In an article Heather read recently, a parent was looking back on her parenting journey and expressed one of her biggest parenting regrets. Earlier in her parenting, she had felt that she had to mold her children to fit a specific standard of “good,” even down to trying to change their personalities to meet what society preferred. As her children grew older, she realized that she didn’t have the power to change them in such a fundamental way and could have avoided many power struggles and much heartache if she had accepted her children’s unique personalities.

This parent wished that she had spent less time wanting her children to be different.

Have you found yourself struggling with your children in this way, feeling like you are trying to force them to be something they just aren’t? Heather brings insights to this conversation to help parents shift their focus and choose strategies that will develop their child’s unique strengths in the right way instead of working against them.

**Listen to the full podcast episode here, or read on for the helpful tips!

Shifting the Focus

Children come into this world with their own sets of strengths and weaknesses, personality types, and ways of seeing the world. Even though we know this to be true, it is easy to fall into thinking that our children will or should be just like us. We often expect them to like the foods we like, hope they will want to do the things we love to do, and want them to respond to the world the way we do.

Accepting Instead of Fighting

When our children become toddlers, we are faced with the reality that they have their own opinions about things, and that they do not always align with ours. This can be hard to accept, especially when we might have been used to a baby who usually went along with whatever we were doing. It is also hard when we feel pressured to make our children into well behaved, successful individuals, even shaping their personalities to meet the expectations of society, family, or friends.

The reality, though, is that we do not have the power to change our children so fundamentally. We may be able to manipulate their behaviors, but who they are at their core will remain unchanged. Trying to force our children to be something they are not is a losing battle that often causes a rift in the parent-child relationship.

To avoid fighting that losing battle, we need to accept that our children are different from us and that our role is not to change who they are, but to guide them to be the best person that they can be.

Guiding Instead of Forcing

As we shift our focus from trying to force our children into who we think they should be, to seeing who they are and guiding them, we should seek to understand their natural traits and create an environment that helps them thrive. We want to work with our children, using strategies that align with their unique makeup instead of suppressing their natural traits.

So what is your toddler’s unique blueprint? You can look at different temperament traits, underlying needs, and special gifts. Here are a few different personality types:

• Logical: A child who asks a lot of questions and wants to know exactly what to do and how to do it.
• Independent: A child who knows what he wants, has a strong will, is determined, and wants to be the leader.
• Energetic: A child who is social and dynamic, excited and enthusiastic.
• Emotionally Sensitive: A child who is caring, deeply feeling, and expressive.

EXAMPLE

How can we support and guide a child who is more emotionally sensitive?

• Sometimes children who are more emotional are thought of as “too sensitive” or “too dramatic,” but what if we saw their sensitivity as a gift and the very thing that can help them develop deep empathy and understanding. If we nurture their emotional intelligence and teach them to trust their gut and their intuition, these traits could help them in certain career paths and help them better navigate relationships with others,
• If we downplay their emotional sensitivity and try to suppress it, we might inadvertently teach children that their emotions are wrong or untrustworthy and they may develop shame around being more deeply feeling.
• A sensitive child might need more support in handling overwhelming situations and intense emotions. Acknowledging the emotions and working through them with calming strategies will help the child develop emotional intelligence and self-regulation skills.

As a more emotionally sensitive person herself, Heather was told as a child that she was “too sensitive.” She struggled with feelings of shame around her emotions, not understanding why she felt things so deeply and why she couldn’t change. She had a parent who was more logical and did not understand her intense emotions.

When parents and children have different personalities and temperaments, it can affect their relationships, especially if the parents expect the children to change. But when we accept our children’s differences and seek to support them through their unique struggles (that may be different than our own), we will see our relationship deepen as they grow.

Developing Our Children’s Strengths

As we navigate our relationships with our children, we want to communicate with them in a way that they will receive and understand, playing to their strengths rather than focusing on their weaknesses.

EXAMPLE

How can we develop the strengths of a strong willed child?

