where did the phrase "a strong willed child" come from?

[Lantern Light Mama]

Who coined this phrase? Is it a Christian parenting phrase or it is an actual psychological one? I have big feelings about this phrase. I think it assumes negative intent on the part of the child immediately and suddenly Susi or Joe become the strong willed child (negatively). I just do not understand why this phrase is so often referred to in Christian circles. Is being strong willed an actual bad thing? If I had to pick between passive or strong will I would pick strong willed any day. My issue is that I think it is not helpful to negate a child himself. The behavior we may not approve of or enjoy, but assigning a phrase such as defiant or strong willed feels very counterproductive to me. What do you all think or feel about this?

[MudPies]

i thought dobson coined it- and i don't like it either.

[mamamonkey]

I don't know who coined it. But, I think DS is "strong willed" and that isn't with negative intent. His "strong will" is what makes him fiercely independent and persistent. Which are qualities that may frustrate me at times during toddlerhood and childhood, but qualities that I definitely want him to have as an adult.

I do agree with you that the label can often come with a negative association, much as I sometimes feel "high need" and "spirited" do as well.

[Lantern Light Mama]

Also this is not directed towards anyone here who may use this phrase. I am just trying to learn more about it and why it is used.

[mommylove]

I don't know who coined it. But, I think DS is "strong willed" and that isn't with negative intent. His "strong will" is what makes him fiercely independent and persistent. Which are qualities that may frustrate me at times during toddlerhood and childhood, but qualities that I definitely want him to have as an adult.

I do agree with you that the label can often come with a negative association, much as I sometimes feel "high need" and "spirited" do as well.

ITA. I have a super strong will & I don't consider that a bad thing at all. I am proud of my DS's strong will. :heart

To the OP, I see what you're saying. I don't know who coined the phrase, either. The one I hate is when parents think they need to break the child's will. :mad

[Karen]

I don't know who coined it. But, I think DS is "strong willed" and that isn't with negative intent. His "strong will" is what makes him fiercely independent and persistent. Which are qualities that may frustrate me at times during toddlerhood and childhood, but qualities that I definitely want him to have as an adult.

I do agree with you that the label can often come with a negative association, much as I sometimes feel "high need" and "spirited" do as well.

Yup, this. :D I love my strong willed babies probably because I am a strong willed momma. You are right, it is often used negatively. I make sure to spread the true. Such as:

Lady at church: Your daughter seems to be rather strong willed.
Me with big smile: She is totally strong willed!
Lady: I am sorry. Let me tell you some ways to break that.
Me with new improved horrified face: Break her of that? Why would I EVER want to do that. I love that she is strong willed. What should I break her to be, a sheep that follows whatever strong voice is in the crowd?

Then the nice lady moves away from me. :giggle

[ThreeKids]

The only "use" I saw in a Dobson class was in parents commiserating about how much more work it is than having a compliant child.

Even in that class, the issue of whether compliant might be dangerous if it's really just a placating nature, wasn't missed in the discussion, although Dobson missed that point entirely.

Other than that, Dobson went to great lengths to tell parents how much more miserable his gathered statistics (parent-reported) show strong-willed kids are. Other than warning parents how important it is to win the battles :eyeroll , the whole exercise seemed pointless. How, even with the "win the battles" issue, is it to affect our interactions with our kids? Whether adversarial or grace-based, don't parents just deal with situations as they arise? How often they arise might be an issue, but, if you're in the business of telling parents what to do in a given situation, I don't see how the label helps you make your point.

[flowermama]

I'm also thinking it was Dobson who coined it (eta: he has a book called "The Strong-Willed Child and one called "The New Strong-Willed Child"). :think Cynthia Ulrich Tobias is a Christian author who has a book on strong-willed children (she likes Dobson and as I recall she has at least one quote by him in her book, but the book does not promote spanking). She calls them "SWC's." My husband and I saw her talk about SWC's back when my first child was a toddler. It was very encouraging. She says that she herself is an SWC. :heart I know I am!! :giggle I do tend to avoid that phrase, though, due to it's association with Dobson and other negative associations. I really agree with those who have expressed that having a strong will is a good thing. :heart

[Maggirayne]

I have The Strong Willed Woman by Ulrich that is very, very positive. I was raised Dobson and I tried to get my mom to read Ulrich's other book, You Can't Make Me; but I Can Be Persuaded. My mom did give me the first one, it was really affirming that being strong-willed was good thing, I always felt it was iffy.

