Colman Noctor: Is your child unwilling or unable to do what you ask?

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ONE of the most important skills you can develop as a parent is deciphering if your child is ‘unwilling’ or ‘unable’ to do what you ask. Knowing the difference allows you to establish if their reluctance to comply is a form of wilful acting out that requires discipline and sanction or an expression of an unmet need that requires support and understanding.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it?

However, as with everything that concerns human behaviour, making the subtle distinction between these two phenomena is difficult. Some might argue that as parents, we know our children the best, giving us a unique vantage point to understand the meaning behind their behaviour. However, the opposite can also be the case, where we are so close we cannot see the wood for the trees.

Nothing clouds our ability to distinguish the unwilling from the unable, like our emotions. Emotions are powerful and can have a delusional impact on our thinking. If we are angry with our teenager due to months of argument and disagreement, we can lose empathy and become unable to interpret correctly ‘why’ they are acting this way. Conversely, if we struggle to accept our child could wilfully misbehave, this can cloud our judgement, resulting in a reluctance to apportion any responsibility. Instead, we blame the school, their peers, or their condition.

One of the most common reasons parents believe their child is behaving poorly in primary school is because they believe their child is ‘too clever’ for their class and is acting out because of boredom. Of all the times I have heard that theory, it probably accounted for 5% of cases. But for the other 95% of children, their poor behaviour was due to attention difficulties, separation anxieties, jealousy of a peer’s attention levels or arrested social development.

It is difficult to make a call on whether a young person is not complying with what you are asking because they deliberately intend to be so or because of an internal emotional struggle, so here are some general principles that might help you interpret the behaviour.

The first thing to realise is that unwillingness and inability can co-exist in one person at the same time. We tend to label children as ‘badly behaved’ or unwilling based on how much control we believe they have over their actions. If we think the child ‘cannot help it’, our empathy and understanding of these behaviours can be high. We excuse these behaviours and focus on supporting the young person to find better ways of managing their distress.

We do this because we understand that the child is expressing an ‘unmet need’ and so our role is to work out what the need is and support them to meet it in a healthier way. American psychologist Dr Jeffery Young, who developed Schema Therapy, describes unmet emotional needs as a lack of a sense of safety, emotional connection, independence and the presence of emotional vulnerability and suggests that all refusal to comply is a communication of these unmet needs.

However, if we believe a child’s resistance to comply with our requests is an intentional act of defiance, which they have control over, our empathy levels are understandably far less.

Appropriate sanctions

While it is undoubtedly more convenient to think that young people are all neatly divided into those with unmet needs (unable) and others with unmet wants (unwilling), unfortunately, it is not that simple. Young people, like adults, are a mix of experiences and show a combination of behaviours, some of which they can control and others that they can’t.

For example, asking a child with ADHD to comply with lengthy instructions may well be beyond their ability because they cannot remember the instructions. It would be wrong to sanction this child for not complying with your instructions because they are unable, not unwilling. However, if the same child is asked to bring a cup down from their room and they respond by being rude and refuse to do so, this is not a result of their ADHD but more likely an expression of their unwillingness to follow a parental request. A sanction in this instance would be appropriate.

While experiencing psychological issues, a young person may also ‘chance their arm’ regarding certain behaviours. My son once tried to claim that he could not help unload the dishwasher because of his dyspraxia.

I have heard from many schools where teachers feel immobilised to sanction challenging behaviour because a child is diagnosed with ADHD or an anxiety disorder. While these conditions require deep empathy and support, children with these diagnoses can misbehave too and need firm directive feedback – just the same as everyone else.

If a child is struggling to comply with the expectations that the adults in their lives have of them, it’s crucial to establish if there is an underlying unmet emotional need. A child may struggle to complete their homework due to a stressful family environment or may be short-tempered and aggressive because of the stress of negotiating addiction in their homes. They may also be struggling to comply as a result of a neurodevelopmental or learning issue that might objectively look like wilful non-compliance but in reality, it is an inability to follow instruction.

I have seen cases where a child who was short-sighted and could not see the whiteboard was sanctioned and given detention because it was deemed they were choosing not to write the content down from the board. The reaction by the adults in this scenario is unfair and cruel. However, if someone in the class refuses to do what the teacher asks because they are experimenting with rebellion by being rude and showing off in front of the other classmates, they do not require the same compassion. Giving the same understanding would reinforce to this young person that this behaviour is not only permitted but also effective in getting what you want.

By not having consequences for challenging behaviour, we encourage it as an effective coping strategy. Sanctioning unreasonable and mean-spirited behaviour does not traumatise a child - it teaches them about limits, boundaries and responsibility.

Standard of conduct 

Deciphering unwilling from unable requires us to see each action in isolation. It is not that some children are unwilling to behave well and others are unable to behave, it is a case that all children are both, and it is up to us as parents and supervising adults to interpret each behaviour and respond accordingly. 

If my pubertal 13-year-old gets irritable when I ask him to do a job and impulsively mutters an insult under his breath, I can acknowledge that puberty makes impulse control difficult, but also that I will not tolerate being insulted. Here I recognise what he cannot control (pubertal impulse control) and sanction what he can control (unwilling) - insulting me under his breath.

Remembering that we too were pubertal adolescents will help us empathise with truculent teenage behaviour, all the while holding up a standard of conduct that we expect.

I was reasonably well-behaved as a teenager but there were times when I was arrogant, gobby, and hormonal, not because of any unmet needs but just because I turned out that way for a while. I was rightly called out and disciplined by my parents and teachers for these behaviours, and now at 45 years old, I am all the better for it.

However, given that this is not an exact science, keep in mind that good parenting is aspirational.

We all will get it wrong from time to time and unreasonably sanction a child who is unable and inadvertently positively reinforces an unwilling child. But parenting isn’t about getting it right all the time, it’s about spotting where we got it wrong and trying to learn from it.

Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist.