Am I Wrong to Hold My Ground When My Kid Refuses to Admit They’re Wrong? Parenting Tips for Power Struggles
Last Tuesday, I was folding clean laundry at the kitchen table while my 10-year-old Javi worked through his weekly multiplication homework. He’d just crammed three after-school cookies and had crumbs down the front of his dinosaur hoodie when he slammed his pencil down hard enough to make my coffee mug jump. “There,” he said. “Done.” I glanced over at the last problem: 12 x 11. He’d written 144. “Hey, that’s close,” I said. “Double-check that one for me, yeah?”
His jaw set immediately. “No, that’s right. 12 times 12 is 144, so 12 times 11 is 144 too.” I laughed a little, said no, 12 times 11 is 132, count on your fingers if you don’t believe me. That’s when he crossed his arms and leaned back, eyes glistening a little. “You always do this. You just want to make me wrong. You’re never wrong.”
I paused, folding his skateboarding hoodie that has a permanent grease stain on the cuff from when he tried to fix his board last month. I had that familiar twist in my chest: am I wrong here? Is this just a stupid power trip for me, because I need to be right? Why not just let it go? He’ll get it marked wrong in class, the teacher will correct it, that’s the natural consequence everyone talks about in those parenting articles I read.
But this isn’t the first time. Three weeks ago, he insisted he’d fed the dog before we left for the movies, and we came home to a full kibble bowl tucked behind the couch where he’d hidden it. Two weeks ago, his soccer coach called him out for stepping out of bounds before he scored a goal, and Javi sat on the bench the rest of the game, arms crossed, refusing to go back in even when the coach apologized for getting it wrong the first time. It’s getting to the point where any tiny mistake turns into a fight that ends with Javi shutting down, and me wondering if I’m the problem for not letting it go.
So that day with the math problem, I almost backed down. I almost said “okay, whatever, let’s go play” and let him turn in the wrong answer. But instead I pushed my coffee mug aside and said, “I get that you’re really mad right now, and you’re really sure you’re right. Let’s check it together, okay? You can use my phone, you type it in yourself.” He stared at me for a full minute, like he was waiting for me to back down first. Then he grabbed the phone, typed 1211 into the calculator, and stared at the 132 on the screen. He didn’t say anything. He just grabbed his eraser, crossed out 144, and wrote 132. I went back to folding laundry, didn’t say “see, I told you so” didn’t make him apologize for yelling. We went for ice cream after, like we always do on Tuesdays.
That night, though, I was lying awake thinking about it. A lot of the advice I see says to let kids face natural consequences, to not pick battles over small stuff, and that makes sense. But what I’ve noticed with Javi is that when we always let him walk away from small mistakes without acknowledging them, he starts to avoid anything where he might be wrong. Last month, he refused to try out for the advanced math team because he said he “wouldn’t get in anyway” but I think it’s because he was scared of getting a question wrong at the tryout. He won’t ask his teacher for help when he doesn’t understand something, because asking for help means admitting he doesn’t know something, which means he’s wrong about something.
Over the past few months, I’ve figured out a few small things that work better than either letting it go or fighting until he cries. First, I separate the mistake from him. I don’t say “you got that wrong” I say “that answer is wrong” or “that step didn’t work.” It sounds tiny, but it takes a lot of the sting out. Second, I never force him to say “I was wrong” out loud right after we sort it out. When he’s already defensive, making him say the words just turns it into another fight. If he wants to say it later, great, if not, just letting him correct the mistake is enough. Third, I mess up on purpose in front of him all the time, and I say it out loud. Last week I burned the chocolate chip cookies, I said “Oh, I messed up the timer, that’s my bad.” Last month I got lost on the way to his friend’s birthday party, I said “I took the wrong turn, I was wrong about this route.” It normalizes being wrong as just something that happens, not a big character flaw.
That doesn’t mean I never back down. If we’re running late for practice and he’s arguing that blue is better than red, or that his favorite YouTuber is definitely 22 not 24, I just say “we can disagree about that” and head out the door. It’s only when it’s a pattern of avoiding mistakes that I hold ground.
Yesterday, we got to his soccer game and he realized his cleats weren’t in his bag. He swore he’d put them in last night, I swore I saw them on the porch. We had to drive 15 minutes back home to get them, and we were 10 minutes late for warmups. On the drive back, I didn’t say “I told you so.” When we got to the porch and he saw his cleats leaning against the rail, he mumbled “I must have forgotten to bring them in” and that was it. I didn’t push for anything more.
Some days I leave these interactions convinced I’m doing the right thing. Other days I lie awake thinking I’m just creating more power struggles by holding my ground. It’s still messy, and I don’t have it figured out. But so far, Javi’s raised his hand in class twice in the last month to ask for help, which he never did before. That’s enough for me right now.
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