Cultivating a Deeper Relationship with Your Rebellious Child

When your child is constantly acting up and defying you, it can be hard to bond with them. Especially when you have tried everything you can to get them to listen.

You may have tried being really really sweet to them and acted like it didn’t hurt your feelings when they were rude to you, only to get frustrated and worn down quickly and then back to being irritated and short tempered. Then you try being the micro-managing authoritarian, only to break down in the other room when the child is not looking and feeling guilty (not to mention tired!). Then you swing back to the permissive side of parenting again because you didn’t feel like that was working either. All the while, all this extreme inconsistency is only making things worse and your child is very confused.

There are multiple issues that come up when confronting childhood rebellion. But one part is the relationship aspect. This is something I have learned about personally, through my own struggles with a strong willed child.

My daughter, my middle child and most rebellious one can test me sometimes to my core. She is strong willed and in some ways, that is good. She is different from her brothers and adds her own unique flavor to our family. But she can also be very stubborn and this has been very hard to navigate at times.

There was a point where she had just worn me down so much that I started to become constantly irritated and snippy with everyone at home… More than I like to admit. I just felt so bogged down and overwhelmed and it was becoming hard to enjoy my child with her behavior. I had tried multiple different things. This had even come after a fruitful season of setting boundaries and rules in our home that seemed to be very effective for a while. I remember thinking “What happened to my beautiful little snuggly Mama’s girl who is always smiling?”.

Then one weekend, my husband took my oldest son on a camping trip with their trail life group for the whole weekend. We had lots of time together. I still had the baby, but was able to put him down for a nap and spend some more one on one time with my daughter. I noticed a drastic change in her behavior over the weekend. Even when my husband got back home she was much better, but a few days later it was back to the same old defiance again.

A lightbulb went off in my head. I realized that she was craving that time with me. It was a need she wasn’t able to express to me. Not only was she not “the baby” anymore with a new baby in the house, but she was feeling like she was in the “dog house” all the time because she was getting in trouble so much with her bad behavior. It was a domino effect. She would act bad and get in trouble which would make her act out more which would make her get in more trouble. She needed attention but didn’t know how to express it, so she acted out and it started the ball rolling.

I have learned the importance of being patient and slow to anger and by taking intentional moments throughout the day to let her know I love her and that she’s important. But more importantly, to have fun and not take everything so seriously. I think this is key.

One practical way I have found to do this easily is to match my response to how excited my children are (I learned about this concept in Growing Kids God’s way curriculum). No, I may not be really excited about the messy bubble creation they have made in the bathroom when they were supposed to be washing their hands, but it’s ok for me to step away from my serious self for a minute and tap into that inner child that I know is in there. I can be silly while still telling them they need to clean up and that it is still important to not make big messes while they are supposed to be washing their hands. After all, it doesn’t need to be a habit, but my reaction is important. It’s in the delivery.

With all of this being said, it is still very important to be consistent with enforcing boundaries and rules that are expected of them. I’m not condoning permissive parenting just as much as I’m not condoning authoritarian parenting. Both are opposite sides of the spectrum and can be disastrous for your child down the road. They both can lead to serious rebellion in the teen and later years.

I am certainly not a perfect parent, but by the grace of God, He has helped reveal some of my flaws and encouraged me to be calm and give a calm answer. The scriptures say that mothers are to love their children and that the wise woman builds her home but the foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

We tell our children that we love them by our words AND actions. I now know how to effectively reverse some of the of overly rebellious behavior in our household. When I start to notice particularly rebellious behavior in my kids, I start spending more quality and quantity time with them. Take a step back and relax and have some fun! After all, I should know this. My mom’s motto growing up was “Just have fun”. It was irritating to hear her say this then, but those words of wisdom ring so true today. And doesn’t that just make life a little more enjoyable for all of us anyway? Have you every had any epiphanies that helped you with rebellion in your household? Please share with me in the comments below.