5 Reasons Your Child Craves Boundaries

5 Reasons Your Child Craves Boundaries

Boundaries are our way of protecting and looking after ourselves. They are the secret gatekeepers to our souls, keeping the good in and the not-so-good out. But why does your child crave them? Boundaries help your child thrive by teaching them responsibility, security, consequences, respect, and emotional regulation.

What Children Can Learn From Boundaries.

  1. Responsibility

    Boundaries teach children that they are the only ones in control of their own behavior. To do this, allow the consequences of their choices to follow them. Give your child the advantage in life by giving them the space to ask for something they want. Even though they may not get it. Whenever you can, allow them to talk about their frustration and sadness without jumping to fix it for them. Feeling frustrated and sad are not “bad” feelings. But making them feel like they are bad, will stop your child from expressing themselves.

    If your child can take responsibility for her own feelings and needs, she will learn how to meet those needs too. She will learn that her failure and her success (because one leads to the other!) is because of her own initiative. Your instinct will be to immediately scoop her up and save her, but ‘saving’ her will only mean over-dependence on you and a lack of responsibility for herself. Support her, and be there with her, but give her the opportunity to discover her own resilience and resourcefulness.

  2. Security

    Right from when children are little, they will give you signs when they are anxious or distressed. Being able to say no from a young age gives them the power over their own voices. The best thing you can do for them is to respect their choices. To nurture this, respond in a way that shows you support your child, even though you might not agree with them. Allow your child the space to say no while still giving her your love and acceptance. This will allow them to learn that it is okay to be themselves and have their own opinions. Being able to say no within their own families, will help them do the same with peers or at work when they are older. 

  3. Consequences

    Children need to have a sense of direction in their lives. When you give your child a choice, you give them the power of that choice too. You give them a sense of authority and control, even if it is a simple choice of what color bowl they want for breakfast. 

    Help them feel confident in the decisions they make now.  They will draw on this same confidence again when deciding bigger issues as they grow older. Be patient. Give your child the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them too.

  4. Respect

    Have you ever been around a child (or anyone for that matter) who can’t accept the word “no”? The child knows that if she pushes the right buttons, one parent will be likely to say yes. Learning that no means no, is a great lesson in having empathy for others. Being able to see things from someone else’s perspective is a gift. Children need to know that their behavior always has a consequence and that their actions can be hurtful. Understanding that “no” means “no” when it comes to that candy car, will help your child respect the “no” that comes from running a budget, obeying the law, doing the ‘right’ thing.

  5. Regulating Emotions

    It isn’t easy for children to make their big feelings, feel not so big. Temper tantrums are the direct result of letting big feelings take over completely. As children get older, they learn how to talk about their needs through conversations with you. Learning how to regulate their emotions, can also lead them to be patient in getting what they want. They learn how to cool off on their own and how this in itself, has a reward down the line for them. This teaches them how to have a goal in life, and to enjoy the reward of that goal when they reach it.

    To encourage this, accept your child’s feelings, even when it’s inconvenient for you. Encourage your child to feel as mad as she wants, but make sure she knows that she cannot hit someone else when she feels that way. Praise her for a job well done and help her choose her own reward as a result of managing her big feelings on her own.

Teaching your child how to set boundaries and respect the boundaries of others can be a challenge. Give your child the advantage in life by teaching them how to identify their needs, and how best to meet them. You are your child’s best role model. Your clear and consistent boundaries will teach your child exactly how they can do the same for themselves.


About the Author: Carla Buck

Carla Buck, M.A., is a writer, mental health therapist and global traveler having traveled to more than 75 countries worldwide. She has experience working with children and their parents all over the world, having lived, worked and volunteered in Africa, North America, Europe and the Middle East. Carla is the creator of Warrior Brain Parenting, helping moms and dads confidently raise their secure and calm children. 

You can visit her website and learn more at https://www.warriorbrain.com or join the Warrior Brain Parenting community on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/warriorbrain/

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We humans feel safest when we know where the edges are. Without boundaries it can feel like walking along the edge of a mountain without guard rails.

Boundaries must come with two things - love and leadership. They shouldn’t feel hollow, and they don’t need to feel like brick walls. They can be held firmly and lovingly.

Boundaries without the ‘loving’ will feel shaming, lonely, harsh. Understandably children will want to shield from this. This ‘shielding’ looks like keeping their messes from us. We drive them into the secretive and the forbidden because we squander precious opportunities to guide them.

Harsh consequences don’t teach them to avoid bad decisions. They teach them to avoid us.

They need both: boundaries, held lovingly.

First, decide on the boundary. Boundaries aren’t about what we want them to do. We can’t control that. Boundaries are about what we’ll do when the rules are broken.

