Setting Limits Allows Parents To Introduce Family Rules, Parental Expectations, Consequences, And A Feeling Of Safety And Security At Home

Setting Limits is a loving and logical way for parents to teach their children what actions are safe and acceptable, and lays the foundation for accountability and consequences.

For any parents who may think that Setting Limits is a negative parental action that will cause your children to resent you in some way, please know here and now that you could not be further from the truth.

It is an all too familiar misconception that Setting Limits is somehow a negative action, when it is truly a sign of parental concern, love, and needed Discipline.

And while we are on the subject, proper and age-appropriate discipline is also a very necessary and positive parental action when circumstances require it. Simply review the Discipline Guidelines for some helpful guidelines concerning the same.

Parenting Styles can and do vary, yet certain parenting truths will ever stay unchanged. That for the simple reason that the truth cannot change; and that per the definition of ‘truth’.

Among these parenting truths and Parenting Rules is the realization that parents are responsible to provide a safe and nurturing home environment for their children to grow up in. They must also provide structure and guidance and consequences for their children to understand the nature of rules, obedience, and what happens to us in life when we do what we know is wrong and against the rules.

Setting Family Rules is a great way to teach children all of these things and more!

I have ‘plowed this field before’, but parents who fail to teach their children consequences for bad behavior are dooming their children to learn these lessons once they are grown up and out of the home.

Society WILL teach your children these lessons if parents refuse to do so, and society is an impartial and oft-times an uncaring task master.

Setting Limits Is The Answer to all of these parenting concerns and issues and more!

Setting Limits is part and parcel with establishing Family Rules, Expectations, and Rewards in the home.

And this comes back to the wisdom and parental efficiency of establishing Family Rules and Expectations Very Early in the life of your family and of your children.

HINT: If you make the dissemination of your family rules, expectations, morals, and beliefs a part of your children’s life from the moment they are born, and live these norms and standards yourself as the parent, then your children will accept these rules and beliefs without question since it will be the only thing they have ever known.

It WILL be their family reality, and your family battle has practically been won before hostilities even begin. With any luck, they never will.

Regardless, even under the above ‘perfect circumstances’, Setting Limits would still need to be a part of the process as limits help children to know what they can and cannot do within the home, and in their lives.

Children NEED structure and discipline in order to feel safe and secure in their worlds. A life without rules is a life of chaos, and children do not learn to feel loved and protected in a world void of rules and consequences.

Setting Limits is to build a parental safety fence with well-defined boundaries that children can readily understand and feel protected within.

Quality Time - © Kevindooley

Setting Limits defines for a child what is right and what is wrong. It puts a border around what would otherwise be the entire world of possibilities; and children are too young and inexperienced to comprehend how to act within the scope of a boundless expanse of possibilities.

This much space and freedom of action too early in life makes a young child feel unsure, unsafe, and uncared for.

Setting Limits is to set rules and boundaries for the proper development of your young child’s body, mind, and attitude. It gives your children expectations to live by and to strive for. It is moral exercise for your young child’s growing soul.

These rules and expectations start out very small and very direct, according to a Toddler’s ability to comprehend and comply.

This of course often leads to Temper Tantrums as a toddler exerts his or her will do go out of those simple rules they ARE able to understand.

This is healthy and normal toddler behavior and allows the parent to use these moments to further teach their child the importance and protection of rules, the virtue of patience and kindness, and so many other wonderful teaching moments that can happen when parents and children spend time and emotions growing and learning together.

Children exert their need for independence most strongly around the age of 2 and then again around the age of 17. If they didn’t have a drive for independence then more families would never be created.

As the saying at the top of this page states, it is only when we DON’T get everything we want that we begin to understand what true happiness can be.

Setting Limits necessarily prevents our children from getting and doing everything they may want to get and do, since we have PLACED LIMITS on these items.

We as parents live under the same constraints and limitations in life as our children do, each in our own sphere and each in our own ways. The sooner we can teach our children this essential fact of life the better for everyone involved.

