Defiance and Power Struggles for Your 4-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child relationship, and helping your children learn to gain their sense of control in healthy, appropriate ways is a perfect opportunity.

Three-to-four-year-olds are aware that they are their own person. They are more capable of doing everyday tasks and activities without the assistance of an adult. This realization of separateness and independence can lead to power struggles and testing boundaries.

Three-to-four-year-olds are interested in demonstrating their independence, though they are still learning everyday skills like putting on shoes or fastening a coat. This can lead to frustrations as they are not fully capable of acting independently. Their search and desire for control are human needs that each of us requires. Your support and guidance are invaluable in helping them learn how to gain power in healthy and constructive ways.
In addition, three-to-four-year-olds will follow their impulses and feel frustrated when they cannot do what they want independently or competently. Children need practice managing those frustrations to master new skills without harming themselves or others.

Yet, you and your child will face challenges as they become frustrated with you stopping their actions for safety or other purposes or when they cannot do something like put their shoes on without assistance. Whereas they were cooperative in the past, children may refuse to do something with a stern, “No, I can do it myself!” They may attempt to test boundaries with you—refusing to put on their coat or fighting getting in the car when you need to leave your house.

The key to many parenting challenges, including defiant behavior and testing boundaries, is finding ways to communicate to meet your and your child’s needs. The steps below include specific, practical strategies to prepare you to help your child work through their roughest, most intense emotional times in ways that grow their resilience and self-management skills.

Why Defiance and Power Struggles?

Whether your child is angrily telling you “no” when you need to get them dressed or crying hysterically while refusing to leave the house for a commitment, learning how to deal with defiance and your child’s attempts to gain power can become a regular challenge if you don’t create plans and strategies for managing those moments.
Today, in the short term, learning to manage defiance and power struggles can create

• a sense of confidence that we can help our child regain calm and focus
• a more significant opportunity for connection and enjoyment as we work together to get through our daily routines
• trust in each other that we have the competence to manage ourselves and our big feelings, seek help and support when needed
• added daily peace of mind

Tomorrow, in the long term, your child

• builds skills in self-awareness
• builds skills in self-control and managing emotions
• learns independence, life skills competence, and self-sufficiency
• builds assertive communication to communicate needs and boundaries, which are critical for keeping them safe and ready to manage healthy relationships

Five Steps for Managing Defiance and Power Struggles

This five-step process helps you and your child manage defiant behavior and power struggles, which can frustrate and upset both children and parents. It also grows essential skills in your child. The same process can be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process).

Three-to-four-year-olds may use five to six-word sentences to communicate and may end up frustrated that they don’t know all the words to express their feelings. Paying close attention to your child’s facial expressions, body movements, and sounds helps you better understand what they are trying to communicate.
Your efforts to learn from your child build trust and create empathetic interactions that let them know you are interested in their thoughts. This will make a big difference in working together on defiance and boundary testing.
In becoming sensitive to your child’s verbal and nonverbal expressions, you

• are showing them that they can trust you to notice how they feel
• are letting them know that you will help them to face challenges
• are growing their ability to advocate for themselves if something feels like too much for right now or if they need more support
• are deepening your ability to communicate with one another

Actions

• Each time there is an opportunity, ask your child, “How do you feel? How do you think I feel?” Three-to-four-year-olds are beginning to understand that their bodies, thoughts, and feelings are their own and are growing in their sense of empathy for others. They will need your support to understand and deal with their big feelings successfully.
  • For example, if your child is making a disagreeable facial expression, say, “Freeze,” like a game. Pull out the mirror, ask them to repeat the face, and ask what that facial expression represents. For example, “Your eyebrows are squished down, and your mouth is frowning. Are you feeling mad?”
• Remember, a child’s behaviors are often influenced by their feelings. Feelings are spontaneous reactions to people, places, and experiences. Feelings are not right or wrong, but what your child does with them may be appropriate or inappropriate.
• Ask about how they feel when they can do something on their own. Then, ask them about times when they need to ask for help. Let them know that everyone, even parents, has occasions when they need to ask for help.
• When reading books, look at the images of children or animals and guess the feelings by asking, “What do you think this character is thinking? What do you think that character is feeling?”
• Practicing naming feelings will enable your child to identify their feelings and others and seek support when needed. This can help reduce arguments as your child gains competence.
• Use your best listening skills! Remember, what makes a parent angry or frustrated can differ significantly from what angers or frustrates a child. Listen closely to your child’s concerns without projecting your thoughts, concerns, and feelings.

