I have been having trouble with my strong willed child lately!  He doesn’t want to go to swimming lessons and he refuses to get dressed by himself after wards (to me, learning how to swim is an essential skill and not something I am willing to negotiate on)!  He is four years old and very capable  of getting dressed all by himself (he does it every morning at home with out a  fight)!  I have tried Love & Logic tactics:  Energy Drain, leaving him in the locker room (with a friend of mine looking after him),  and natural consequences and they do not seem to be having an effect!  The rules of the building are that you must be dressed and wearing shoes to walk out of the locker room.  I took him one day and my husband stayed home with the sick kids and that day, I carried him out, kicking & screaming because he wanted to put on his new shoes he had just gotten for his birthday!  Today, I put a shirt on him and his shoes on without socks (he was screaming the entire time) and I walked fast with the other two children.  He did not want to sit in his car seat because he was cold and wet.  He screamed all the way home!  I have reached my breaking point and not sure what to do!  He was screaming so loud that he had to go to his room and I shut the door, then he kept opening it, so I told him that he was draining my energy by having to listen to him and that every time he opened the door, he would have to “pay” me with something in his room.  This wasn’t working so then I took his new shoes (he was screaming so loudly you would think that the world was coming to an end)!  I told him that he could keep the door open when his voice sounded like mine!  He has already started to ask for his things back, but he is going to have to earn them back next week if he makes better choices at swimming lessons.  He will have to wear his dress shoes (which he hates) and may have to miss out on some activities we have planned this weekend because he won’t be able to wear appropriate shoes.  I called my mom asking what to do, because I have been trying things for 4 weeks to no avail, to make sure that my expectations were not outrageous, to make sure that I am not going overboard, and to get some reassuring words.  She suggested that I go and get a book called The New Strong Willed Child by Dr. James Dobson.  I will now be running by the library after soccer practice to pick this up tonight!!  I will let you know what I think of the book!

How do you deal with your strong willed child?