[Hermana Linda]

I also think it was Dobson. His book, The Strong Willed Child, came out in the 1992.

[Lantern Light Mama]

I have never heard it used in a positive way but I am glad to know it is possible!:rockon I wonder why the phrase in general feels so negative to me?:scratch

[Waterlogged]

I have never heard it used in a positive way but I am glad to know it is possible!:rockon I wonder why the phrase in general feels so negative to me?:scratch

Because people use it in pejorative fashion...I prefer the term "spirited" when describing my DD. I am constantly self-talking myself out of referring to her using words with a negative connotation.

I think strong-willed implies that the parent needs to break the will in order to have authority and be in charge/control....

[sweetpeasmommy]

It feels icky to me too. I was raised Dobson style. And pretty much any will that is not what the parent wants you to do is considered strong will. :td

We say DS is assertive. :) And I think it's fantastic.

[Leslie_JJKs_mom]

Jessica is the defination of the compliant child. Her goal is to make us happy. Jack on the other hand was strong willed/ OY

[abh5e8]

I have never heard it used in a positive way but I am glad to know it is possible!:rockon I wonder why the phrase in general feels so negative to me?:scratch

i was wondering this too...

conotations of words vary so much...and depend a lot on our personal experiences. (and some on our culture). i agree with all the mamas that feel strong willed is a GOOD thing. i think ds is sw and i think its great. but maybe thats bc i see the benefits to a sw christian adult...in my dh, my bil, sil and mil and fil. :giggle

my daughter and myself....people pleasin as they come. they both have their struggles and benefits...both as adults and as children. but i actually think "strong willed" asigns much positive intent to what others may term a disobedient, manipulative or otherwise poorly behaved (and poorly parented) child. :shrug3


It feels icky to me too. I was raised Dobson style. And pretty much any will that is not what the parent wants you to do is considered strong will. :td

We say DS is assertive. :) And I think it's fantastic.

:hug i think so much of how the words make us feel is dependent on our own experiences. assertiveness is great! (maybe he could teach me some :shifty)

[hollymarie]

I have always thought of strong-willed children in a negative light. I am not a parent yet, but I have worked with children through teaching and various day camps. I would often hear this term when myself or a co-worker was trying to sugarcoat some serious behaviour problems to a parent/guardian at school or camp that day. In other words, "your child is so strong willed that they will not listen when they are in immediate danger, or cooperate with other children, or accept instruction....etc. etc." BUT as mentioned above, I believe the true meaning of having a strong will can be a beautiful thing that we should all desire for our children. I believe a strong will can mean a confident, secure, assertive child...sounds good to me!

[Two Little Birds]

It feels icky to me too. I was raised Dobson style. And pretty much any will that is not what the parent wants you to do is considered strong will. :td

We say DS is assertive. :) And I think it's fantastic.

Ditto. We say ds "knows his mind" and that's what we prayed for.

[jubles]

I totally understand why so many people have issues with this phrase, but I think it can be meant positively.

My take is that many of our personality traits have good and bad aspects to it. As a child I was quite stubborn, though not very rebellious, so it rarely led to problems - my mum just always said it was almost impossible to "make" me do something I didn't want to, but that situation was very very rare. However, as a student my stubborness was what helped me do the right thing when other people were pressurising me not to.

My friend has a son who has always been extremely compliant, but is very easily-led by his friends. Most times he has got into trouble has been because he's just gone along with what others wanted. Their daughter has always been more "strong-willed" but they always say that they have no fears of her being led-astray because she has the type of personality which can stand up to the crowd.

My MIL always says that when my SIL was a child she sometimes had to resort to asked her to do the opposite of what she wanted just to get it done. SIL fought against everything she was asked to do. However, as an adult she has battled against eating disorders, OCD, and various other issues and finally managed to finish her medical training and is now a qualified paediatrician. Most people would have given up years ago, but she has really persevered. The "strong-will" that made her a "difficult" child is always what has enabled her to have the determination she needed not to give up.

There are two sides to everything. And to be honest, I think I'd rather have a "strong-willed" child than a passive one!!