Parents should not abuse the ability to put constraints and limits on their children, nor should they be afraid to do so at the same time. Parental success is determined in finding the right balance – never an easy thing to do, but always a necessary goal to strive for.

And NOTHING of true worth and value in life EVER comes easily. And if it does by some means come easily to some, then it is never APPRECIATED as it ought to be (since it came easily).

You see, there are no shortcuts to proper parenting or to proper living.

Anyone who tries to tell you that parenting, or that life, is easy, that person is trying to sell you something that just doesn’t exist. (Take a good look at them, remember their face, and then RUN the other way!)

Setting Limits and expectations for honesty and integrity early in life, for example, would make for a lot fewer Preteen Liars later on in the childhood experience.

Even this problem can be fixed given the proper parenting skill and knowledge. What we want to do is prevent parenting problems and not to have to fix them, to the extent possible.

As our children get older, Setting Limits will mean we set wider and broader limits according to our older children’s expanded ability to understand and act accordingly.

Eventually, our children will grow up and be under the same general limits and limitations as we all are, but hopefully they will also possess the morals, virtues, and positive attributes we have instilled in them from their earliest youth. And that after all if the goal of parenting: to help your children grow up to be healthy, happy, positive, and independent adult members of society.

As your children do get older it is wise to try and make them partners with you in the formation and acceptance of the family rules and expectations.

Setting Limits that are mutually accepted and agreed upon makes the whole process that much smoother, and children are much more likely to live by rules that they had a hand in formulating.

Organize a family council one of these nights and see if the whole family can agree on some limits that you as the parent want to see incorporated into the family fabric and watch the Parenting Magic begin.

This will require you as the parent to be creative in your approach, but such time and effort is well worth the end result.

And finally, even the best of children will at times want to push back against Setting Limits, or against living them once they are set.

What is a parent to do if YOUR family rules differ from those of your children’s friends, and your children are old enough to not be happy about it?

Do we change our family rules? Do we change our family’s values or norms or beliefs just because they vary from the family down the street?

(My guess is that the family down the street may not even have family rules, limits and expectations, but I digress . . . )

Of course we don’t change to conform to what others may be doing, or more importantly, not doing. If we are living by true principles as a family, then we need to continue to do so NO MATTER WHAT.

So let me leave you with a few things I like to say to my children when they want me to relax the rules every now and again.

You may want to use some combination of the following, or think of new ones that would work best for you and for your particular parenting realities. Every child is unique as so perhaps every parent’s response should be unique also? You decide what works for you.

But whatever you do, don’t stop doing a right thing for anyone or for any reason, especially at your children’s request. Talk to your children and help them see the wisdom in following the family rules again; help them to once again ‘see the light’.

After all, right is right and no amount of arguing can ever change that fact.

Our Parenting Advice is to always be the parent that your children need you to be, and not necessarily the parent they want you to be.

And I will share a small secret with you here: Once your children are grown, they will have WANTED you to be the parent that you NEEDED to be.

What To Say When Your Children Want You To Relax The Rules And Family Limits

• ”I’m not your friend’s parent, I am YOUR parent.”

• ”A parent who doesn’t ask their child about their homework, their friends, where they are going and when they will be back, is a parent who really doesn’t love their child”

• ”I’m not ASKING you, I’m TELLING you.”

• ”I’m sorry honey, but you don’t get to vote on this one.”

• ”What part of ‘NO’ are you not understanding?”

• ”You know the rules: Why are you even asking me this?”

• ”You are free to ask me again, but then you must deal with the consequences.”

• ”Aren’t you lucky to live in a family that wants the best for you!”

• ”This is actually my way of showing you how much I love you. Now how much do you love me in return? ”

If for some reason your children don’t respect you and you would like some tools and ideas to turn things around within your parent/child relationship, we recommend trying this Highly Praised Behavioral Program that helps in even the toughest of parental situations.

Try it as part of a Free Offer. It may be just the help you’ve been looking for to set things straight within your home.

Parents need to set rules and limits that are both firm and fair so that children can understand what is expected of them and what they can and cannot do within the rules of your home.

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