Pushing Buttons — Is Your Child Being Willfully Disobedient?
By Peggy Gomula and Sally Kidder Davis, PCI-Certified Parent Coaches
“I have never met a willfully disobedient child, only disoriented ones.” - Kim John Payne
This willfully disobedient behavior is your child's way of communicating that she feels emotionally lost. And it’s YOU, her parents, whom she most often pushes against. She is likely bouncing her actions or words off of you just to get a reaction. This helps her get a read on what she is feeling and reorient herself. Navigators at sea call this ‘pinging’ and there is not a parent alive that has not been thoroughly pinged. It's up to us to carefully listen and be extra sensitive in our reactions.
Kids ping us for a variety of reasons: when they are feeling emotionally lost, when they need to reorient themselves due to a big family change (moving or divorce) or when they are undergoing big developmental changes.
To handle all of the pinging being thrown at you, Kim John Payne, in his new book, Being at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst, recommends the following strategies to help you be your “best self” and bring balance back into your family system:
Reduce the chaos in the environment by reducing the number of toys, clothes, and books in your home.
Emphasize rhythm and predictability. Rhythm builds resilience in children. Make your home a safe harbor where they can recharge and go back out into the world.
Reduce scheduling commitments and give your kids the gift of boredom.
Filter out the adult world by reducing screen time, because too much inappropriate adult information enters our kids’ lives via screens.
As Kim John Payne says, “If we can truly and profoundly absorb and understand the fact that children are most often disoriented rather than willfully disobedient, we can stand on more insightful, compassionate ground and interact with them from our best selves.”
We provide parent coaching for parents of kids and teens with ADHD.