The Problem with Obedience

When other kids at the park instantly listen to their parents, it can make even the most well-intentioned parent feel self-conscious (and a little jealous).

Isn’t that the goal? A child who listens without hesitation?

Let’s talk about it.

IN THIS EPISODE I SHARED:

• The longterm ramifications of putting obedience on a pedestal
• What to focus on and aim for instead
• A question to ask yourself to reflect on your approach

DON'T MISS:

• The limiting factor that makes all of this extra challenging with strong-willed kids!

‌// CONNECT WITH DANIELLE //
Website: parentingwholeheartedly.com
IG: @‌parent_wholeheartedly
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Transcript

Danielle Bettmann  0:04  
Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood, I mean. Have too much anxiety and not enough patience? Too much yelling, not enough play? There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right, but this is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you, you feel like you're screwing everything up, and you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud - this podcast is for you.

Danielle Bettmann  0:38  
This is Failing Motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann and each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real, showing her insecurities, her fears, her failures and her wins. We do not have it all figured out. That's not the goal. The goal is to remind you you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough, and you're not alone. I hope you pop in earbuds, somehow sneak away, and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend, we're so glad you're here.

Danielle Bettmann  1:14  
Hey, it's Danielle, your Positive Discipline Certified Parenting Coach for strong-willed kids ages two to 10. I help defeated parents find validation, support and proven techniques to parent their strong-willed kids with composure, connection, confidence, and cooperation through a four-month group coaching program based on the Wholehearted framework I've developed over years of working with families one on one, and if you just found the podcast, go to failingmotherhood.com to view a playlist of our most listened to episodes, as well as where to start if you have a strong-willed child. Now, on these solo episodes, I like to rotate between strategies, like the last episode I did 'Hold the Football' or the one before that, 'After School Meltdowns', which focus on many of the 'how to' of parenting strong-willed kids. Then I like to rotate in some higher level how and why discussions, which is what today's topic is going to be. I had a great discussion with a coaching client on one of our live community calls last week that brought up a great distinction that I wanted to share with you today. So on this episode, I'm going to share their observation in question, what I shared with them, as well as a takeaway for you. Now, the client recently shared a moment they witnessed at a birthday party where another parent very sternly demanded their child get out of the bouncy house, and the child listened right away. He had shared that this parent basically went up to their kid, this 10-year-old boy, and said, "If you don't get out of there right now, I'm coming in". He got out of there in seconds. The parent that noticed this moment said she took control, she made the demand, the kid listened, and you could tell he didn't want to do what she told him to do.

Danielle Bettmann  3:07  
So is that right or wrong? It seems to me, it's not, but I would love your thoughts. Now, I love this type of question because it's really showing just how deeply this parent is going to reckon with the new concepts and strategies that are being taught and learning, and they're not just taking it and drinking the Kool-Aid and just doing the what without any understanding of the how and the why. What I find as a parent is your confidence comes from being able to do that work of saying, but what if and when and in what way, and what about this moment? That is where the rubber hits the road. That is where your true confidence of feeling like not only is what you are doing as a parent right for your child, but it's working, and you believe deep down, you have trust in yourself that you will be able to handle whatever your child throws your way. Very rarely is that the case without doing this type of work through these discussions. So I'll get into what I shared with that parent. The first disclaimer is, that anytime you want to compare your parenting and outcomes with another parent's parenting and outcomes in any given moment, especially as strangers, you do have to remember you have no idea what led up to that moment. It's true that things might work for one family or one child that would absolutely never work for yours, because you have different kids, and you have different relationships with those kids. Every family I believe, is doing their best and knows their child best.

Danielle Bettmann  4:54  
But yes, what she got in that moment in the bouncy house was obedience. There was no negotiation. There were no questions asked. It was my way or the highway. I say, jump. You say, how high, and you obey me, because you know I will get in there, I will act on what I'm saying. He has played that game, maybe, and found out so what she got in that moment seems like it was obedience in her approach, for sure.

Danielle Bettmann  5:28  
The difference if you're trying to figure out what's right or wrong for you and your child, the difference is whether your goal is obedience or if your goal is cooperation. Which is why I make a distinct choice in my use of terms. The problem with blind obedience is in those moments where you use your relationship and the threat of what comes next to gain their listening - you have a lack of fostering critical thinking in the child in that moment. You have a denial in that moment of the child's understanding of their self-awareness, their emotions, their articulation of expressing their thoughts, being able to learn a skill that might be missing, being able to figure out the reason for their behavior at that moment, or if they have needs that are going unmet for longer than a day or longer than a week.

Danielle Bettmann  6:39  
Typically, the child is going to be establishing some sort of a pattern to say, this comes down to a moment of safety for me. I have to listen in this moment to protect myself, either because I'm afraid of what this authority figure might do, or I'm starting to be afraid of myself. I can't trust myself to know what's right or wrong, and I just need to do what this person says is right. Over time then a sense of self is not really established, because they're not trusting their own thoughts and critical thinking to make the decision of what's right in that moment.

