Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. -Galatians 6:9

Do you have a child (or two) who digs in his heals sometimes and refuses to do what you ask? Maybe when you call him for dinner he ignores you, or when you tell him it’s time for bed he refuses to budge. Kids become more defiant in toddlerhood and the teen years when the emerging sense of self seems to be working on overtime. This doesn’t mean defiance is acceptable, and it’s definitely unpleasant.

Here I want to explain the concept of counterwill, because it helped me understand my children’s resistance so I didn’t take it personally. Then I’ll offer some thoughts on avoiding power struggles with perfectly healthy but immature kids who tend to be defiant in some circumstances. Finally, I’ll share some insights about when defiance might be a sign of a deeper emotional issue.

The Counterwill Conundrum

Your child isn’t broken when he resists you. Some defiance is programmed into our kids. It’s true. Sometimes resistance is rooted in the “counterwill” instinct that actually protects our kids from harm. Deborah MacNamar explains counterwill and opposition in children in this article. Counterwill was first explored by Viennese psychoanalyst Otto Rank and further developed by Dr. Gordon Neufeld through the paradigm of attachment. All humans naturally resist, counter, and oppose somebody trying to control or coerce them more than they can handle.

Counterwill isn’t some kind of mistake or disorder of nature: it serves a purpose. A healthy person integrates his own sense of self with the ideas, opinions, and needs of others. When somebody is invading or threatening our ability to exist as a separate person, counterwill naturally kicks in. We feel this in ourselves when somebody starts trying to “push us around” or is too aggressive in expressing their opinions to us. We feel like we need some space and we push back or withdraw.

The brain protects our child’s emerging sense of self and even their physical safety through counterwill. Big insight: children naturally resist being controlled by people they are not attached to. Thank goodness, or they’d walk off with strangers. This instinct protects them and keeps them close to us.

What annoys us is when our own children, who we know are attached to us, resist us! Unfortunately, counterwill can be triggered in the immature when there really isn’t any threat. Toddlers and teenagers, in particular, are going through a storm of growth in which their job is to understand themselves as a separate being. This is a gorgeous, exciting process but sometimes it can be a little messy. Their brains are still immature, so they sometimes perceive a threat when none exists. They perceive us as invading their space when really we just want them to put on a coat or come to dinner!

So, sometimes our child resists us simply because he’s still practicing the balance between asserting himself and following the grown-ups who are responsible for him. Immature children are more prone to resistance. It’s helpful to remember this when you’re in the thick of a battle. But we don’t want to crush counterwill, because it’s counterwill that will move a child someday to reject the lies of popular culture or to leave friendships that swallow him up. In these cases, their “no way” is a virtue!

Managing Resistance Rooted in Immaturity

If the root of our child’s resistance is immaturity, we can avoid power struggles by keeping these tips in mind:

Know your child’s limits. Some kids become overwhelmed by particular situations or triggers, and their ability to cope goes out the window. We can anticipate these situations and coach our child through them or monitor our child for signs that he’s reaching his limits. For example, if a child becomes cranky when he has several activities in one day, we can ensure his calendar has regular breaks. If we know a child freaks out during transitions, we can give him plenty of warning before a transition happens. I think rehearsing how to react during transitions is also helpful.

Have clear expectations for behavior. Create clear rules and boundaries about how you treat one another in your home. Use a respectful tone of voice, no hitting, no slamming doors. Your kids will break these rules, because in the moment of heightened emotion they don’t think about the rule. They just react because they’re immature. But you still need to have these expectations. Sometimes a gentle reminder is all that is needed to redirect our child’s resistance. “What’s a more respectful, loving way to tell Mommy you don’t want to wear the red shirt?” “Try closing that door again a bit more gently.” These “do-overs” prevent a simple stumble from turning into a major crisis in our day and maybe our relationship with our child. No need to lecture or chastise. Over time, the behavior and the rule come together.

Allow some options. I believe parents need to strong leaders; children actually prefer for us to be in charge. But too much control can also set kids on edge and make them feel frustrated. Toddlers and teens in particular push back when we are too controlling because they are developmentally working on becoming a separate person. I think it’s okay to give kids some options to reduce frustration and to give them a sense of agency in their lives. Can you let your toddler choose his own clothes, or at least from some number of options? Can you let your teenager choose his own extra-curricular activities?

Some children are defiant about food. In general I think parents should just feed their kids; it’s a basic way of caring for our children and nurturing them. But we can still allow some flexibility to avoid power struggles. In my house, my kids each have a “no way” food that they don’t have to eat. One child doesn’t want to eat beans; another child doesn’t want to eat bacon. We have a “kids choice night” when one child (they rotate turns) picks what we have for dinner. Now I have older kids who cook one night a week and they choose what’s on the menu.

