Strong-Willed Child: It’s All about Intent! (SMH)

Strong-Willed Child: It’s All about Intent! (SMH) August 17, 2014

Originally posted on Saving Victoria Strong

The Strong-Willed Child, chapter 1, pp. 15-26

So now we come to a Q and A section that will close out Chapter 1. It is rather wordy so I’m not going into too much detail, but the first question disturbed me and I have to expound on it.

The Question is as follows:

“I’m still not sure if I understand the difference between willful defiance and childish irresponsibility. Could you explain it further?”

Here’s Dobson’s answer:

“Willful defiance… is a deliberate act of disobedience. It occurs only when the child knows what his parents expect and then chooses to do the opposite in a haughty manner….. By contrast, childish irresponsibility results from forgetting, accidents, mistakes, a short attention span, a low frustration tolerance, immaturity, etc.”

Then Dobson continues,

“Ultimately, the appropriate disciplinary reaction by a mother or father should be determined entirely by the matter of intention.”

This is the part I want to expound upon. This is the meat of the section and what really bothers me. This whole knowing another person’s intentions part. Dobson gives the example using his own son Ryan, who I believe was fairly young at the original publishing of this book. He says that if Ryan is standing in the doorway and Dobson says, “Ryan, shut the door,” but Ryan mishears or misunderstands and actually opens the door instead, that is not willful defiance. Now, the scenario Dobson is describing is the most plausible one – Ryan probably misheard and thought he was doing the right thing here. But how does he (Dobson) know for sure? This is my overall point. You can’t truly know another person’s intent all the time.

Then Dobson gives another example, that of Ryan being told to pick up his toys and screaming “NO!” and throwing a Tonka truck at his dad. This, Dobson says, is willful defiance. He “knows” this by determining little Ryan’s intent. But the problem is, he doesn’t completely know Ryan’s intent. Maybe Ryan was pushing limits and testing boundaries, but maybe not. Maybe Ryan was extremely invested in his playing and being abruptly told to stop playing was a very emotional thing for him and he reacted in frustration. Maybe just minutes before, Ryan’s mom, unbeknownst to his dad, had told Ryan he could play for another half hour, and poor Ryan is very mad and confused at getting mixed messages about something that is very important to him. Maybe the whole thing wasn’t about you, Dobson.

But this brings me to a major point I want to bring up. If I have learned nothing else from my nearly ten years of marriage, it’s that deciding you know someone else’s intent is one of the least constructive things you can do in a relationship. It’s so much better to focus on the actual behavior or action itself. It’s so much more peaceful to say something like, “Sweetie, when you did X it really bothered me/hurt my feelings/ made me feel XYZ/etc.”, and then give Sweetie a chance to respond, not “Why the hell did you do that? You must not care about me at all!”

Honestly, I don’t think it’s that different with kids. My parents loved ascribing intent to my behavior, and they were wrong so much of the time. If you’re primed by this book and its messages, it’s just too easy to infer intent that isn’t there when your kid does something irritating. And that destroys relationships. I always thought my parents hated me precisely because of this advice Dobson is giving. They always inferred this terrible destructive intent that I simply didn’t have. There were even some instances where they assumed I was trying to be obnoxious when I was in fact trying to be helpful, which hurt immensely.

Now, back to the example of Ryan throwing toys. I’m not saying that throwing toys is okay. It’s not. It’s not a constructive way to solve conflicts and it can even be dangerous. But I don’t know why a parent has to see this as willful defiance and think they know exactly what this child’s intent is. Why can’t they focus on the behavior itself and find some age-appropriate, non-violent way of communicating to their child that civilized people do not throw things at each other?


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