7 Heartfelt Tips to Gently Guide (Not Battle) Your Strong-Willed Child

I sighed in relief and settled on the floor beside my 5-year-old son.

Getting him into bed had been particularly challenging tonight, and after playing the role of drill sergeant for the past 30 minutes, he was finally lying down.

But that peaceful moment was lost as he popped up suddenly. “I forgot to say goodnight to Daddy.”

“No,” I countered, quickly blocking him from bolting from the room to complete a task that would wake his 3-year-old brother.

“I need to say goodnight to Daddy,” he insisted, starting to whimper and whine.

After a long battle of wills, he finally settled back into bed and fell asleep. I once again breathed a sigh of relief and headed to bed myself.

An hour later, I was startled as my bedroom door flung open suddenly, and my 5-year-old sleepily stubbled in. “What’s wrong?” 

He ignored my concern, shifting his eyes to his dad. “Goodnight, Daddy,” he said simply.

“Goodnight, Buddy,” he answered.

My son looked back at me and turned right around. Returning to his bed for the rest of the night.

“That was weird,” my husband noted.

But it wasn’t. He had to say goodnight to Daddy. And his strong will would not allow him to sleep until he’d done it.

It was clear from early on that my boy was strong-willed. He had to have things his way and would tear the world apart if he couldn’t.

When he was 4, I realized this was more than just regular strong-willed toddler behavior. I read stacks of parenting books, but none of the strategies worked for him. I finally realized there was something extra determined about my boy.

Between years 4 and 5, with lots of books and prayer, I began to learn about strong willed children.

What I found surprised me and transformed my relationship with my son. Before addressing my son’s behavior, I needed to look at myself. How did I need to change as a parent of a strong-willed child?

The Strong-Willed Parent

“I can’t do it anymore,” I gasped on the verge of tears as I heard the ear-piercing screams that were loud enough to wake every member of our family for the 4th time that night.

“I’ll go,” my husband grumbled.

But as I heard harsh words of discipline pour out of his mouth, I suddenly knew we were wrong.

I had been no more gentle in my approach, but through his words, I saw my selfishness. My desire for sleep and peace had triumphed over my care for my son.

Yes, his needs seemed outlandish. He woke up screaming 5 times that night because of minor things like wanting a red light in his room turned off. Then, wanting it back on. These weren’t real needs, and we had a real need for sleep.

But what God showed me at that moment was that none of my needs were invalid until I made them more important than my child.

This realization made me more gentle and creative in approaching this parenting challenge. 

And it was a massive shift in my heart towards my son.

There was something significant going on with him that we didn’t see then. Because we weren’t looking at him. We were looking at his behavior.

So, my first tip in disciplining your strong-willed child is to look at yourself, and my second is to look at your child.

See yourself for what you are. Often, the behavior we see in others is our exact behavior.

We thought our son was selfish. He was waking everyone up at night without considering their sleep needs. And that may have been true. But we missed our selfishness.

Next, look at your child. Look at him/her. Not the behavior. What’s going on in your child’s heart that’s causing this behavior? 

It may take some time and a lot of wisdom to figure it out. But this is the first step to real change. Mastering yourself will likely be your biggest challenge in parenting. 

What Type of Strong-Willed Child Do You Have?

As I researched solutions for my strong-willed child, I ran into similar admonitions that pointed to the sensitivity of strong-willed children.

I found that these challenging children are sensitive. So, how should we handle strong-willed children? Here are the suggestions that I found:

A…[strong-willed child’s] ideal parent: someone who ‘can read your cues and respect your individuality; is warm and firm in placing demands on you without being harsh or hostile; promotes curiosity, academic achievement, delayed gratification, and self-control; and is not harsh, neglectful, or inconsistent.’

(Cain, 2013)

Unattended, a strong-willed child can grow up into an unruly, aggressive, argumentative personality that no one wants to be around. They lose their friends and their jobs and even their marriages, because they roll like a steam engine over everyone and everything in their path. However, with the consistent and long-suffering care of a mother, these strong-willed kids grow up to be world changers!

