Defiant behavior: Extinguish or Encourage?

I don’t know what I was like as a toddler, but I am pretty sure I was an a-hole for my mom to raise once I hit my teen years.

I not only thought I was the smartest kid on the block, I assumed I was smarter than most adults in my life. I had the confidence to consider myself the captain of my own destiny and in need of no one’s help to get where I wanted to go.

Those are admirable qualities. Unless you are a parent trying to keep a teenager in check.

My ultimate weapon, when all the arguing was done, was silence. I would go days without saying a word to mom. It wasn’t worth my time.

Like I said, a complete a-hole.

I bring this up now because Sydney is driving me crazy. And the other day, my mom said to me, “She reminds me a lot of what you were like when you were a kid.”

Thanks, mom. Now, not only do I not know how to stop the behavior that drives me crazy, I’m not even sure I want to. 

I only have experience raising two children. I can tell you raising Tyson is 100 percent easier than my daughter. And I think a lot of that has to do with personality. Tyson's is much more like my wife's and Sydney's is much more like mine.

Tyson is laid back.Up until the past few months, he rarely even got angry. He’s two now, so we are dealing with a few temper tantrums every now and then, but they pass quickly.

Sydney is a…challenging child. Her initial answer to anything you try to tell her to do is an emphatic “no.” Tyson pretty much does what you tell him. Sydney pretty much wants to know why you want her to do something and she’ll make you tell her seven different times and threaten punishment before she does it.

Everything is a fight. Bed time? Tyson might let out a little statement of protest or cry a little, but he’ll march right in there. With Sydney, it is a two-hour argument. Daddy, one more book please! Daddy, are dinosaurs extinct? What about turtles? Daddy, let me give you 30 reasons why I should not go to bed right now. 

Every…single… night. Ugh.

Tyson would fit right in as a Marine or soldier. He is a selfless team player who does what he is told, trusting it is for the greater good. Sydney is the high school student who gets expelled from school for defying  authority and running a school newspaper story critical of the principal because she thinks it is the right thing to do.

    

Tyson might become the victim of a bully. Sydney would punch out that bully…and then bully her brother herself.

Tyson will share his jelly beans with his sister. Sydney will accept the ones he shares, and then take the rest when he isn't looking. 

Tyson is content and can play by himself for hours. Sydney commands the attention of everyone in the room 24-7.  

She is exhausting. She is bull headed. She is feisty. She is selfish. She is a prima donna. She is…like her daddy.

There, I admitted it.

Is that something I want to change? For all the negatives, there is no way I am where I am in life without developing extreme confidence and independence at a young age and riding that attitude straight into adulthood. I came from a poor family in a small steel town; anything I wanted in life I had to take.

Those same traits that drive me crazy in her toddler years will send me to an early grave during her teen years. But those traits will also ensure she never becomes a battered woman or settles for anything less than the best in her mate. They’ll help her knock down glass ceilings she faces in the workplace and deal with workplace bullies who think they can boss her around. They’ll allow her to cope when friends abandon her, enemies come after her or life throws her curveballs of misery.

I heard on the radio recently that therapists like to say life is a pattern. The same things you do as a kid, the same mistakes you make as a teen or young adult – those types of things will repeat themselves throughout your life. We can’t really get away from our real selves.

I know there are things I wish I had done differently. I’m sure I’ve made doozies when it comes to mistakes. But overall, I’m pretty happy with where I am in life. I’d absolutely wish that for my daughter.

Don’t get me wrong. She needs and will learn to be humble and unselfish. But that inner drive she has, that little thing inside her head that tells her to question this or stand up for herself on that, that confidence that forces her to say no even when her head is telling her daddy is on his last nerve…I don’t think I want to extinguish that.

But those teen years are going to be painful.