The Strong Willed Child

Having a strong will is a wonderful gift.  It is a necessary cognitive capacity for completing difficult challenges. A strong will means “I” am the director, NOT “You”.  A weak willed person can easily go with the direction of the ‘other’.  A weak willed person follows the crowd.  A weak-willed person is easily led, while the strong-willed person is a leader.  A strong will is tied to Ambition, a weak will is tied to Apathy.

Our world needs strong willed people if we are to solve the complex problems we face.

The problem is, the strong will needs to be nurtured to develop properly.  It is connected to the developmental system of the basal ganglia somatosensorimotor system.  This system needs certain experiences to develop, and often someone with a strong will is not receiving the right experiences to develop the connection between their own intentional will-force and emotional validation of self-directed goal-oriented actions.

The young person with a strong will can often be viewed as a problem child.  They can be labelled with defiance, or ADHD.  When a child is not compliant, no one is asking what is underlying their unwillingness to “perform”?  Often the task they are asked to perform has very little personal meaning.  

What we must understand about the developing brain is that it takes time to learn how to use the will-force, and most school assignments are not designed for this development.  A strong will is challenging to direct, so that it takes considerable effort to focus it.  Once the stong willed child has made this incredible effort to move their attention to the task at hand, there is nothing of substance to keep them engaged.  This then leads to a general disengagement in school, and hence the label and often medication that destroys the natural developmental process, damaging this beautiful neural system.

Should school be about breaking a child’s will?  Are we looking to create compliance or maximize the potential of each child?  I believe we need to focus on the latter.  To maximize the potential of each kind of mind in our classrooms and our world.

There are so many ways we can develop the will (whether it be weak or strong).  

There are two issues.  Developing the will, and learning how to use the will correctly.

Developing the will can be done in the form of physical education and completing hard physical tasks.  The basal ganglia, which is the foundational neural system of the will, is connected to the frontal cortex, which is the primary motor cortex.  This system is part of our attention-action loops.  Have you ever noticed how a child with ADHD seems to be disembodied, often bumping into things in the classroom, dropping things, and just not present in the physical space.  To help a child come into their physical body, and learn to use it effectively is an act of helping develop the will and their voluntary attention system.  One thing that does not help the development of this system is the use of drugs.  They may artificially amp up the frontal function, but in the long-run, it will reduce the development of the neural connections and create an artificial dependence on the medications for activation of the will.

Physical activities can also help direct the will force towards something meaningful.  It can help exhaust some of the excess charge on the system when there is not a goal towards which the will-force can be directed.  But ultimately, giving the strong-willed person a goal that has meaning to them is the best way to help them develop their will.

When the will force is connected to a goal it becomes the greatest ability one could have. When we teach someone how to use their will in the completion of large and challenging goals, this ability carries over to all of life's ambitions, it is tied to our deeper purpose, that is the reason we are here.

This issue is near and dear to me.  It is the reason I moved out of neuroscience.  It is the reason I struggled myself in conventional education.  It is a part of my own deeper purpose in coming into education. This is not the last work on the strong will.​