Ever wonder why your child will sometimes go with the flow, nothing can stop her as she bounds off into whatever adventure awaits, while other times she clings and claws as if her very life depended on it?
K.N.R. can be the source of much discord for parents as well as children. The actual condition is often overlooked or misdiagnosed by well meaning parents and professionals. It affects almost 100% of children and adults at some time in their lives.
What is KNR?
Kid’s Not Ready.
Hard to believe? Consider this: Have you ever had a time when you decided to cease the struggle and allow you child to retreat from something, only to find that later on they approach it with the vigor and enthusiasm you’d hoped for initially? Kid wasn’t ready, and now kid is ready.
Does your child:
- Have vague reasoning when avoiding doing something you’d like him to experience?
- Shut down and revert to non-verbal responses?
- Make decisions based on “because I don’t want to”?
- Not perform up to the capabilities you and other adults have determined he is capable of performing?
- Are you having power struggles over what seem to be the silliest things?
These and other symptoms are often the result of KNR.
Kid’s Not Ready. This, quite simply, is often the reason you find yourself exasperated and your child frustrated.
What we often label as power struggles or stubbornness or shyness or insecurity is often KNR.
Sometimes parents view this as Kid’s Not Smart or Kid’s Being Difficult, when what is possibly occurring is Parent’s Not Listening. We all want out kids to be happy and smart and successful and socially adept. What we need to remember is that our children’s time frame is often different from ours and, in the interest of avoiding unproductive comparisons, other children’s.
From not being ready for separating from parents, or being expected to do tasks or academics that are beyond their current scope of ability, to not feeling ready to enter into a romantic relationship, these phases and stages happen throughout childhood and beyond. When your child is emotionally, cognitively and developmentally ready, the ease at which they approach these things will be worth the wait, patience and understanding it took to get there.
PREVIOUS PAGE
