Willfulness Applies to Parents, Too

In DBT, “Willfulness” means rigidity, refusing anything but your strictly planned goal. It limits our way of looking at a problem. “Willingness” is a DBT skill  that enables us to accept the reality that we are going to have to be more flexible (and creative) in how we solve a problem. 

Often we look at our teens as stubborn, rigid, inflexible. I am sure you have heard or even used the expression, “Once he/she gets a bee in their bonnet, there is no changing their mind” or “She/he has a one track mind. As parents, we sometimes also can be “willful” rather than “willing.” Sometimes it is our fears and anxieties that inhibit our ability to think outside the box; other times we have no idea how to do something differently than what our parents did. Couples also experience “willfulness” and parenting couples are often on opposite sides of this “willfulness”- the more one parent, for example, is lenient, the more the other parent digs in their heels and takes the “my way or the highway approach,” when in reality, a “willingness” to meet in the middle would have been the solution.

Sometimes, rather than focus on our teens and what they are doing wrong-especially when they seem soooo stubborn, we need to look at ourselves and ask ourselves, are we being “willful” or “willing,” and if the answer is “willful,” then we need to adapt and change, like a…. you said it… willing parent!