I can't stand a fight. I have always been a peacemaker. When a child is a baby, it's so easy to think that when the crying to get needs met subsides that life will be easier. In reality, the child learns to talk back as soon as the ability to form a sentence comes. How do you enforce rules without having all the backlash? Deep down, you know what is best for your child. Your child has fun bullying you and mocking your attempts to ground them, spank them, and will pretty much make a fool of any attempt to enforce consequences. You start to be hypnotized into thinking you're a bad parent because you don't know how to deal with them.
Don't buy the lie. There will always, always be an attempt at a power struggle. If there wasn't, your child has some serious development issues. Their whole agenda is the same from the time they are infants- to gain more and more control of their lives. You want to "train them up in the way they should go" and you have been told to be consistent and enforce consequences. Training them up is not as black and white as "disobedience transpires, hand out the consequence. " This is like a transaction at the drive thru. You hand them the money, they give you the food. There is no question that you will get a bag of food when you pull up to the window.
DON'T EXPECT your child to just accept the consequences when they do something wrong. Expecting this sets you up for failure. You take away the gaming system or the keys, and you should expect that they'll want to resist that. Expect it so you won't yell. Just because your kid ticks you off doesn't mean that you have to yell. In fact, it's better to walk out of the room with them yelling at you while you go from room to room totally unaffected. Take their power away by not engaging in every fight they set the trap for. Think of the impact of your non-verbal communication. Not staying parked in one place says you are closed for business- they aren't spending the night with a friend. Staying parked with your feet in the same place as where you started the conversation means that you are listening to their demands.
Maybe your struggle is a child who responds "I'm not taking a shower." You don't have to say that they are. My six year old is too big to pick up. He wanted me to throw a screaming fit of threats when he said wasn't taking a shower. Instead, I ignored his defiance. I gave it a few minutes, and I collected all the light sabers. He decided to decoy me. He went to his bathroom which is right next door to the closet where I lock up toys he's grounded from. He pleaded that he would take a shower, so I walked off without locking the closet. He walked out and said, "I hate showers, and I'm not taking one." I placed my hands on his shoulders and walked him back into the bathroom and pulled his underwear off. I put him in the tub and turned on the shower. At that point, I hadn't yelled, and I hardly spoke to him to get the result I wanted.
I don't have all the answers, but I needed a different approach. I am sick of my household being an angry one. Everyone in my house is yelling to get their way. Even me. In order for them to change, I have to change first. It feels really good to know that there is a choice. I can choose to get upset, or I can choose the freedom in staying calm and dealing with it with a sound mind. Training them up means teaching them about the good and bad choices. How will you train them up if you treat them like a drive thru transaction? Isn't it unreasonable to think a conflict is solved by taking the role of the enforcer. Enforcer = the person who will get the resistance. Teacher = the person who will get results.
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