ETA: I like the other ways of describing this personality trait that others have mentioned. We often talk of R being determined and we mean that positively, although we know it will occasionally give us harder work! :-)

[Quiteria]

I ready Cynthia Ulrich Tobia's book (You Can't Make Me...), and I'm pretty sure she creditied Dobson with coining the term. I know she's been invited to speak for Focus on the Family's broadcast. It struck me as kinda odd...a lot of her advice boils down to "Do NOT get into a power struggle," and she discourages spanking. I don't recall any quotes that actually encouraged anyone to follow Dobson's methods. It almost made me wonder whether she was just being respectful toward him, but not actually in agreement with his teachings, and made me wonder whether anyone on Focus on the Family was observant enough to notice the contrast.

[Hermana Linda]

I heard Cynthia Ulrich Tobia on Dobson's show. They seemed to agree to disagree on the spanking. He liked what she had to say so much that he was willing to overlook her non-spanking stance. It really gave him something to think about. I have heard that he is no longer quite so in favor of spanking, but I can't prove it.

[runningmama]

This is a great thread! We've had people comment on our son's 'strong-willed' behavior. We prefer to say he is passionate about life.:D On my tired days I wish he was a little more compliant but I don't want to tag him with a particular label. He is who he is and I love him.:lol

[AngelaVA]

We say DS is assertive. :) And I think it's fantastic.

I like this, assertive covers it pretty well I think, must more respectful sounding IMO.

[Peridot]

I also think it was Dobson. His book, The Strong Willed Child, came out in the 1992.


I am almost certain it was Dobson, who first used the term in this context, and then popularised it by making it the title of his book.

[ThreeKids]

To this day, Dobson advice puts the goal of discipline as "shape the child's will without breaking his spirit."

I remember hearing back in the day "break the child's will without breaking his spirit." It's just moderated wording for the same paradigm - the child's natural will is at odds with the parent's. So, it naturally follows that a particularly strong will is a particularly bad thing.

Disclaimer: I give no brownie points to moderated wording: Anyone who feels the "shape the will" statement affirms what they are doing are going to draw the line of will vs. spirit to whatever degree they would have, anyhow. I do give Dobson a little credit over Tripp in that he's more obviously adversarial than Tripp. Tripp's words sound so sweet, which make them more dangerous to trap more people. At least Dobson picks more obviously adversarial wording - little more honest about the nature of his paradigm.

[Karen]

I use strong willed as a postive on purpose. For me, and this is only for me, I purposely and intentional mean to take back that phrase for a good thing. I refuse to use other phrases to try to "explain" it to people who just don't get it. Please, please, please don't get me wrong, if you aren't comfortable with it then you should use another phrase. But as a child and a woman that was termed "strong willed" in a negative way, I proudly claim the title and show the positive.

[GodChick]

I never thought of "strong willed" as a bad thing -- didn't know it was used that way. To me, it's the positive attributes of the trait many refer to as "stubborn." :shrug3

[bliss]

Karen - I've totally had that same conversation! I always like to add that my being strong willed is what kept me the only one of my friends who didn't do drugs in college, etc. We WANT strong-willed children (especially girls, I feel, in today's society) who are able to STAND UP to peer pressure and aren't so used to bending their will to someone else's that they have no way to think for themselves.
[/soapbox] :shifty
And Linda, Dobson's "Strong Willed Child" book came out long before 1992 - I was raised on it :-/ and I'm 31.

[susannah]

:shrug3 I always thought it came from Dobson? My mom threw it around at us a lot when we were younger.

[Ajani]

I have to say that I worry less about my daughter's strong will than my son's compliant nature, if that makes sense. I will be less able to inadvertently steamroll over her feelings/desires than his, which means I'll have to work harder to be sure that doesn't happen. If anything I want him to be MORE strong willed. :lol:

[Thankfulforgrace]

I see it as possitive too but it's used very negatively in my experience. My parents had to fight against it with me :no

[Love_Is_Patient]

I think we're giving Dobson too much credit. He popularized the phrase, and made it more adversarial than it might have been, perhaps, by writing a book with that title. But, I find the phrase 'his strong-willed child' on p. 22 of Trumbull's book on child training, first published in 1890. I find more about the 'will' in older books (i.e. 1800's), and so I'm not surprised that this phrase has been used to describe the child who opposes his parent's will for a long time.

