunks”. Children who display coercive behavior in one situation are highly likely to eventually employ it elsewhere and with other adults or children.

Responding appropriately to a child with an easy temperament is relatively simpler when compared to the frustrations of managing a strong-willed child. However, yelling and other less than ideal strategies often feel like the only solutions in dealing with a child who challenges limits at every turn. Modeling is basically learning by example. It occurs when a child learns to behave a certain way by observing others behaving that way. Your child may observe another child throwing a tantrum if he wants a toy from the store. If that child receives the toy after the tantrum, your child learns, by observation, that a tantrum may be an effective way to get something. The next time your child wants something, he is more likely to have a tantrum. In the same line of thought, losing your temper in front of your child when you become frustrated increases the chance that your child will handle frustration in a similar fashion.

Parents who have children with behavior problems tend to pay less attention to their children’s positive behaviors. This typically occurs as these parents have become so frustrated in having to deal with their child’s opposition that they have a hard time noticing and acknowledging the behaviors that are positive. Further, oppositional behaviours can appear more urgent and noticeable (e.g., being late for school) than conduct generally accepted as expected (e.g., being ready for school on time). Social reinforcers such as smiles, hugs, and laughter have the greatest impact on your behavior and on your child’s behavior. A single reinforcement will not produce dramatic, long-term changes in behavior. Rather, it takes hundreds of reinforcements over several weeks, constantly and consistently given, before long-term changes can be observed. The more positive attention you provide to your child (or anyone else in your social environment), the more you are likely to receive in return. The more critical you are of your child’s behaviour failures (while ignoring his positive accomplishment) the greater the likelihood that you will receive negativity in return.