Part 2: Boundaries- Setting Up Our Kids for Success

For all our kids’ lives, even when they’re teenagers, we all benefit from setting up an environment of success.

For example, if you want to start eating healthy, you will stop buying junk food and bringing it to your house. Yes?

You won’t tempt yourself with a situation where you know you might fail.

We want to do the same for our kids.

If we don’t want them to roam around the whole house and create a big mess that will make us mad- we set up a gated #yesspace for them. A physical boundary.

If we don’t want them touching something, we keep it out of reach. (And if they still reach it we laugh at how they’re smarter than us and figure out a better hiding place next time).

If we don’t want them to hit their siblings. We provide them separate spaces and we stay close when we know things can get heated.

If we don’t want them to eat more roti than chicken then we don’t serve them roti.

If we don’t want them to put on five outfits in the day, we put a lock on the closet.

And if we can’t put limits on stuff then we ACCEPT that some unpleasant things will happen and we need to be ok with that.

I left my makeup on the dresser and my daughter smeared it all over her face and my dresser. Not wonderful but I’m not gonna get mad about it because I left it there.

If I forgot to close the kitchen gate and now they found my secret stash of cookies and ate them all before dinner- I’ll accept that they won’t eat too much dinner today.

I can’t control them jumping on the sofa unless I physically hold them down so I’ll just ignore it and not even make it a rule I can’t enforce. (They won’t be 15 and jumping on my sofa).

Are you thinking.. but they KNOW they’re not supposed to. Correct, yes.

How many things do WE know are wrong and still do them any way? (Like having two slices of cake when we KNOW we shouldn’t )

It’s called impulse control and kids don’t have much of it in their underdeveloped brains.

Point being- so much of parenting is accepting that we can’t control everything and kids WILL be kids.

But when we CAN control something, we take the responsibility of setting boundaries so our kids can succeed. We don’t put the onus of responsibility on them.

Their job is to explore the world. Ours is to ensure they can do their job safely and joyfully:)