If the rule is, ‘Be respectful’ - they’re in charge of what they do, you’re in charge of the boundary.

Attend to boundaries AND relationship. ‘It’s okay to be angry at me. (Rel’ship) No, I won’t let you speak to me like that. (Boundary). I want to hear what you have to say. (R). I won’t listen while you’re speaking like that. (B). I’m  going to wait until you can speak in a way I can hear. I’m right here. (R).

If the ‘leadership’ part is hard, think about what boundaries meant for you when you were young. If they felt cruel or shaming, it’s understandable that that’s how boundaries feel for you now. You don’t have to do boundaries the way your parents did. Don’t get rid of the boundary. Add in a loving way to hold them.

If the ‘loving’ part is hard, and if their behaviour enrages you, what was it like for you when you had big feelings as a child? If nobody supported you through feelings or behaviour, it’s understandable that their big feelings and behaviour will drive anger in you.

Anger exists as a shield for other more vulnerable feelings. What might your anger be shielding - loneliness? Anxiety? Feeling unseen? See through the behaviour to the need or feeling behind it: This is a great kid who is struggling right now. Reject the behaviour, support the child.♥️
Can’t wait to see you Brisbane! Saturday 20 May had bounded up to us with its arms open - and we’re so ready.

If you don’t have a ticket and would give your very last lamington for one, don’t worry - tickets are still available from ‘Resilient Kids Conference’ (on google). Here are the details:
 
Date and Time: Sat 20th May

Time: 9.30am – 3:00pm (Doors open at 9.00am for a 9.30am start)

Location: Main Auditorium, iSee Church, 8 Ellen Street, Carina Qld 4152

Parking: Free parking onsite

Cost: $85.00 AUD 

We’d love you to join us.♥️
Our nervous systems are designed to receive their distress. Fight or flight in them raises fight or flight in us - to get our bodies ready to fight for them or flee with them.

When they’re in actual danger, it’s a brilliant response, but ‘danger’ is about what the brain perceives. 

Big feelings and behaviour are a sign of a brain that has registered ‘threat’. A felt sense of relational threat and emotional threat all count as ‘threat’.

This can happen any time there is any chance at all of humiliation, judgement, missing out on something important, felt disconnection, not feeling seen, heard, validated, not having the resources for the immediate demands (stress).

Think of this in terms of interruption, transition times, sibling arguments, coming home after a big day at school.

When the threat isn’t a true physical danger, there is nothing to fight with or flee from (except maybe siblings and instructions).

This is when the fight or flight that’s been raised in us can move us to fight with them (we might get irritated, frustrated, angry, annoyed, raise our voices) or flee from them.

These are really valid feelings and signs of things working as they should, but it’s what we do in response that matters.

Think of it this way. Brains don’t care for the difference between actual danger and things that are safe, but annoying or upsetting. They all count as ‘danger’. 

Pause for a moment, and see that this is a young person with a brain that doesn’t feel ‘safe’ right now. Whether it’s emotionally safe, relationally safe, physically safe - they all matter.

First, they need to be brought back to safety. We’ll do this most powerfully through relationship - co-regulation, validation, touch. 

In practice this looks like breathe (to calm your nervous system so you can recalibrate theirs), be with (validate with or without words - let them feel you believing them and not needing anything from them in that moment), and wait.

If you need to hold a boundary, add that in (‘I won’t let you …’) but don’t take relationship away.

Then, when they are calm, have the chat - ‘What happened?’ ‘What can we do to put things right?’ ‘What might next time look like?’♥️
Brisbane - not long to go! We’d love you to join us at The Resilient Kids Conference. The feedback from Launceston has been incredible, and we can’t wait to do it again with you Brisbane.

All the details...
Date: Sat 20th May,
Time: 9.30am – 3:30pm 
Doors open at 8.30am for a 9.30am start
Location: Main Auditorium, iSee Church, 8 Ellen Street, Carina Qld 4152
Parking: Free parking onsite
Cost: $85.00 AUD

👍 What to Bring: Print your e-ticket or show your ticket on your phone at the main entrance for easy scanning and entry.

👍 Resources:  A big aim of RKC is to resource communities. For that reason, we offer a range of stalls filled with helpful resources, and of course the speakers books. Eftpos will be available on the day for all purchases.

👍 Food on the day:  We strive to keep our ticket prices low, to make it possible for anyone to experience RKC. To help, the ticket price does not include food or drinks. While a cafe and other food options nearby will be available at each event, we hope this low-price gesture enables you to be with us!

Grab some friends and let's make this a day to remember. It won't be complete without you....🧡
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