Danielle Bettmann  7:18  
The problem with that long term is if you grow up to be a teenager, or young adult, and you don't have safety within your decision-making, you don't have your base level of needs met in some long-established, patterned way. You develop blind obedience to authority figures. You end up finding yourself in positions where you do need to stand up for yourself. You do need to say no to an authority figure or someone older than you later on, and you aren't able to. That's where situations of grooming happen best, where kids find themselves in situations where they're not able to be safe with unsafe adults because they have been forced to have blind obedience out of fear to any and all authority figures or adults. They don't have the self-understanding or self-awareness to understand why their body might be telling them they shouldn't do something because their brain says they should.

Danielle Bettmann  8:24  
There's not a lot of understanding of why I do what I do. When they're asked, you know, why did you act like that? They won't be able to explain themselves, and all they know is, when adults say, jump, you say how high?

Danielle Bettmann  8:36  
It should be that the goal for that child is to understand and work with and be held to the high expectation that where there is a sense of mutual respect in any relationship - you work to work with those people, whether that is a peer, whether that is a sibling, or whether that is an adult. The goals are mutual respect within those relationships and a sense of shared, collaborative problem-solving forward. Those are the goals of cooperation.

Danielle Bettmann  9:14  
As a parent, with a healthier understanding of behavior that you're probably beginning to develop yourself, you understand that there are reasons for behaviors, and when you ignore those behaviors for a long time, that does end up creating complications in adults, which is why we have a lot of mental health and illness. It's why we need therapy later on because, in those first seven years, our subconscious is being wired. It all goes back to this parent interacting with me in this way, which is what led me to believe what is true and untrue about myself, what I need to do to get my needs met in the world, or how worthy I am of getting my needs met. Those interactions shaped my worldview. It shaped what I expect out of healthy relationships. It shapes my understanding of what love is. Those ramifications last for the rest of their life until they're really able to kind of uncode and recode and re-download some of those core beliefs, which is not an easy thing, and I'm sure that you're testament of that, but hey, at least we got them out of the bouncy house quicker, right? That's the problem with having obedience on your parenting pedestal without a more well rounded view of what the goals really are.

Danielle Bettmann  10:45  
So this is where I get to drive home the takeaway for you today. Here's the question to ask yourself, when you are intervening, when you are needing to correct their behavior, is the way that you are doing that allowing your child's focus to be on your behavior or their behavior?

Danielle Bettmann  11:11  
What I mean by that is in the messages they are getting sent, in the way that they are making sense of that moment. Are there takeaways, reflecting on wondering about or fixating about how you will react, or how you reacted, how they need to act in the future to avoid your reactions, or are they able to reflect on and make progress on their own behaviors? Are they focused on how unjust you are, how angry they are at you, how misunderstood they feel, how life isn't fair, or are they given the opportunity to take more ownership and accountability by being expected to come up with more future-oriented plans for next time?

Danielle Bettmann  11:56  
Because of the unfairness, the anger, the feeling misunderstood, that's the go-to default for strong-willed kids. Their defense mechanism is activated so quickly that it often feels like nothing you do next gets through to them. That inadvertently encourages them to double down on that same behavior next time,

Danielle Bettmann  12:17  
Energy and strategy is needed to navigate that minefield effectively, to disarm or disengage that defense mechanism completely and allow them the opportunity to not fixate so much on your behavior or the teacher's behavior, but their own.

Danielle Bettmann  12:37  
The more in control you are of yourself, and you have impulse control, and you have intentionality, and you can be really clear about your what and your why and your how, the more control you end up offering your child over their actions that pay off for years down the road.

Danielle Bettmann  13:02  
When you make everything about respect or listening or behaving or getting a reward or avoiding a punishment, they're not doing the work. They're not actively learning - what do I do instead? How do I say this another way that's more positive or healthy? Why is what I'm doing not okay? Why should I act in this way when my parent is not here or adopt this code of ethics in the future, if the same reward or the same punishment isn't offered or threatened?

Danielle Bettmann  13:37  
That is the power of positive discipline. That is the power of having your goal be cooperation rather than obedience.

Danielle Bettmann  13:48  
Positive Discipline focuses on a sense of mutual respect and collaborative problem-solving and being able to create plans strategically that are future-focused, rather than past-oriented. That allows kids to be more self-reflective, to take on more coping mechanisms and tools, to be more introspective and reflective, and be able to do that without their defense mechanism, panicking and shutting them down from any chance of humility or vulnerability. We know with strong-willed kids that is so hard for them to take ownership and to apologize and to feel put on the spot and really be able to reflect on their behavior. This is not easy. This is not simple.

Danielle Bettmann  14:38  
So if you are right now really wanting to work on how to do this well in your house with your strong-willed child, and be able to make that shift from expecting obedience to fostering and cultivating a sense of cooperation overall and taking control of your part in that journey - then if you haven't yet, download my free master class. It's called Calm and Confident, where you master the kind and firm approach your strong-willed child needs without crushing their spirit or walking on eggshells. You can find that on my website, parentingwholeheartedly.com.  I really, really encourage you to watch it with your partner so that you can both build a new path forward together. I'm so glad you're here. I believe in you. I'm cheering you on. See you next week.

Danielle Bettmann  15:35  
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Failing Motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now share it in your Instagram stories and tag me. If you love the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed and leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone, if they feel like they're failing motherhood on a daily basis. If you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong-willed child and invest in the support you need to make it happen, schedule your free consultation using the link in the show notes. I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you and I'm cheering you on.