Strong-Willed Kids, part 1

My friend Stephanie recently posted on her Facebook page that she “…somehow managed to get an incredibly stubborn, willful and highly intelligent daughter. She makes other kids that I had previously chalked up as ‘stubborn’ look wishy-washy in comparison. Someone please tell me this is a trait that will serve her well later in life! At least one thing is semi-comforting, when she’s decided on a course of action, nothing and nobody will be able to sway her.”

I responded with encouragement (I hope), in the brief format that Facebook allows. But as I mulled over the statement in the days following that exchange, I grew more and more certain that this topic needs to be addressed. Especially in the context of the organization through which Stephanie and I met. So I decided to take my brief response and expand it here — I’m looking at some pretty extensive thoughts, so I’m going to break this into three posts. My original thoughts will appear as quotes.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the parents of these strong-willed children are frequently concerned about the strength of their child’s will. It causes them great anxiety that their child may struggle in life because of the consequences of their stubborn nature. And this is a legitimate fear. So my first desire in responding to Stephanie was to reassure her that her daughter will not ultimately be a failure in life because of her strength of will.

As a grown-up “incredibly stubborn, willful, and highly intelligent daughter,” I can tell you that these traits, if properly channeled, will give your daughter the ability to withstand the most horrific things that life can throw at her. And come out the other side even stronger and more confident than ever.

Stephanie knows a lot about my life. But for readers who are not as familiar, a quick background may be helpful here. My mother used to joke that I was the original strong-willed child. She told me a couple of years ago that I was one of the children whose parents were surveyed for the original edition of Dr. James Dobson’s book The Strong-Willed Child. Mom lived by that book and Dr. Dobson’s equally well-known Dare to Discipline. I would have liked to have a private book-burning, but I wasn’t allowed to play with matches. And mom was smart enough to hide them where I couldn’t find them.

My school years were rocky. I was a great student, unless the subject bored me or the teacher rubbed me the wrong way. Fortunately, the only subject I truly hated and resisted was math. And I got on well with most teachers. So I did okay academically. Socially, I was a misfit. Too prone to speaking my mind, and possessing a singular lack of tact and diplomacy, I hurt people’s feelings without intention. I also didn’t care about my appearance very much. I preferred comfort over style and could not be bothered with makeup or hairstyles that required more than a quick combing. I was a bookworm and preferred a stack of books to a mass of people — though I loved people and wanted them around. I was (and still am) a strange bundle of contradictions.

My young adult years were a little better, if only because mom used her 18 years of full-time motherhood to “sandpaper” some of my roughest edges. And it wasn’t easy for her, God bless her. I resisted and rebelled every step of the way. (But I am so profoundly grateful to her now.)
It was marriage and motherhood that gave me a better perspective on both my mom’s “harsh criticism” of me and of my own failings. That strong will led me into some less than pleasant paths.

Childbirth was the first thing I ever ran up against that I had absolutely no control over. It was humbling. My husband’s abusive behaviour was the second thing that I found uncontrollable — I actually encountered this one first, of course, but it wasn’t until after I gave birth to my first child that I realised that I was never going to be able to control my husband’s temper or his choice of outlook. As a friend of mine said after the divorce when I wailed that I had tried so hard to make him happy, “You cannot make someone happy. Each person has to choose happiness or misery.”

I am convinced that God used my strong will and the indomitable spirit that accompanies it that allowed me to survive nearly five years of intense verbal, emotional, and spiritual abuse. I know that it was that will that finally gave me the courage and strength to leave. To take my children out of a situation in which they were already suffering serious emotional and psychological harm. And to live through the drama of the ten years subsequent to the divorce. To live mostly joyfully and triumphantly. To find the beginnings of healing. To be able to help my children heal.

On 16 July 2005, I met the third completely uncontrollable thing in my life. I was in a car wreck. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I sustained a severe closed-head injury. But because all of my limbs were in working order and I was not bleeding, I did not go to the hospital. It was not until I’d had a horrible headache for six weeks straight that I sought medical assistance for the headache. My poor doctor was so angry with me for not going and having a scan done after the accident. Because without the scan, he had no way of knowing how bad the damage was, or where it was.

But he worked with me to control the headaches, though he warned me that wherever I was at about 18 months after the wreck was where I would stay for the rest of my life. At the 18-month point, I was still fighting frequent, debilitating migraines, severe agoraphobia, a stutter that I’d never had before, memory and cognitive function deficits, and several other issues stemming from that wreck. When I finally accepted that what Doc was telling me might be true and that I might be stuck with these things for the rest of my life, I slid into serious depression. Again, I am convinced that it was God’s grace acting through my strong will that pulled me out of that depression before I succumbed completely to despair.

I know that it is this strong will that has given me the courage to confront my problems head on, insurmountable though many of them seem to be. That is what I mean by coming out the other side stronger and more confident. I know that I can conquer whatever life throws at me — look at what I have already conquered.

But please don’t get the idea that I think I did this all on my own!
I had so many people surrounding me. My parents, my siblings, my friends … I owe them all so much. (The real friends, not the ones who said they were my friends and then dumped me when things got yucky. Those false friends, they made the hurt so very much more hard to bear.)

More than anyone else, God. I clung to God and His promises. I prayed to God. Cried to God. Screamed at God. God was my everything … and continues to be so. I KNOW that I would not have made it without Him, and He continues to sustain and protect me as I continue walking this difficult road that is my life.

My thoughts on strong-willed kids continue in tomorrow’s post.

Tags: challenges, character, child-rearing, children, faith, Family Life, fear, independence, parenting, Religion, strong will, True Stories