Boundaries and Expectations in the Family-Asset 11

Boundaries and Expectations in the Family

Exploring this asset may surprise you. Knowing what’s expected of them~and what’s not~helps children create, learn and grow. Instead of holding children back, limits and boundaries keep them feeling safe and secure. When they know who to count on and how to behave, children can concentrate on developing and learning new skills.

There are three areas of a child’s life where boundaries and limits are important: family boundaries, out-of-home boundaries and neighborhood boundaries. This article will focus on family boundaries and the two to follow will focus on the others.

The idea of family boundaries is best expressed as:

Parents understand children’s needs and preferences, model appropriate behavior, and set age-appropriate limits and consequences.

One of the important things to know about children and boundaries is that most children will not fully understand the concept until they are teens or pre-teens. Therefore, as children grow their boundaries and understanding of boundaries needs to grow with them in ways that are appropriate to their level of development. Be ready to revise boundaries as your child learns to make age-appropriate decision.

Some other important points here include the need to always show your child that you love them. Never withhold love as a form of discipline. When discipline is called for, use it to point your child toward good behavior and appropriate decisions. Don’t hit, spank or shake a child. This teaches inappropriate ways of controlling behavior and is only effective while the parent is around to control. It can breed inappropriate and negative behavior outside the home and teach that it’s okay to hit other people. Instead, model how you want your child to behave, solve problems and make decisions. Be focused and calm when disciplining. Remember you are the adult. If you are frustrated or angry, take a few moments to calm down. This might mean giving your self and your child a brief time-out period. When you feel calm and confident, let you child know what you observed them doing that was inappropriate, express your feelings about those observations, let them know what your needs are according to the appropriate boundaries and then make specifics requests as to what you like them to do in the future.

Learn to see these situations as opportunities to do further teaching and updating of your expectations and the limits and boundaries you want your child to be aware of. If your children are very young, you want to keep your messages simple, clear and focused on the behavior you want. Avoid focusing on or emphasizing the behaviors you don’t want. Repetition is essential to young children learning and retaining, so expect to have to repeat yourself often. Also, when directing your child to appropriate behaviors, try to offer choices, all of which would be acceptable. Always be reasonable about the nature of your boundaries and the number of them. Too many can stifle a child and make them feel powerless. Too few can make them feel out of control and lost. And finally, be willing to change boundaries that do not work.

As always, for more on this subject, feel free to contact me via email of phone. Enjoy your children and the children in your community. They are our future!