(Lia & Speake, 2015)

I often remind parents of SWCs [strong-willed children] that thier children may change the world—after all, it’s not likely that the world is going to change them!…Whatever seems to irritate them most about their SWC now is almost certain to be one of their SWC’s greatest strengths and keys to success as an adult. You no doubt have a budding young artist, attorney, preacher, salesman, or other future persuasive professional right there in your home—exercising her powers of influence on you….Your SWC may be God’s instrument for making the world a better place.

(Tobias, 2011)

I encourage you (and myself) to be gentle with your strong-willed children. Let us learn to take them aside, remove extra stimulus, and check in with them. Let us be patient with their strong opinions and calmly model appropriate behavior. Make our words be gentle even when we’ve asked them 5 times to stop doing something, and they’re smiling back at us while doing it again. These strong willed kids will become great leaders if we parent them well.

Discipline That Works for Strong-Willed Children

With the right approach and mindset, I’d like to share some research-based discipline methods that have worked with my strong-willed child. Gentleness doesn’t mean never disciplining your child—that would be neglect. 

It means disciplining them with the right heart and a gentle approach focused on instruction and restoration.

It’s important to remember that your child will always have a strong-willed temperament and that this isn’t a bad thing. You will be parenting this spirited child your whole life. They aren’t a problem that will be fixed with a few strategies. Parenting is hard work, and you do it 24/7.

Here are the discipline methods that work best with strong-willed children.

1. Lead with Grace & Respect

One of the key things that has helped me with my strong-willed son and all of my children has been looking at my attitude and approach. When I learned to approach my children with grace and respect (especially for boys), I saw a shift in the tone of our family.

Showing grace and respect doesn’t mean ignoring what your child does wrong, but not tearing down the child’s spirit because of wrong-doing. It also means humbly looking at ourselves and recognizing our failings before approaching our child. This positive parenting approach breeds mutual respect and creates a peaceful family.

Say your child snaps at his younger brother after a long day at school. And you jump on him and say, “What’s wrong with you? That’s not how you talk to your brother?” He needs to know immediately that behavior isn’t acceptable after all. 

“What’s wrong with you?” attacks your child’s character. There’s something wrong with him. And the whole interaction is negative. 

In this situation, start with grace and think, I can sometimes be snappy, too after a long day of work. He must be having a hard time right now. Then, approach the situation with a simple reminder, “Let’s use words and tones that are respectful and kind.” 

In this example, I didn’t let the behavior go. I used grace and a simple reminder to keep the interaction positive and address the unacceptable behavior in a respectful way. I also didn’t attack his character but corrected the behavior that was the problem (the unkind tone). 

This is a simple example, but even a big discipline issue requires the same approach—grace and respect. 

2. Empower, Don’t Overpower: Giving Your Strong-willed Child the Right Kind of Control

Strong-willed children have a strong need to feel in control. You may constantly find yourself getting into power struggles with them. You’ll never get them to behave by saying, “do this or else.”

So, how do you get them to behave?

A strong-willed child is a great person to have on your team, but you have to win them over by giving them some control.

When it comes to behavior, give them a choice.

After lots of bedtime struggles and frustrations, we were at a stalemate. The temporary solution had been that he stayed in his room until he woke up in the middle of the night. Then he could come crawl into bed with me. 

But I wanted gradual progress towards him staying in his room all night. 

Before bed one night, I enthusiastically said, “I’ve decided that if you can stay in your room the whole night without coming out, you can watch one TV show episode. You must stay in bed if you want to watch TV.”

His eyes lit up as he went through his TV options.

This offered my son something he could control. He needed to stay in his room if he wanted to watch TV. If he was willing to give up the TV time, he could continue to sleep in our bed. 

For me, this meant letting go of the issue and giving him a small amount of control. It took two things off my plate. I didn’t control whether or not he could come into bed, and I didn’t control TV time. Both of those were now under his control.

