Seattle Child Therapy – Thriving Child Blog

Power Struggles (part 4) Brainstorm for win-win solutions

An important method in helping your child feel powerful and valuable, and in teaching them skills that go beyond the parent child relationship, but into school and peer settings, is helping to find win-win solutions and negotiate. It’s about asking for what you want, and also compromising to an agreeable situation for everyone.

Learning to negotiate is a skill that does take time – and you are here to help teach it to your child. Help them feel like their needs and wants are important, and that you are willing to work with them to figure something out – instead of engaging in a power struggle just to stop it.

1. Get clear about what you want – “I get a headache when your music is loud.”
2. State your intent – “I want to work this out so we can both get what we want. I get grumpy around loud music and I don’t want to act that way.”
3. Let your child/teen say what they want to say – thoughts, feelings, what they want.
4. Brainstorm solutions – write down all possible solutions. Be goofy, funny, silly! No rejects!
5. Cross off anything either of you are unwilling to do. Let your child/teen go first – then parent.
6. Agree on one or a combination of solutions. Try the solution for an agreed period of time. If it’s not working, brainstorm for a new solution.

Now of course, brainstorming for a win-win solution might not always be the solution. And sometimes some kids can get pretty stuck in “this is what I want to do, in this way, and that’s the only solution” – parents can get this way too. But the more you can show as a parent that you can give a little, and really honor and uphold the agreement when the child gives a little – it will feel fair, and your child will feel heard.

One thing I would warn against – don’t brainstorm if you’re not going to be willing to compromise as the parent, if you’re not going to stick to the agreement, or if after the brainstorming you still are going to enforce a consequence or your desire (i.e. just stop ‘it’ or you’ll go to your room) – it’ll feel like it’s not fair to your child, they’ll feel you don’t listen, you don’t care, and what’s the point. I get this often from the teens I work with who feel so much frustration and feel their parents are just “faking” when they “pretend to be nice” and compromise, but then just lay down the law anyways.

Again, negotiating with your child/teen is something that can take time – like a dance, learning the step of how to go back and forth between each other – so don’t beat yourself up if you fall a couple of times, and stick with it even when you feel like it’s not working. persistence will pay off.