Parenting Superpower: Boundary Setting
If setting boundaries is already easy for you, congratulations! You won’t need this post. If you’re one of the many people who struggle with knowing how to set them, which ones are important, and what to do when other people don’t respect them, you’re in the right spot. This post will help you to start setting boundaries to support healthier, more respectful, and enjoyable relationships with your children right away.
Setting boundaries with kids is a skill that can transform your home from a chaotic circus- not in a good way- to a peaceful place of rest and coming together as a family.
You’ll know you aren’t setting boundaries if:
- You’re feeling exhausted, irritable, frustrated, and even depressed or hopeless in family life
- If your home feels overwhelming and chaotic most of the time
- If power struggles with your kids are too familiar- if it sometimes feels like they’re in charge
- If kids are whining, having tantrums, or generally not following your rules and expectations more often than not
Disclaimer: the ability to set healthy boundaries with kids doesn’t mean there won’t be whining, tantrums, or power struggles, that your house won’t often feel more chaotic than you’d like, or that you aren’t exhausted frequently.
Boundaries won’t change the fact that raising young children is demanding.
It won’t change the fact that young children don’t yet know how to follow adult rules perfectly all the time. It would be a bad sign if they did- it would mean they’re too afraid to explore. They’re developing, and it’s their job to test limits, to explore in reckless and sometimes dangerous ways. They don’t understand the world as you do because they haven’t experienced it yet! Our job as parents is to support them in gaining experience while protecting their overall safety as best we can, and to help them learn from and process what they experience so they can grow into adults who navigate the world with confidence and a healthy respect for danger.
So, boundaries don’t change the fact that children are often messy, loud, and demanding of physical and emotional energy. But, boundaries will give you calm confidence in knowing that you are the leader in the room. You are in charge, and you can handle all of this.
Having boundaries as a parent will also put your kids at ease. Toddlers and young children often act out simply because they need to know that you can handle them.
Ok, are you ready? Here’s a step-by-step process for anyone who’s thinking, “Great, sounds good. Now what?” You can use this process to start showing up with more authority for your kids today, but it takes time to build the skill of setting boundaries. Many adults who struggle with boundary setting grew up in families that didn’t support or even allow personal boundaries. For these parents, it is worthwhile to find a therapist or engage in personal healing work to address the relational trauma underlying adult boundary issues.
Ok, here’s your roadmap:
1. Build Body Awareness: While your mind might be thinking “how do I know if, how, and when to set boundaries?”, your body already knows. Your body has always known, and somewhere along the way the message stopped being received. Your task now is to rebuild the pathways of communication between your body and your brain. Practices like yoga, somatic therapy, tai chi, meditation, walking meditation, body scans, or Yoga Nidra that engage body awareness.
2. Consider your feelings and beliefs about disappointing others: Are you afraid to hurt your kid’s feelings? If you feel uncomfortable saying something that might disappoint them, make them not like you, or make them mad at you, this will keep you from setting appropriate boundaries and taking care of yourself. Kind and compassionate parents often fall into this trap, but the cost is high. Not only does it harm you to not speak up about a need, but it also harms the relationship. It’s impossible to have a genuinely caring and loving relationship, even with your kids, if you are sacrificing your needs for their comfort, mood, or preferences.
3. Consider the following statement: If you don’t believe it now, try meditating on it and allow yourself to consider the possibility that it is: No is a complete sentence. If all you ever need to say is no, and don’t need to explain or defend yourself, you can be free to have a boundary at any point. Try it in a low-stakes situation first. For example, “Can I have more grapes?” “No.” The end. The more you use it, the easier it will become.
4. Consider if the boundary is something your kids need to hear, or if you need boundaries within yourself: We often assume boundaries mean keeping someone else from doing something we don’t like. But more often, boundaries are actually internal. For example, if you know that you need to go for a walk in the morning, and nothing external is stopping you, but you don’t do it because it feels too hard to pull away, then you need a boundary with yourself. The boundary is to put your well-being at the top of your list of priorities. No one else ever needs to hear about this for you to make a difference in your life and well-being.
5. Put it into practice and expect it to be messy at first: If setting boundaries is new for you, it might not go as smoothly as you’d like. You might get angry, sad, overdo it, or underdo it. It will likely feel confusing and wrong at first. That’s ok- the important thing is to start and trust yourself to get more confident and proficient over time. Ask yourself, “Will I feel resentful if I …?” If the answer is yes, don’t do it, set a boundary, and trust that you will feel better and more confident in this over time.