Power struggles… they happen all the time with children. But what exactly motivates kids to oppose authority so much? Did you know that we as parents or carers actually taught them to do it at a very young age? Do you know why children actually enjoy power struggles?
Debbie Godfrey does and her Positive Parenting Udemy course specifically deals with power struggles. Understanding why they happen, what to do when you’re in one and lots of techniques to try and stop them happening in the first place.
Is it worth your money? We’ve recently taken this course, read on to learn all about Debbie, the course and what we took away from it.
Table of Contents
Course Overview
Format: Udemy
Length: 34 bitesize 2-5 minute lectures, 1.5 hours of video
Popularity: 1300 students at time of writing
Who’s it for?
Anyone who interacts with children! Parents expecting or having children of any age, from toddlers to teens. Step-parents, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, Nannies, Babysitters. Teachers, Counselors, Nurses, Social Workers.All of these groups will benefit from the knowlege in this course.
What does it promise?
Debbies course promises to offers an approach to parenting that will allow you to feel calmer and experience more joy in parenting. She promises to do this by giving you ways to minimize hassles, tantrums and tears.
Do you want to learn what we do that makes us ineffective as parents? How do we lose our child’s respect? Why do they go deaf and tune us out?
Just what exactly should you do in the middle of a power struggle with your child? How do you stop them happening in the first place?
Who is Debbie Godfrey?
Debbie Godfrey is a mother, grandmother and author. She has been a parenting coach for a long time… since 1994. Her formal education is a BA in Sociology from California State University, Northridge. Debbie resides in Louisville. Her website is positiveparenting.com.
Debbie teaches parenting skills classes in schools and community centres around the world in places like China and India, and more recently online via teleconference to groups such as Google employees.
Don’t confuse her with Amy McCready, another parenting coach who runs positiveparentingsolutions.com.
Review
I can imagine that taking this course is very much like being in one of Debbies workshop classes. Only you didn’t get up to participate because you weren’t actually there! Debbie talks either directly to you or occasionally someone sitting next to you in front of a whitescreen. Different volunteers are used for example sessions to demonstrate behaviors and feelings to you. The whole thing really feels like as close as you’d get to actually taking a class with her.
The course outlines 4 mistaken goals that are used to explain behavior in children. These are Attention, Avoidance, Revenge and Power. Examples of all 4 goals are given but this course isn’t about Attention, Avoidance or Revenge, only Power. As in Power Struggle!
Through various bitesize lectures Debbie goes on to explain what power struggles are, how you can identify them, 8 ways to get out of struggles, and 11 ways to prevent them.
Some of the techniques she teaches are shown with real ‘role play’ style interactions with adults playing the parts of children and these examples work well. Debbie also has many stories of how she uses and has used her techinques in the past.
The course is engaging, and the techniques are very useful, although you’ll need to try some of them and then go back to the materials as you’ll never remember them all.
I felt overall the course left me wanting more, like how to redirect for the need of attention? That’s a different workshop and not one I can find available on Udemy.
My Major Takeaways
Learning about “The joy of opposing“. What motivates youg children to power struggle in the first place.
A 3 years olds task in life is to power struggle. That’s why everybody has these issues.
Kids want you 100 times a day, and you’re busy. A good way to satiate their need for attention is to perform 1 GEM (Genuine Encounter Moment) with them per day, it takes 30 seconds to 3 minutes and over time will pay dividends.
