How to Avoid Power Struggles with Your Children

One of my all time favorite parenting books has the long title How to Get your Kids to Eat, But Not Too Much.  Nutritionist Ellyn Satter discussed why it is important to stay out of power struggles with your child around eating, then describes how to do it: by being clear about the lines of responsibility.  Satter states parents are responsible for what food is available and when and where it is served. The child is responsible for whether and how much to eat.  Satter’s book is full of refinements of this basic principle and great information about raising healthy eaters.  It is well worth the read.  

For me, the book changed not only how I was feeding my children, but also how I thought about my role as a parent.  I realized this core concept applies to other areas of parenting as well.  

Dividing Responsibilities

Both parents and children have responsibilities when it comes to daily tasks. Here are few examples of areas in which parents have a responsibility to care for their child, but their child can also learn responsibility and develop life skills:

Getting dressed: Parent is responsible for making sure clear, weather appropriate clothing is available. Child decides what to put on, based on the options available to them.

Homework: Parent is responsible for making sure child has time, place and supplies to complete their homework. Child does the homework, and asks for help when needed.

According to Satter, when we micromanage how much our children eat, we get between the child and their own body signals.  Let the child over-eat or under-eat, and they will soon learn what enough feels like.  

Similarly, when we micromanage what a child wears on a given day, we rob them of opportunities to make choices and learn from them.  When we sit and coach a child through each piece of homework, we are showing the teacher our work, not the child’s.  When we allow children to make choices, even ones we don’t agree with, we allow them to make mistakes and learn from them.  We are letting our children know we have faith in them.  We are helping them become agents in their own lives, able to make decisions about the things that impact them most.  And ultimately isn’t that something we all want?

We will be taking a deeper dive into this topic in session two of my “Getting to Know your Child Program.”  If you are curious how to apply this concept to something you are struggling with in your own family, come join us.