This approach allows your strong-willed child to have control over some small areas. It makes your child feel respected and helps him practice his will on something other than you. 

A Few Things to Consider

• Don’t Push the Reward—If he doesn’t care about the reward, work on modifying it with them.
• Drop the Reward When Your Child Does—If he sleeps in his room for a week, it’s time to move on.
• One Behavior at a Time—Resist the temptation to address everything at once.
• Don’t Grasp at Control—Back off and let him choose. Don’t stress.

If your child decides not to do the behavior one day, you don’t have to do anything. He’ll face the natural consequences. When he asks to watch TV, say you didn’t stay in bed last night and then let it go. Either your child will get back on track, or he won’t.

If the reward derails, you can ask your child what reward he would like to help him learn this new habit. And/or randomly throw in something big to get him back on track.

“Today we’re going to the zoo because you’ve been doing such a great job lately with staying in your room!”

The possibility of this random big incentive might be enough to keep him going.

Ultimately, if the reward fails, try something else.

3. Shift Your Perspective: See the Good in Your Child

Negative strong-willed behavior can come from hypercriticism, so removing your criticism can help your child feel like you see him in a positive way rather than a negative one.

Always assume that your child is trying to do the right thing. I know this can be hard, but I’ve found that they often try to do the right thing at this age, and it just goes wrong. Next time you see him do something bad, address what happened with something like, “Oh no, this or that happened. What were you trying to do?” This allows him to explain if he was trying to do something productive.

When you see him do something negative and know his intention is negative, you can say, “Oh no, you hurt your brother. I know you love your brother and didn’t intend to hurt him. What happened?”

Your child may say they did intend to do the bad thing at times; in that case, just say something like, “Oh, that’s confusing to me. Why do you think you did that?.”

However you handle it, the key here is to try to flip the dialogue in your thoughts, words, and actions. 

Instead of always assuming your child meant to do something wrong. Teach yourself to assume he meant to exhibit good behavior. This may be a stretch at first, but the more you practice, the more you will see your child in a positive light. And the more he will behave to meet your positive expectations rather than your negative ones.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t address the behavior. You do. And you correct the behavior using positive discipline. It’s also fine to say in your correction that sometimes we have negative emotions that cause us to harm people or to do bad things. Then you can brainstorm what he has big feelings—some deep breathing, going to a quiet place for a moment, saying a mantra or prayer, calling you for help, etc.

Make sure in your correction that you address the negative behavior but always respectfully deal with your child, not criticizing their character.

Note: I have multiple children and know sometimes you respond quickly and deal with another crying and upset child. Try to stay calm and separate your children first. Then, you can attend to them with this positive dialogue.

Helpful Resources

• Penny Reward System
• Little Spot of Emotions books—especially the anger and anxiety books

4. Stay True to Your Word—No Empty Threats or Stacked Consequences

If you tell your child he’ll get to watch 30 minutes of TV every time he stays in bed all night, avoid the temptation to add more tasks to this reward.

Once this habit is established, you can work on another behavior. But you’ll quickly discourage your child if you add picking up toys, putting away shoes, or not hitting his brother to the list suddenly. He did the behavior you asked for, so give him the reward he earned.

And while you’re at it, offer him lots of positive reinforcement for his positive behavior, meaning praise him like crazy for every good thing he does. He doesn’t need any more negative reinforcement. 

5. Simplify the Battle—Focus on What Matters Most

As my foot lands on the last stair, I notice an array of things that are out of place in my living room that was clean only a few minutes ago. I take in the pile of crayons on the carpet, the backpack thrown on the floor with papers tossed about. I step over his shoes as I make my way to the kitchen, where I find a puddle of milk on the floor and an entire roll of paper towels unraveled across the counter.

I take a deep breath and then start calling out all five injustices that need reconciliation. The shoes, the school stuff, the paper towels, the milk!

When I get to the 3rd thing, I can see my son’s eyes glaze over. But I keep going. In full vent mode now.