Make a game of it. A pivotal moment in my mothering came the year I read Playful Parenting by Larry Cohen. I learned that I could avoid a lot of power struggles with my kids by having a lighthearted attitude and engaging cooperation through play. For example, if they tuned me out when I called them for dinner, I would challenge them to a jumping game: Whoever could get the table in the least jumps won.

Allow him to have a bad day. Everyone has off days when nothing seems to go our way. We all need a safe person to unload on a little. Kids sometimes don’t have a good barometer for what is too much, what is too intense, or they simply lack self-control. So if your child really unleashes on you, and you sense he’s just having a bad day, it’s okay to let him vent. Later, after he calms down, you can let him know how he might have expressed himself a little more artfully. Also, being a good example of grace under fire goes a long way.

Perfect parenting not required. I try to follow my own advice here, but you know what? Sometimes I’ve had to lay down the law really hard. Once my toddler would not get in her car seat and her older brother was late for an event. I tried to engage her through play (“I wonder if you can get in the seat before I count to 3?”) but nope she would not budge. I wish I had the time to listen to her feelings and explore the problem, but I just had to get on the road, so I wrestled her into the seat and drove off. She was not happy with me but our relationship survived because I think on whole she feels respected and loved. As parents we have to do the best we can, and sometimes our best is not ideal, but oh well. Onward!

Weak Attachment or Defensive Detachment

Sometimes the problem we’re having with a defiant child is more than immaturity. Our children can be attached to us, but sometimes the roots aren’t very deep. As I’ve talked about before, there is one need for attachment but six ways of attaching: physical closeness, sameness, belonging, significance, emotional intimacy, and psychological intimacy. Sometimes there is a mismatch between how we like to connect with our child and what he needs from us. He feels alarmed and alone at the same time. This child may resist separating from us (refusing to go to school or to bed) or he may become alpha in the relationship (taking on the parenting role and orchestrating the relationship). Such children seem strong on the exterior but they are really alarmed.

Or our child might have experienced wounding apart from us so he is emotionally shielding himself even though we are there to protect him. This is called defensive detachment: our child’s brain helps him cope by shutting down his soft feelings. This can happen when a child has been bullied in school or when we’ve been traveling away from our child. Our child’s heart hardens up a little bit so he can survive. Hard-hearted children believe they don’t care about our rules; they turn in on themselves. But deep inside they really do care and they want to be loved.

In either a case (weak attachment or defensive detachment), it’s common for parents to increase the threats and consequences for disobedience, but in the long run this approach won’t work. Know I am not coming at this from a place of judgment: I know all too well what it feels like to be at wits end with a child and how easy is it to ramp up the threats hoping to get the behavior in line. Unfortunately, when we do this with an alarmed or hardened child, we’ll become locked in an escalating battle of wills that will damage our relationship with our child. The increasing threats also leave these children feeling even more alone or angry.

Work the attachment. When a child is alarmed or in shut-down mode, we have to work the attachment and restore connection first before we can teach any lessons about manners, respect, etc. We have to kind of put our agenda on the back burner while we gather our child close again.

Teaching our children about respect, why it’s important to obey us, what behavior is unacceptable are essential to our jobs as parents. I think though we have to be prudent in how we approach these lessons. Our lessons will fall on deaf ears and will actually do the opposite of what we’re intending if our child cannot hear us or if he is hardened against us.

Become the answer. It’s for these reasons that I avoid answering parents’ questions about “what to do” when a child is doing this or that, because my answer is always, “It depends.” Sometimes we are desperate for an instruction manual! I get it! But before we look for answers about what to do, we have to become the answer for our child. That’s the best answer: become the answer. We have to become the answer to our child’s deepest yearning for safety, connection, and love.

When we become the answer to his needs, the answers about what to do flow intuitively. What to do when a child resists us? Well it depends. Sometimes what to do changes from one day to the next, because the reasons for our child’s behavior and his needs change.

• Sometimes our child resists us because he’s tired.
• Sometimes he says “NO” because he’s immature and practicing asserting himself.
• Sometimes he digs in his heels because he is locked in counterwill and needs help becoming unstuck.

Depending on WHY he is resisting, our answer about what to do will be different. This feels messy and it is. Parenting isn’t a scientific formula or a recipe; it is an art that requires learning how to see, when to take a new path, and when to stick to the path but to be patient while maturity unfolds.

Resources

Making Sense of Counterwill at the Neufeld Institute. A whole class on counterwill!

Rest, Play, Grow by Deborah MacNamara. Helpful for parents of preschoolers.

Playful Parenting: An Exciting New Approach to Raising Children That Will Help You Nurture Close Connections, Solve Behavior Problems, and Encourage Confidence by Larry Cohen. One of the best parenting books I ever read. Learn how children make sense of the world through play, and how you can use play to connect with your child.

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