I find it confusing when we are told that as parents we need to set boundaries. We need to hold our ground. But so often when we do that, we end up in power struggles.
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Power struggles can happen in any relationship. They are especially common in the parent-child relationship. It happens anytime the parent and child both want their way…and they refuse to back down. As a parent, I don’t want you to back down. But I want you to practice meeting your child in the middle. I would ask if power struggles are a thing in your house, but I already know they are. Because essentially, raising children is one gigantic 20+ year power struggle as we are launching kids off to be independent humans. We are slowly letting go of control little by little by little and handing over the power every day. Some days it’s a smoother transfer of power than others.
Even though power struggles are present constantly in the parent-child relationship, don’t always have to be messy and complicated. Especially if we can catch them early and strive to hand over a little bit of that power to balance things out. Today, I’m introducing a 3-step approach to do it simply.
