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Padriag -> RE: Breaking stubbornness! (10/25/2005 3:37:12 PM)
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First of all, let go of the idea of "breaking" her stubborness. Instead focus on working with her to guide her in changing her behavior. Breaking is antagonistic, changing is cooperative and you want her cooperating with you, not feeling she has to defend herself against you.
Second, see if you can get to the bottom of why she hates it so much. Most women I've known who have a problem with it have fairly specific reasons for it. Sometimes its having been raised that it was just really nasty and that good girls don't.... sometimes its from some form of abuse.... or just a really bad experience with it in the past. Find out what the root of the problem is and work on dealing with that. Once you get her past that, the problem should resolve itself. Whatever the root cause is, you want to work at helping her see what she does for you as being different, different circumstances, different experience... because that allows her to mentally distance what you want from her from that past experience, whatever it might be. The more she can seperate the two, the more she becomes able to develop knew expectations about what you want her to do.
As others have already said, reward her when she does what you want, praise her, let her know she is pleasing you, let her know how good it feels, tell her what she is doing right. Build her confidence in what she is doing right, encourage her, work on making it a happy experience for her, something she can find enjoyment in. The more you can guide her towards finding things about it she enjoys, the more she is likely to want to do it and do so willingly.
At the same time make it clear this is something you expect of her and that she will learn to do. Be firm about that. With that, encourage her by telling her you know she can, you have faith in her, that she will eventually learn to do this for you and be very good at it. Set your expectations of her as not only that she will do it, but that she will be good at it and that you believe she has the capacity to do that. That build her up, builds up her self confidence, and works to alter her self image of herself as to someone who can do it. Encourage her when she looses patience with herself. When she makes mistakes, correct her and have her try again. Don't make her feel as if the mistakes are huge... make them small, something easily changed... if she feels she can correct her mistakes, she is more likely to do so.
In short you're dealing with her mind, her self image, her expectations of herself... what she believes she can and can't do.
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