One of my favorite quotes from the late Dr. Karyn Purvis, author of The Connected Child* and The Connected Parent*, is, “If we give our children nurture when they need structure, we inhibit their growth. And if we give them structure when they need nurture, we inhibit their ability to trust.”

She often taught about the fact that our kids need both high nurture AND high structure from us.

[bctt tweet=”Our kids need both high nurture AND high structure from us.” username=”corkboardblog”]

As we’ve stumbled through almost every imaginable situation with our kids, we’ve found that our kids always do better when we can find the high nurture-high structure response. It’s like this magic space in parenting.

Just yesterday, I was watching our daughter get into a control battle with our granddaughter over eating chili, a meal she had gobbled up the night before.

Our daughter had put structure in place for our granddaughter but it was clear she also needed the nurture to balance it out. I did a couple of things. First, I validated that it was hard to have to do something you didn’t want to. I also offered to bring her close to help her regulate. In her own way, she ended up asking for a compromise. She wanted to eat the water chestnuts out of my Asian veggie soup. I provided structure by getting her to use respectful words and take a bite of chili before she could have a water chestnut. After going back and forth like that for about five bites, she finished the rest of the chili on her own.

I’ll admit it doesn’t always go that smoothly, and it definitely gets trickier as our kids get older, but we’ve never not been able to find that high structure high nurture solution.

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We’ve told our kids repeatedly, “When we tell you to do something, you may say, ‘Yes, ma’am/sir,’ and go do it or ask for a compromise.”

In a perfect world, a compromise would replace a defiant, “You can’t make me go to bed! I’ll go when I want!” or a whiny, “I’m noooot tired, and my friends are still playing!” with “May I have 10 more minutes to finish up this game? Then I promise I will get ready for bed!”

But what about when you feel like you’ve moved from a battleground to being a doormat and your child is running your life?

Or what if you compromise and your child sees you as weak or uncaring and the challenging behaviors only escalate?

That’s what happened when we offered compromises to circumvent homework battles. Our child twisted that to mean that we actually didn’t care about her grades or her education because we decided to not care about whether or not homework got done. She couldn’t live with the rule…or without the rule.

It’s like you’re in between a rock and a hard place. You just can’t win! What a horrible feeling!

Watch this quick video for a couple tweaks you can make to stay off the crazy train and help your child get the structure he needs to feel safe without getting in a control battle.

[bctt tweet=”Watch this quick video for a couple tweaks you can use when using a compromise with your child to make it more effective. #parenting #pblog” username=”corkboardonline”]