Reply to If you could get a do-over, how would you parent differently?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the gentle parenting backfired. My DD was highly verbal at a very young age and could argue me to exhaustion. Like at 1 year old she could argue a point for an hour. I gave in too much and didn’t enforce consequences, thinking she would grow out of it and be a nice logical teen. She didn’t, and she’s not. 
Someday she will be a great something, probably lawyer… but teen years have been very hard.
[/quote]

Interesting, can you expand on this?

I have a hyper-verbal 8 year old DD who sounds really similar -- stubborn and will argue to exhaustion. I wouldn't say I do gentle parenting, but I have found that taking a hard line (a my way or the highway approach) backfires on me because if she can see I'm being rigid, she will double down on her opposition to see how far she can take me. Even if I "win" this battle, it's a horrible dynamic.

Right now my approach is to still maintain my rules but I do permit "negotiations" on the margins (so she does what I tell her to do but sometimes she does it her way, not my way) and engage in a lot more discussion than I every had to with my older child, who was just kind of obedient and didn't care as much about everything the way DD does (she has a strong opinion on EVERYTHING). It's tiring and I'd love a better approach but this is what I've come up with given that easy obedience is never going to happen, being strict and inflexible was making everyone miserable, and she really does seem to have this fundamental need to understand the "why" of everything and to be on board with decisions even if I'm the one making them for her. I'd love a better way!

I do think she'd make a phenomenal litigator or like a business negotiator. No idea what she'll wind up doing, but I'd hire her to negotiate my salary or like the sale of an asset for me. She's ruthless.[/quote]

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