Experts often accede that strong-willed
children are unique individuals with their own rights and needs,
just like any other children and adults. Are we accepting children as
unique individuals or attempting to change them to fit parents’
needs? For example,
MacKenzie advices parents to apply logical sequences when kids do
not cooperate with other kids by separating these kids temporarily
(179). However,
in the real world, many adults are not cooperating or gregarious
with each other. During
the years of working as a software engineer, I encounter many
aggressive, obnoxious senior colleagues whose behaviors include
calling names and using vulgar language in team meetings. Yet, these senior workers
are group leaders, or managers who earn respect from upper
management. By teaching
children absolute obedience, are we as parents and child development
experts equipping children the right tools to cope with our tough
world in adulthood?
Would parents’ expectations change if they are affluent
enough to allow certain strong-willed children’s ‘difficult’
behaviors to manifest?
Furthermore, some of the advice given
by experts is too general and do not take into account the
development stages of children. For instance, as the
strong-willed child damages an item in the house due to
carelessness, MacKenzie recommends parents to let the strong-willed
child experience the “natural consequence” by making him or her feel
the loss before replacing the damaged item (172). However, if the child
is two or three years-old, it is more likely that he or she will not
miss the damaged item at all.
Moreover, various experts’ advice is
not applicable to children who are late talkers. As parents attempt to
resolve behavioral issues with the strong-willed child, extensive
use of the spoken language is a prerequisite. If the child does not talk,
he or she is unlikely to understand the message, and communication
will break down. As a
result, misbehaviors are not dealt with.
Parents often wonder why their children are
strong-willed. The
answer for this question lies in the controversial nature-nurture
debate over causes for differences in personality and temperament
that has been disputed by experts for centuries. Yet, the answer is
still unclear.
MacKenzie points out those experts agree that both genetic
and environmental factors considerably impact the development of
temperament. What
scientists do not know is the exact percentage of how each factor
influenced temperament, he notes. As the debate continues, we
carefully review the thinking and research that leads us to the
present (14).
In the middle of the twentieth century, MacKenzie indicates
that most experts believed environmental influences such as parental
teaching to be the cause for the differences in children’s
temperament. Whenever a
child misbehaved, it was always the parents’ faults. Children’s behaviors were
parents’ onus of responsibility (14). MacKenzie shows that this
nurture view was soon found with flaws as parents pointed out the
inconsistency. If
parents applied the same parenting method, all children should
behave the same. Yet,
some obeyed and others disobeyed. Soon afterward, researchers
realized that environmental influences alone could not explain the
differences in children’s behaviors. The search for answers raged
on (15).