• Its easy to see the behavior of a strong willed child as challenging. They often talk back, want their own way, and are stubborn and determined.
• The goal should not be to break the spirit of the strong willed child, but to guide the child constructively. That same determination and independence are leadership qualities and are their natural strengths.
• While strong willed toddlers might be more difficult to parent, harnessing that aspect of their personalities in our parenting methods will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

One of Heather’s own toddlers has more of a strong willed personality, very different than her own, and she has had to learn how to choose strategies in the moment to better gain his cooperation so she can teach him the skills he needs to use his strengths for good.

The Exploding Milk Story

When Heather was making breakfast recently, one of her toddlers threw his milk cup on the floor and the cup split open. Milk exploded everywhere.

Her Reaction

Due to lack of sleep and other stressors, Heather’s fuse had been shorter lately, and she reacted to the milk explosion with frustration and said, “No, we don’t do that. Mommy is upset because milk is spilled everywhere and the cup is broken!” She felt herself getting heated and knew that her reaction was not going to help the situation.

Now, there is nothing wrong with this reaction. We are allowed to be upset. Even in this reaction Heather tried to veer away from using blame, but she also knew she didn’t want to continue down this reactionary pathway. Instead, she needed to take a step back and respond.

Understanding Her Toddler

She took a moment and decided to use a different strategy because she knew that the one she was initially using was not working.

Knowing that this is her toddler who has many strong willed tenancies, wanting to make decisions himself and resisting being told what to do, she knew if she continued talking sternly to him and demanding that he help clean up his mess that he would refuse and they would be locked in a power struggle.

So instead of continuing with the rules and boundaries approach, she took a second to cool down her own emotions so that she could use a thinking strategy.  

Her Response

• She asked him, “What should we do?”
• He answered, “Clean it up!”
• The she asked, “But how will we clean it up?”
• He said, “The broom!”
• She responded, “That’s a great idea, but a broom won’t work on liquid. We need something else.”
• She grabbed a roll of paper towels and both her toddlers helped tear off pieces to lay over the spilled milk.
• Afterwards, Heather took the opportunity to guide her toddler further by asking him, “When you’re done with your milk, what should you do?” He responded with, “Don’t throw it. Keep it on the table!” Heather said, “Yes, you can keep it on the table and say “I’m all done,” or you can put it back in the fridge.”

It was important to Heather that she used a strategy that promoted critical thinking skills and worked with her toddler’s independent, strong willed personality rather than against it. Though he is very different than Heather, she has learned to accept his differences and adjust her own natural approach to better play to his strengths and give him important skills in the process.

Success With Our Toddlers

As we begin to understand and accept our children for who they are, they will feel more understood and safe with us, leading to less pushback and more harmony in our homes. When we find strategies that work with our children’s unique personalities and needs instead of against them, their outbursts will become less frequent and they may begin to cooperate more. Every child is unique, and approaches that may work for one child’s struggles may not help with another’s. That is why it is so important for us to learn who are children are so that we can guide them to be who they are meant to be.

In this approach, we embed acceptance and validation into the way we interact with our children, instead of just saying validating words.

Much of the online parenting world centers on validation, but the advice often stops short. Validation should not end after saying, “I understand you are upset, but now I will tell you the rule,” but should continue on into how we teach our children what actions to take instead. When we work on building their social skills, self-regulation skills, and communication skills and teach them in the ways they are wired to listen, we will find more success with our toddlers.  

In the bigger picture of parenting, we are building trust with our children and creating a foundation for our relationships with them and their relationships with others as well as with themselves. When we embrace who they are, guide them with respect, and honor their natural tendencies, our children will thrive and we will have a deeper connection with them.

If you find yourself needing more parenting tools and support, sign up for the free Transform Aggressive Toddler Behavior and Tantrums Guide and Workshop here!

Hi! I’m Dabney, mom to three boys in three years! I found Heather through her podcast while searching for tools to help my own toddler’s aggressive outbursts and button pushing behaviors. Few voices in the parenting world address how to manage the intensity of these toddler behaviors when you have not just one but two or more children with you.

Enter Heather, a twin mom of two boys with stories and strategies that highlighted how to manage these hard moments while also being outnumbered. I participated in her most recent Transform Aggressive Toddler Behavior and Tantrums Workshop and Cohort and found her strategies simple and effective. Not only is my parenting better for it, but I am growing in my confidence along this journey collecting more tools along the way!