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Child Development

You Don't Control Your Child

You can't make them do anything. Here's how to get them to make good choices.

Key points

  • Kids are human beings. Only they control what they say with their words and what they do with her bodies.
  • We control how we support and respond to our children.
  • The limits we set-that we have control over implementing-are what scaffolds kids making healthy choices.

I learned long ago, through observing parent-child and teacher-child interactions, that you can't make children do anything. We don't have the power to control them. Our power is in how we support and scaffold--how we set the limits and boundaries that create the opportunity for children to make good choices: to do homework, to clean up their things, to sit at the dinner table, to persevere in an activity that is scary or challenging.

So in my work with parents and teachers, we never focus on changing the child; we focus on how to change the situation.

This story of my work with one family reveals what this looks like in real life; how parents and teachers collaborated to change their approach to supporting a child to overcome his fears and follow important school rules, by using the approach Emma Hayes, coach of the U.S. Women's Team takes with her players: high expectations, high support.

The Case

Jodi and Marshall are the parents of Oliver (7), a highly sensitive child who is very self-conscious and avoids any activity that feels performative, like PE and music, or giving a book report to his class at school. Oliver also resists going to drop-off birthday parties and to a soccer clinic without his parents. Jodi and Marshall sought consultation for guidance on how to help Oliver feel more confident to take risks, to master new challenges, and to muscle through difficult tasks and transitions.

When we first met, Jodi and Marshall had been doing a lot of accommodating. If Oliver refused to go to a birthday party or to soccer on his own, even though they knew their presence was an obstacle to his full participation in these important social experiences, they stayed. The school was also working around Oliver's discomfort. He was the only student who didn't have to give a book report to the class. When he resisted moving classrooms for different subjects, an assistant brought his work to him; he did math while still in the reading lab, for example. When Oliver refused to go to PE or music, they let him sit in a cozy space in the front office and read—a preferred activity.

The Outcome

Jodi and Marshall chose to start with problem-solving the soccer situation. While Oliver loves playing soccer, the clinics can be uncomfortable for him because they involve performance—a big trigger due to Oliver's self-consciousness and worry about not being perfect. We agreed that a key step would be for Jodi and Marshall to no longer stay at the clinics; they would drop Oliver off. The reason for this shift was that when they are present, Oliver focuses all of his attention on them. He seeks them out to complain about anything and everything, to try to get them to take him home, to ask for all sorts of things like a snack or a different drink—all of which keep his attention focused on them and not on participating. Marshall talked to the coach about this new plan to drop Oliver off, and asked if he would be willing to give Oliver a job to engage him in a positive way—to make this change easier. The coach was game. He told Oliver he needed him as a helper; that he wanted Oliver to arrive five minutes early to help set up the cones. This proved to be key. It made Oliver feel important and special; and, it turned out that arriving early led to Oliver more readily participating with the group.

Being the first one there helped him feel more comfortable. With this new role, and without mom or dad there to rescue him, Oliver started to participate more and to enjoy the clinics. This is a great example of the concept of the high expectation, high support approach that I find so helpful for kids. We want to have high expectations (in this case, having Oliver attend the clinic without mom or dad present), to show that we believe in them, while giving them the support they need to succeed (in this case, giving him a job so he could see himself as a helper.)

This success with soccer empowered Jodi and Marshall to create more opportunities to expose Oliver to challenges they knew he could work through, like going to birthday parties without them. Jodi reported: "A friend in Oliver's class had a drop-off party. I wasn't sure how this would go because he'd never had a playdate without parents present and he had never been to this friend's house. On the way over, he was freaking out and said I was mean to make him go. Previously, I would have just turned around. But I knew Oliver would regret it and that I would also be enabling his avoidance. I had to physically move him up to the kid's door. But once we entered, he jumped right in, talking to the child and his dad. I left without incident and Oliver had a great time. He didn't want to leave when I arrived to pick him up."

Look out for "Part Two" that will show how we problem-solved the school-related issues.

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