As a parent or someone in a parenting role, there is much to learn about understanding your child’s rhythms, temperaments, and needs. Because of this learning, you will make mistakes and even poor choices. How you handle those moments can determine how you help grow their confidence. Offering yourself the grace and permission not to be perfect can ease your anxiety in responding to your child’s needs. Learning about developmental milestones can help a parent better understand what their child is going through.¹^

• Three-four-year-olds are copying or mimicking adult words and actions.
• Three-four-year-olds are growing in their sense of empathy for others. They will attempt to comfort another crying child and show affection for others without prompting.
• Three-four-year-olds can carry on a conversation by offering two to three sentences but do not yet have a feelings vocabulary and cannot describe their body sensations when they are upset or dealing with any big feeling. A feelings vocabulary takes longer to develop.
• Three-four-year-olds are eager to play pretend independently and cooperatively with other children. Children gain vital practice with all of their developmental milestones through play.
• Three-four-year-olds can show defiant behavior and test boundaries as they learn about the rules and attempt to understand your values.
• Three-four-year-olds can show a broader range of feelings.
• Three-four-year-olds may begin to experience separation anxiety when you leave them.
• Three-four-year-olds can imagine what response might be appropriate or comforting in a particular situation.

Teaching is different than just telling. Teaching builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and prepares your child for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems.

Actions

• Teach your child positive behaviors. Each time your child acts defiantly, ask yourself what positive behavior you need to teach and practice that can replace the defiant behavior.
• Allow your child some control by providing them with choices throughout the day.  Allow your child to choose between two options that are acceptable to you.  For example, “Would you like to brush your teeth or hair first?”  “Would you like to wear your red coat or your blue coat?”
• Raising your voice and your level of upset in response to your child’s defiant behavior or boundary testing will only increase the intensity and duration of your child’s upset. Yelling only communicates that you are raising the emotional intensity, not diminishing it.  If you yell at your child, your child will likely miss the lesson you want to emphasize entirely and feel unsafe, which can negatively impact the relationship with your child.
• Play together using control positively. Pinpoint a challenging time of day, such as bedtime. Enlist a stuffed friend or doll for your child to teach. Ask, “How can we teach your bear about our bedtime routine?” And be sure to ask, “What does the bear find tough about going to bed? How could we make him more comfortable with it?” Use this as a time to empower your child in ways that can help them succeed with typically challenging behaviors.
• Brainstorm coping strategies. You and your child can use numerous coping strategies depending on what feels right. But when angry and upset, recalling what will make you feel better can be challenging. That’s why brainstorming a list, writing it down, and keeping it ready can be helpful when your child needs it. Some ideas include imagining your favorite place, taking a walk, drinking water, taking deep breaths, counting, drawing, or building something.
• Reflect on your child’s defiant words and actions or when they attempt to test boundaries so you can be prepared to help. Ask yourself,
  • “How can my child gain control in healthy, acceptable ways?” Don’t forget that seeking control is a human need, but how we seek control is critical in growing competence.
  • Think about your most challenging moments. Does it occur at a time when it makes sense to proactively offer your child two limited authentic choices – no matter how small – to provide them with a sense of control? For example, “We need to pick up the toys before dinnertime. Do you want to start in the living room or your bedroom?”
  • Is a challenging moment an opportunity to build leadership skills? Can you ask for help when your child is seeking power? For example, if your child says, “No! I don’t want to leave the park,” you might say, “Our next activity is getting ready for lunch. I need your help to pick out the cups and plates we should use. Will you help me decide which ones are best for today?”
  • Find small opportunities to help your child mend relationships if harm’s been caused between children. Siblings offer a regular chance to practice this! If there’s fighting, talk to your child about how they feel first. When you’ve identified that they had a role in causing harm, brainstorm together how they might make their sibling feel better. You might ask, “What could you do?” 
  • Allow your child to supply answers. You may be surprised at how many options they come up with. Support and guide them in selecting one and doing it.

Your daily routines allow your child to practice vital new skills if you seize those chances. With practice, your child will improve over time as you give them the opportunity with support. Practice grows vital new brain connections that strengthen (and eventually form habits) each time your child works hard toward a goal or demonstrates belief in themself.
Practice also provides essential opportunities to grow self-efficacy—a child’s sense that they can manage their feelings successfully. This leads to confidence. It will also help them understand that mistakes are part of learning.