How should I have handled this? 

There are two better options: 

• Address no more than a few problems at a time.
  • Ex: “Can you help me clean up some of these things in the livingroom?” Or “I see you made a mess and I appreciate you trying to clean it up. I’ll tackle the spilled milk while you put your school stuff away.”
• Create an after-school routine that addresses the main problems.
  • Walk in the door, put the shoes in the closet, and hang the backpack on a hook. Do that every day with him until it becomes a habit.

We have to set clear expectations and help our children meet those expectations. It becomes negative chatter if we’re constantly ranting about what they’ve done wrong.

6. Understand Limitations: Helping Your Child Meet Expectations with Support

My strong-willed child is my oldest, and I recognize now that my expectations often have been too high for him. Having high expectations is good as long as we support our children in meeting them. It’s not good to have high expectations with no support.

Don’t let your child get away with allowing you to do something he could do himself, but don’t expect him to do hard things without you first laying the groundwork.

Sometimes, we get angry at our kids for not meeting expectations that we believe they should. 

We think our child isn’t trying. Consider that he may be trying and isn’t yet capable of completing these tasks without your calm support. The best way to get the desired outcome is to offer support instead of assuming he doesn’t need it.

7. Make Quality One-on-One Time a Priority

You may notice that your child’s behavior becomes increasingly dire when you have little time for him. I see this stark contrast daily when I pick my son up from school an hour before I pick his younger brother up from daycare.

In that hour, my son is great. And even if he’s having a rough day, I can deal with it calmly, which helps him calm down. But as soon as we pick up his brother, I find myself snapping at my older son anytime he’s out of line, and he often throws temper tantrums with every minor frustration.

One-on-one time allows us the space to parent our child gently. And it gives us time to see how great they are. 

Building and keeping your relationship healthy is key to a good relationship and effective discipline. 

Aim for some one-on-one time every day and extended one-on-one time once a month. This might be as simple as reading with him before bed every night and taking him to a store (just the two of you) on the weekend.  Your goal is to create a warm connection with your child.

“I need you to stay in your room tonight,” I told my son as I put him to bed. “No more coming into Mommy and Daddy’s room.”

“Ok,” he agreed.

And when he inevitably still came into our room upset for some reason, I began to offer my condolences. Giving him a hug, a back rub, and listening to what he had to say, then responding with empathy before I said, “Let me walk you back to your room.”

These walks became our new routine.

I know his growth (and mine) along with the time I spent allowing him to come into our bed, assisted in this being a smooth and gentle process.

My parenting is far from perfect, and so is my child. I have seen improvements in his behavior and my parenting. Ultimately, I now realize that my strong-willed child isn’t a problem that needs to be solved. He will grow and change and parenting is a process for both of us.

Take these words of encouragement as I send you off to parent your strong-willed child:

Here’s what you need to remind yourself every day: God’s greatest and most wonderful gift to you as a parent is himself! He knows how hard your task is. He knows that it drives you beyond the borders of your patience and wisdom. He knows that there are times when you feel that you have no clue of what you’re doing. He knows there are moments when anger grips you. He knows that your children can get under your skin. He knew what every piece of your struggle would be as a parent, so he knew that the only thing that would help you would be himself.

(Tripp, 2016)

**Comment below with strategies that have worked with your strong-willed child.

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References

Cain, S. (2012). Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. National Geographic Books.

Greene, R. W. (2021). The Explosive Child Updated and Revised Edition: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children. Harper Paperbacks.

Lia, A., & Speake, W. (2015). Triggers: Exchanging parents’ angry reactions for gentle biblical responses. Same Page Press.

Tobias, C. (2011). You can’t make me (But I can be persuaded). WaterBrook.

Tripp, P. D. (2016). Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family. Crossway.

Wilson, C. (2014). What sets them off? Understanding your strong-willed child. Focus on the Family Canada. Retrieved January 17, 2025, from https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/what-sets-them-off-understanding-your-strong-willed-child</a>.