Setting effective limits: We talk about setting limits with kids, but here’s the problem with setting limits. The reason we fail to set effective limits with children is for one reason—parental guilt. What we don’t realize is we don’t set limits for our children. We set limits for ourselves as parents, because setting limits is a process of teaching your child, but at the same time, if you operate from a premise of taking responsibility, you’re not doing it to the child. You’re not doing it for the child. You’re doing it for yourself as the parent to create containment – safety, in the moment to moment of what’s going on, with the growth process and the needs for your child.
I want to be into the process of teaching my child effective limits, and for myself as a parent, being able to reinforce the limits.
We allow our children to experience their own guilt and shame by communicating our feelings. That’s not “making” them feel guilty, that’s not shaming them. It’s only communicating your feelings, therefore naturally allowing their own guilt and shame to kick in, in which case guilt and shame are very healthy.
It’s when we’ve been made to feel guilty and ashamed, that’s not okay. This is a discernment you learn over time — not to make your child feel bad, but to be able to be honest about our feelings and learn to communicate your needs. This in effect invites people to change rather than imposing our will/power/dominance/coercion. Children are people.
If we want to teach them to be responsible — able to respond rather than react, this is where the teaching and training begins. Want to teach your children to make the best choices? Then let’s teach them to make the best choices by observing the limits — which are always with us no matter who we are. If we don’t learn to recognize limits, and the consequences (natural or authoritatively imposed) that come with them, we suffer. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of NVC (Non-Violent Communication) says it this way, “you can’t make your children do anything, you can only make them wish they had. Then they will make you wish you hadn’t made them wish they had”.
Spend some time with this. Deeper thinking is required here. We will talk more.
Choose Love,
– B
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