Dad's Retreat from Obstinate Four-Year-Old

Excerpted from
Speaking of Boys: Answers to the Most-Asked Questions About Raising Sons
By Michael Thompson, Ph.D., Teresa Barker

Q: Sean is four years old and very, very active and sometimes also is very obstinate when it comes to cooperating about getting dressed to go places or getting into the car. The need to be constantly "on duty" is wearing out my husband and me, and then when Sean is difficult to deal with, my husband has no patience left. Recently he smacked Sean on the bottom-some people would call it a spank-which upset me My husband's father was very harsh this way when my husband was a boy, and we had agreed that we wouldn't use this kind of physical discipline with Sean. Since that incident, when it's my husband's turn to get Sean dressed to go out, at the first sign of trouble he throws his hands up, leaves the room, and says he can't deal with it. That leaves me to do more and more, and I am exhausted by Sean and resentful of my husband's attitude. I've suggested we go to a parenting seminar, but my husband won't go. How can I get my husband to stop walking away at the first sign of trouble but control his temper so he doesn't hit Sean?

MGT: One of the difficulties men face when they become fathers-no matter what kind of discipline they experienced in their families-is that they have not had enough practice dealing with the activity level and willfulness of small children. Most women have had some experience as baby-sitters; most women took a more active role in raising their younger brothers and sisters when they were young. Women tend to have a larger repertoire of strategies for dealing with the stubborn defiance of small children. Men are often surprised by how helpless they can be made to feel, and they are humiliated by how angry' they become at a four-year-old.

People often believe that men are without compassion or do not want to deal with problems, when, in fact, a man is struggling to manage his own internal level of distress. Research has shown that boys respond just as strongly as girls to a crying baby-their heart rate and skin response are often more aroused than that of girls-but they do not have the experience in calming babies and so they remain in a more overwhelmed state longer than girls do. They don't have self-confidence that they can handle the situation.

The best part of what your husband is doing (and I hear that you do appreciate this) is that he is separating himself from your son so that he doesn't spank him. If he spanks, he is going to feel ashamed of himself and a failure in front of you. You should let him know that you respect and appreciate that he is trying not to hurt his son. You should let him know that you, too, feel like hitting your son sometimes. You should let him know that you feel stressed out by your son. It will help him to know that even though you do a more effective job with your son, you struggle, too. Your husband may have turned you into a bit of a saint in his mind and that's a problem. (Despite our respect for saints, no one wants to be married to one because the unsaintly one constantly feels inadequate by comparison.) You are resenting his abandonment of you; he may be resenting your competence in comparison to him This is how children can stress their parents' marriage. It would help the two of you if you could both acknowledge how lonely, how scary, and how difficult parenting can be and let one another know that you both need help. You need relief; he needs strategies.

How do you help him develop the skills he needs to help you? He has rejected the idea of a parenting class. That's understandable. He does not want to be humiliated in front of strangers either, and he cannot imagine that a class could make him feel better. Why don't you take the class alone and leave your husband home to put your son to bed? I'm only half joking. If your husband handles bedtime all right with your son, this might give them some needed time to enjoy each other without the stress of deadline departures. Do you have friends with a seven-year-old version of your son? Why don't you get together for dinner and ask them how they managed? It will be a great relief to your husband to hear that someone else's marriage was put under stress by a small child. They may also have some practical suggestions for you. Even if they don't, it will make you and your husband feel closer to see that others survived.

It sounds to me as if you have some good strategies already in place when you work with your son, but that your feeling of not being supported is contributing to your sense of exhaustion. Enlist your husband as a partner and help educate him by reviewing with him how you handled issues with your son during the day. This not only welcomes him as a consultant but also helps him understand all the steps in responding responsibly to your son. If you find you need specific suggestions, begin by briefing him about what went wrong with your son in the morning. Very often, going back over the events together can illuminate where the glitches were and what might be done about them. If you cannot come up with some creative solutions together, reading some practical books that deal specifically with how to avoid power struggles with stubborn children or children with high activity levels might help. Ask other parents for tips on dealing with obstinate behavior and getting a child dressed in the morning. Take some notes and share them with your husband. Ask him which ones he thinks would be effective. Then split the work of getting your son dressed, and each take the parts that you think you can do most effectively. Develop a tag-team or hand-off system, so that you can give your son to your husband when you feel resentful and he can give his son back to you when he feels overwhelmed. I would bet that when your son experiences the two of you as working together, he will much more easily give up his oppositional behavior.

In the early evening, when you both still have some energy, debrief each other about the morning battle. Share your impressions. Try to laugh about it when you can. Isn't it amazing and ridiculous that children can make us feel so powerless?