Actions

• Allow your child the chance to take steps to meet their significant challenges, whether they are working on tasting new foods for the first time, exploring the objects in their environment, or attempting to communicate with new words or phrases.
• Use “Show me…” statements with a positive tone and body language to express excitement and curiosity.” When a disagreement typically ensues, and you’ve taught them new ways to use their control, you can prompt by saying, “Show me how you can get ready to leave on time. I will set a timer.” This can be used when you observe their upset mounting.
• Recognize effort by using “I notice…” statements like, “I noticed how you started to get frustrated when you were buttoning your coat, but you took some deep breaths and kept trying. That’s excellent!” 
• Accept feelings. If you will help your child become emotionally intelligent in managing their biggest feelings, it is essential to acknowledge and accept their feelings – even ones you don’t like! When your child is upset, consider your response. You could say, “I hear you’re upset. What can you do to help yourself feel better?”
• Practice deep breathing. Because deep breathing is such a simple practice that can assist your child anytime, anywhere, it’s important to get plenty of practice to make it easy to use when needed. Here are some enjoyable ways to practice together!²
  • Teddy Bear Belly Breathing. Balance a teddy bear on your child’s tummy and give it a ride with the rising and falling of their breath. This would be ideal to practice during your bedtime routine when you lie and want to calm down for the evening.
  • Blowing Out Birthday Candles Breathing. You can pretend you are blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Just the image in your head of a birthday cake brings about happy thoughts. To blow out several small flames, you have to take deep breaths.
• Practice everyday skills. Because your three-to-four-year-old will be gaining independence to do simple, everyday tasks like buttoning their coat on their own, take time out to practice when you are not feeling pressured for time. Allow your child the opportunity, with your loving support, to go slowly as they attempt to button a coat.
• Do a dry run if you sense your child might worry about or fear a new person or experience. Your child might act defiantly, refusing to try something new because they fear the situation. For example, if you plan a trip, go to the airport together, buy a snack, and sit and watch the travelers pass by you before your trip occurs, help your child become comfortable in that new environment.

At this point, you’ve taught your child some new strategies for managing their intensely upset feelings so that they understand how to take action. You’ve practiced together. You can offer support by reteaching, monitoring, coaching, and applying logical consequences when appropriate. Parents naturally provide support when they see their child fumble with a situation in which they need help. This is no different.

Actions

• Ask key questions to support their skills. For example, “We are headed to the playground. I know it’s tough to leave when you’re having fun. Remember, I’ll remind you to do your last fun activity before we go. If you feel upset, we can take some deep breaths together.”
• Learn about your child’s development. Each new age presents different challenges, and being informed about your child’s developmental milestones promotes empathy and patience.
• Stay engaged. Working together on ideas for trying out new and different coping strategies can offer additional support and motivation for your child when challenging issues arise.
• Apply logical consequences when needed. Logical consequences should follow soon after the behavior and need to be provided in a way that maintains a healthy relationship. Rather than punishment, a consequence is about supporting the learning process. First, make sure that you are calm. Not only is this good modeling, but when you are calm, you can provide logical consequences that fit the behavior. Second, invite your child to discuss the expectations established (earlier in this tool in Step 2). Third, if you feel your child is not holding up their end of the bargain (unless they do not know how), apply a logical consequence as a teachable moment.

No matter how old your child is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.
If your child is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your child’s confidence. Your recognition also encourages safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.
There are many ways to reinforce your child’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your child’s behavior.
Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your child. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is vital in promoting more of it. For example, “You took a deep breath when you got upset—great job!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a smile or a hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the child knows what to expect, like “If you behave in the store, you will get a treat on the drive home.” (If you XX, then I’ll XX.) It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your child progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a child’s internal motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis (like in the grocery store checkout line and a child is having a tantrum. To avoid disaster, a parent offers to buy a sucker if the child will stop the tantrum). While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything moves smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your child’s choice. For example, when children complete their homework on time, a short, specific call out is all that’s needed: “You were so helpful in the store today. Love seeing that!”
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments—like the full bedtime routine going smoothly—to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your child is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, after getting through your bedtime routine, snuggle and read before bed. Or, in the morning, once ready for school, take a few minutes to listen to music together.

Closing

Engaging in these five steps is an investment that will strengthen your skills as an effective parent or someone in a parenting role on many other issues and develop essential skills that will last a lifetime for your child. Through this tool, children can become more self-aware, deepen their social awareness, exercise their self-management skills, work on their relationship skills, and demonstrate and practice responsible decision-making.