I think the negative connotations are there in some ways naturally. A child who is 'strong-willed' as opposed to 'compliant' in his response to parental rules and requests is just naturally more difficult to handle. Parents have to work to see this as a positive trait and figure out how to guide those children. I do think Dobson contributed to the extreme negativity associated with the label when he published his statistics indicating that children labelled 'strong-willed' tended to come out 'worse' in nearly all areas, without any consideration of why that might be (like, parents who view their children through negative labels might tend to punish and lack understanding and so actually push those children towards more negative behavior. or, parents whose children turned out 'badly' might tend to see them more negatively in retrospect, applying the labels in order to blame the child's tempermant rather than the parent's mistakes).

[Love_Is_Patient]

Oh, and I looked it up: The book The Strong Willed Child was published in 1992, but Dare to Discipline was published in 1977. I'm pretty sure that he talks about strong-willed children in there too (and definitely presents the adversarial, parents-must-win paradigm).

[teamommy]

Because people use it in pejorative fashion...I prefer the term "spirited" when describing my DD. I am constantly self-talking myself out of referring to her using words with a negative connotation.




I used to like the term "spirited". But after hanging out with moms that used it as an excuse for lack of discipline, I don't like to refer to my kids as spirited, because I think some people think spirited=brat. :(

I don't think strong-willed is n egative. It is better than "stubborn". But I don't read Dobson. :) I have a strong will. I think of the positive, adult qualities, like "persistent", "determined". I imagine my kid as a grown-up, and having sticktoitiveness, knowing what he wants and going after it.

[bliss]

Oh, and I looked it up: The book The Strong Willed Child was published in 1992, but Dare to Discipline was published in 1977. I'm pretty sure that he talks about strong-willed children in there too (and definitely presents the adversarial, parents-must-win paradigm).

The first edition of The Strong Willed Child was written/published in 1978. I don't mean to be argumentative, I just remember it on my mother's bookshelf as a small child.
From "Focus on the Family" magazine online:

by James Dobson, Ph.D.

In 1978, when the first edition of The Strong-Willed Child was published <snip>

[Lantern Light Mama]

Here is another question. How many of you have been called a strong willed child, and how do you feel about that?

[Karen]

The thing is, many words that describe a noncompliant child (spirited, strong willed, high strung, stubborn, whatever) will automatically be heard as "brat" to a large segment of the population. Many aspects in our society push for our children to never have a mind of their own, never questions, never hesitate on a command but then somehow turn into adults that can care for themselves. Pick what ever word you are comfortable with and go for it. Know you are raising a child who may be a challenge at times but in the long run will probably be more comfortable with themselves and their decisions and be less likely to be people pleasers. That is a good thing.

[forty-two]

I have to say that I worry less about my daughter's strong will than my son's compliant nature, if that makes sense. I will be less able to inadvertently steamroll over her feelings/desires than his, which means I'll have to work harder to be sure that doesn't happen. If anything I want him to be MORE strong willed. :lol:
This :yes.

Both my dds have always been strong-willed, and I've always said that a) they come by it naturally ;), as both dh and I are strong-willed, and b) that I am glad for it, b/c otherwise we probably would have inadvertently steamrolled them (same for our dog, too).

Here is another question. How many of you have been called a strong willed child, and how do you feel about that?
My parents called me that, and, though they meant it in the Dobson view, I've always seen it as a good thing, even though my parents see it as a mixed blessing. Mom commented on my dds being strong-willed, and kinda meant it as a mild negative, but I see it as a good thing (also inevitable ;)).

[domesticzookeeper]

Here is another question. How many of you have been called a strong willed child, and how do you feel about that?

My sister and I were strong willed kids :shrug3 My parents used that term, and no, it never bothered me. Of course, when they said it, it was with a mixture of frustration, appreciation and awe :giggle

We're still strong-willed ;)

OTOH, my brother is "compliant", and it's been eye-opening to see how much of a challenge *that* can truly be.

[GodChick]

Here is another question. How many of you have been called a strong willed child, and how do you feel about that?


I haven't been called a strong-willed child, but my mother used to refer to both herself and me as "hard-headed Germans," -- and it was a compliment. :giggle

[Sparrow]

I don't know who coined it. But, I think DS is "strong willed" and that isn't with negative intent. His "strong will" is what makes him fiercely independent and persistent. Which are qualities that may frustrate me at times during toddlerhood and childhood, but qualities that I definitely want him to have as an adult.



Whenever anyone comments on my "wild" and "strong willed" Brendan I say the exact same thing! It'll sure pay off when he wants something as an adult!