Who's in Charge?

I got an email this morning from a reader who wanted to leave a comment, but somehow wasn't able to because of poor internet access and getting cut off in the middle of composing it. I'm going to copy a part of what she had to say here:

I also wondered how Bow sees himself in the family dynamic. For instance, he said to you, "Let them play", from a position of authority, as if it was up to him to give the children permission to play, and he seemed to be telling you that as if you were his second in command, so you could carry out his orders by telling the girls to go play. Or did he mean to play with him?

Bow often does seem to think that he's the boss here. He tells me that he is the man of the house. He wants to control the situation. Even though he defers to me in many ways, he also lets me know that I can't order him around with impunity. He's only nice when he chooses to be. I can't make him.

Really, every struggle between any two people is about who has control. Don't you think? Most disagreements are not due to misunderstanding. They are caused by a conflict of interest.

Sometimes when I have to leave the pen for a moment, I explain to Bow why. For instance, I say: "I have to put dinner in the oven now, Bow. If I don't, dinner won't be ready on time. So I'm going to leave you for a couple of minutes to do that. Okay?"

He answers "Okay" or "Yes". And if I have taken the trouble to explain it to him, he will usually behave while I am gone. Now, I wasn't actually asking for permission to leave by saying "Okay." I was explaining it to him and wanting to make sure he understood before I left. But he may see the whole thing quite differently!