There is one child. You know the one.
The one who picks the fight before the day has properly started. Who winds up their sibling with what can only be described as artistry. Who somehow takes 85% of your energy while the rest of family life happens somewhere in the background.
You’ve been fair. Scrupulously, exhaustingly fair. So why does it feel like this?
Here’s what I’ve learned after two decades of working with families on exactly this: the behaviour is not the problem. It’s the signal. And when you learn to read it rather than fight it, everything changes.
Why your child behaves worst with you
The short answer is this: you are the safest person in their world.
That is not a comfortable truth when you are standing in the kitchen at 7am and everything has already gone sideways. But it is the truth. Children, and teenagers especially, save their most extreme behaviour for the person they trust most not to leave.
That does not make it easier. It does make it meaningful.
The two-step exercise that changes everything
Step 1: ask what your child gets from the behaviour
Not what they want. What they get.
Sit with it for a moment. When that child winds everyone up, picks the fight, escalates until the whole house is frayed, what actually happens for them?
They get your full, undivided attention, even if that attention is frustrated and exhausted. They get to feel powerful in a moment when life makes them feel small. They get physical closeness, a hug, a hand on the shoulder, someone finally holding them, when the whole thing eventually breaks down.
That is not nothing. That is, in fact, quite a lot.
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Step 2: identify the needs underneath
Now take it one step further. Underneath what they are getting are the needs those things are meeting.
In the scenario above, the child is meeting the need for attention, the need for a sense of control, the need to feel safe, the need to have status within the family group, and the need for intimacy.
Five real, legitimate, universal human needs. Met in the most exhausting way possible.
Your child is not bad. They are not broken. They are a person with big needs and, right now, limited tools for meeting them cleanly.
What we resist, persists
Here is where most parents get stuck.
The natural response to the behaviour is resistance. Correction. Consequences. And none of it shifts anything, because the need is still there, still unmet, still driving the same behaviour on a loop.
What we resist, persists. What we accept, dissolves.
That does not mean permissiveness. It does not mean letting everything go. It means shifting your attention from the behaviour to the need underneath it, and responding to that instead.
Emotional needs are no different from physical ones. You would not argue with a hungry child about whether they should be hungry. You would feed them. Some days the appetite is enormous. Some days it’s barely there. Emotional needs are exactly the same.
What it sounds like in practice
When you make this shift, the language changes.
Instead of:
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
You say:
“I can see you’re really angry. I’m here.”
Instead of:
“There’s no need for that.”
You say:
“Something’s going on for you today. How can I help?”
That is not weakness. That is leadership. And it is one of the most powerful things you can do in a moment of family conflict.
Your child stops having to shout to be heard. The need gets acknowledged. The behaviour, over time, begins to change.
When you need more than a reframe
Sometimes understanding is not enough. Sometimes the conflict is daily, the atmosphere at home is exhausting, and you need more than a blog post.
If your family is stuck in a loop you cannot break, if your teenager is refusing school, expressing distress, or the arguments have become the wallpaper of your home, please reach out.
A free WayForward Consultation is one honest conversation that gives you real clarity on what is happening in your family and what would actually help. No scripts, no sales pitch, just a genuine way forward.
Book here: ingermadsen.com/the-way-forward
When parents change, everything changes.