“You’re not the boss of me”

You need the car packed and to be out the door as you’re already late. There are a number of things that are going through your head as you itemize everything and inevitably, you’ll forget something. You just don’t know it yet. You look down at your watch and roll your eyes again. The traffic alone is enough to get your pulse to race. And now, your kid is singing some unknown ditty as she meticulously ties her shoelace. And that’s when you start to lose it and start barking orders.

“Did you get this? Did you get that?”
“Don’t forget this. Leave that behind.”
“We gotta go, now!”

Then out of the mouths of babes, she blurts out, “You’re not the boss of me, you know,” followed by an upturn nose. How you respond in the next two seconds will set the template for all future tug-o-war struggles. As you weigh the importance of your galactic directive against her nonchalant live-in-the-moment indulgence. Which one of you wins? Will she continue to red-line your patience or will you put your foot down and press the red button? Hmmm. Decisions, decision. By the way, your two seconds are up.

When a child realizes that your bossiness has both limits and an expiry, it leaves her a significant amount of space for her to negotiate her actions.

Here’s a tip: don’t take the bait. If you want to motivate her, she’s gotta have some skin in the game. Try these:

“If we’re late, you will have less time for such and such.”
“If we don’t leave now, traffic will be so bad, you could be sitting in the back seat longer than you need to.” (You know how much she hates sitting back there.)

What’s worked well for me is to suppress your tendency as a dictator and isolate the urgency of the moment.

“I am not the boss of everything, but right now, I’m the boss of this,” and replace ‘this’ with whatever the situation you’re in right then and there.
“I’m the boss of dinner time…”
“I’m the boss of bath time…”
“I’m the boss of getting homework done (this) and then you can be the boss of 30 minutes of free time (that).”
“You can be the boss of where things go in your room, but I’m the boss of making sure nothing is on the floor.”

This type of construction lets her know that there are requirements in daily situations that can be both flexible and non-permanent to allow for common ground. If you respond with, “I am your boss”, then you’ve immediately pit your tyrannical position against her need for self-expression. You will eventually lose. Telling her that you’re the boss of this, provides boundaries that when she agrees to this, her freedom outside of this would not be in jeopardy.  Getting her to do this, is temporary as it will not be like this forever. And when a child realizes that your bossiness has both limits and an expiry, it leaves her a significant amount of space for her to negotiate her actions. She needs to have these exchanges with you to practice her own social interaction with others. At school, her peers are constantly challenging each other and your home should be a safe haven for her to practice these essential skills.

When a child realizes this is usually followed by that, you will very likely get cooperation from her in helping you achieve this. Because if she knows that this may be an essential part of getting to that, all of a sudden, it’s not about you trying to herd her into an outcome — she will realize that she is a co-author of that outcome!