Ending Power Struggles: How to Drop the Rope

Emily Edlynn, PhD | Parent Smarter, Not Harder

I got the text in between afternoon therapy sessions. It started with “I need some autonomy-supportive advice . . . “

Here’s the gist of what sparked the plea for help:1 Mom (my friend and incidentally also a child clinical psychologist) had respected her 14-year-old daughter’s wishes that she (mom) not attend her (daughter’s) volleyball games, agreeing to stay away until January. When that first January game arrived, daughter insisted Mom still not attend. My friend felt like they had an agreement and they should stick to it. In addition, despite wanting to respect her daughters’ wishes and understanding the rationale (to an extent), she fundamentally disagreed with her daughter’s perspective. More than that, this perspective countered Mom’s beliefs about good parenting: “I always thought having your parents at your games was a sign of love.”

As you can imagine if you have met a 14-year-old, when the moment came for the family to go to the game, rational discussion based on the logic “we had a plan” did not prevail. My friend sensed she was on the brink of responding in a controlling way, or in other words, she was teetering on the edge of a power struggle.

Control and Power Struggles

Are you even really parenting if you don’t have occasional (or regular) power struggles with your child?2 Power struggles embody control issues because the interaction becomes more about the emotions than the content. My previous piece, How to Influence Instead of Control, covers the problems with controlling parenting in general and small steps to take in daily parenting life to counter our controlling impulses. But no matter how enlightened we are about not being a controlling parent, the nature of the parent-child relationship means no shortage of challenges to this enlightenment. Since power struggles play a central role in families, it is worth including this mantra in our daily parenting practice: when we try to control, we lose influence and connection.

“We Are Not Bonding:” Why Nobody Wins

As a veteran parent, I viscerally felt what my friend was going through. I know the sensation well when a child digs their heels in about something and I dig in mine. A parent may have excellent reasons for their heel-digging, including maintaining rules and limits. But let’s be honest — it’s not always about maintaining rules and limits. Sometimes we just think we’re right and we should get our way. Our child believes the same thing.

Enter the power struggle: Each of us tightly gripping our end of the rope, insisting the other person give in and drop it. Here’s what 15 years of parenting and even longer of being a child therapist have taught me: nobody actually wins and the child usually finds some creative path to get their way.

As just one recent example from my own life, I insisted a teenager attend an event they didn’t want to go to because I decided it was good family bonding. They had zero interest in being there but family bonding. What happened? The teenager sat next to me in silence, refusing to participate while on their phone. (Hence inviting another power struggle of “put away the phone.”) We are not bonding. It looked like I “won” by getting my way with her physically present but she figured out how to get her way by being absent in every way but that physical presence.

Which is why I can see so clearly that we need to use our fully-formed brains to know a power struggle when we see one and immediately exit. This is not the same as losing, I promise. You win because you’re not spending time and energy on conflict. You win because you’re not exerting control over someone who will find every way to rebel and resist. You win because they won’t resent that you’re making them feel controlled. You win because it’s better for your relationship in the long-term.

Whether or not the power struggle is about maintaining limits, it doesn’t matter. We’re not only better off without the power struggle, we don’t need it to maintain limits. There are other ways. But to change, we have to start with why we think power struggles even happen.

Respect or Autonomy? Re-thinking Power Struggles

Every parent I knew gets hung up on two main ingredients of power struggles: authority and respect. When a child plants their feet and grabs the power struggle rope, we want to assert our authority and demand their respect. We are the parent. We are in charge, we make the rules, and our child needs to listen. Not only that, we know what’s best for them.

The preschooler or middle schooler refusing their winter coat when it’s 25 degrees outside? We know they will be cold. But they know they don’t want to wear a coat. Whatever their reasoning, from a lack of understanding about winter to wanting to look like all the other coatless middle schoolers, they are making a choice.3

Using an autonomy-supportive lens, I suggest viewing power struggles differently than a reflection of our child’s respect for our authority. That’s how we may experience these rope wars, but our children are likely flexing their agency. My teen knew she didn’t want to go to an event I thought she should enjoy and would promote family bonding. I ignored her wishes because I thought once we got there, she would have fun. Instead, she showed me she knew what she wanted/needed and I did not.

Refusing a winter coat when outside temps clearly require bundling is irrational, of course, but a child is choosing how they want their body to feel or look. For a preschooler, they probably don’t like all the extra puff restricting how their body moves.4 For a middle schooler, they want to resemble “everyone else” who doesn’t wear a coat (and they do incredibly survive what seems impossible to us but tolerable to them).

I know my friend’s relationship with her volleyball daughter well enough to know that there is no lack of authority or respect. In fact, the vulnerable young teen may have worried about letting down her mom whom she wants to impress. She knew she felt uncomfortable with her mother being at her games and her mother insisting otherwise would not change the feeling.

So what do we do about it?

