A mom during a coaching call described her nightly dinner battle: "If my 5-year-old son doesn't eat enough lunch at school, I make him finish dinner before dessert. He just refuses, gets upset, and hits me."
The problem was that she was fighting a battle she could never win.
You cannot force food down a child's throat. You cannot force pee into a potty. You cannot force a brain to fall asleep. These three areas - food, potty training, and sleep - all involve your child's body.
As tempting as it is, we can't control someone else's body, no matter how firm our boundaries are.
Here's the shift that changes everything:
Once you understand what you actually CAN control versus what you're wasting energy trying to control, the battles decrease dramatically. The hitting stops. The resistance reduces. Most importantly, you stop feeling like you're in a war with your child all day long.
After reading this, you'll know how to:
- Identify the exact line between what you control vs. what your child controls
- Stop accidentally creating power struggles by trying to control the uncontrollable
- Use the Division of Responsibility framework (and how it applies beyond food)
- Get scripts that solve the real problem instead of escalating the fight