5 Strategies to Drop the Rope

Understanding the root of power struggles as a drive for agency doesn’t make it easy to change. But I can speak from personal experience that practicing the below strategies (on repeat) can give you tools to drop that rope more often.5

1. Recognize the signs of a power struggle. The earlier in the battle you can see what’s happening, the sooner you can act to diffuse the situation. For me, I feel the physical signs of becoming angry: racing heart, muscle tension, and warm cheeks. I literally get heated. The second flag is noticing that my thinking is stuck. They just have to do it. It’s what they have to do. They are being so unreasonable. I’m not giving in!

2. Evaluate the rationale. After catching the signs that you have entered a power struggle, you can use your thoughts to get out. One step is to consider the rationale underlying your heels digging in. Ask yourself, “Do they have to do this thing exactly how I’m demanding? Is it that important or is there another way? Is this a safety risk?” Carseats and seatbelts are non-negotiable, for example. You wouldn’t back away from wrestling your wriggly 3-year-old into their straps, but do you need to have a throwdown about eating broccoli tonight?

3. Check the urgency. What often fuels a battle of wills is a false sense of urgency to immediately resolve the dispute. There may be occasions when timing matters, such as getting out of the house punctually, but if you’ve already evaluated the rationale as worth engaging in the battle, ask yourself, “Do we need to get into this right now? What purpose will it serve? Is it worth it?”

4. Delay and discuss. My favorite strategy is what I advised my friend, “let it go and talk about it later.” It’s amazing what this delay can accomplish. You save face as the parent because you’re not “giving in,” you’re tabling it for the future. Delaying for a later discussion also takes you both out of a state of heightened emotion, making the eventual conversation more productive.

5. Watch out for The Shoulds. My friend got stuck on the Shoulds. Her daughter should want her at her games because loving parents go to their children’s games. Her daughter shouldn’t worry about performance in front of Mom because Mom loves her unconditionally. Mom should go to the game because they had agreed on a timeline. But a teenager’s emotional life transcends “shoulds.” All that 14-year-old knew in that moment of leaving for the game is that she didn’t want her mom to come. If you notice your thoughts “shoulding” all over, remind yourself that shoulds are irrelevant. What matters is what’s actually happening.

My Recent Test: A Quiz

Even with all this wisdom I’m dispensing, I’m far from immune (as my children can attest). Just last week, I caught myself on the brink of grabbing the rope. On our way to school, my ninth grader remembered she had a quiz in history, her hardest class. She had not prepared. “But mom I’m so busy, I just don’t have time.” I had a litany of good points to make in response to that falsehood (visions of her bingeing American Horror Story seasons flashing through my head), and as I opened my mouth to make my excellent points, I stopped and said “I bet you know exactly what I’m going to say so I’m not going to get into it.” She agreed and thanked me.

Here’s what I wanted to say: “You have been busy with gymnastics for two months and figured out how to manage your schoolwork. You know how to do this and you know you have to work extra hard in history. You could have made time if you remembered.” It turns out my answer was in my mental response: she has a good track record of balancing school and other activities. This was a blip. It’s a quiz and not worth a big fight to start both of our days.

This brings up the final point when rethinking power struggles and how to avoid them. It’s worth asking ourselves, “How often is a power struggle a drive to be RIGHT?”

From Control to Connection

In a power struggle, each person is attempting to control the situation. We may feel like if we “give in” that we are granting our child control and giving up our own. We all want to feel in control. But I want to reframe the power struggle as an illusion of a battle for control, a distraction from what really matters.

We want to ultimately raise children who do feel control and agency in their lives. Maybe we can see power struggle moments as opportunities to get curious about what’s going on with our child instead of us needing to show our authority.

My friend followed “my” advice (which she already knew)6, and let it go in the moment while planning to discuss later. She shared that the next day she and her daughter had a difficult yet honest talk where her 14-year-old uncharacteristically expressed vulnerability. They didn’t seem to come up with a resolution until an hour after their heart-to-heart when her daughter said “Fine you can go.”

With my friend and her daughter, a painful disagreement opened the door for deepening their connection. Instead of getting stuck on the shoulds and thereby invalidating her daughter’s wishes, mom created space for the two of them to share their differing perspectives. And just when it seemed like they would stay stuck, they moved forward. My friend’s daughter changed her mind — not because anyone forced her to do it — but because she was ready.

What’s your experience with power struggles? Have you found ways to drop the rope?

In the Media

My interview on Psychologists Off the Clock with Jo-Ann Finkelstein about her book, Sexism and Sensibility, came out last week. I’ve listened twice (after actually being part of the conversation while recording) and I can say without a doubt that it’s essential listening and reading for anyone who is part of any child’s life. The research makes clear that we unconsciously perpetrate stereotypes harmful to both our sons and daughters. In our current moment of overt misogyny resurging, it’s more critical than ever to raise our awareness and influence our children for a more equal world.

In parenting solidarity,

Guest Author: Emily Edlynn, PhD.

Emily Edlynn, PhD, is a clinical psychologist based in Oak Park, IL. Her writing is for general educational purposes only. It does not constitute and should not substitute for individual professional advice, psychotherapy, or the provision of psychological services.

Learn more about Emily Edlynn by visiting her resources: