I'm at a park one day with the kids, and the lunch hour is
nearing. There's another mom and (my
best guess) her 3 year-old son playing on the swings. Mom suggests they need to
go home soon. They go through the 5 minute, 2 minute, and last minute warnings
and then blow straight through their projected leaving time. This progresses to
mom offering 'one last slide' which the toddler takes to mean one last slide,
one last swing, one last monkey bar, one run around the tree AND one last dig
in the sandpit. Mom then says, “OK, time to go now, JJ,” and this is inevitably
met with tears and protests. Mom then goes into explaining how they have to go
so mom can make lunch, and they can have sandwiches, “You like sandwiches,
don't you JJ?” I'm not a creep so I totally wasn't watching judgmentally while
this whole scene unfolded, but I believe it ended when JJ threw sand in mom's
face seconds before she hauled him off to the stroller. I can only assume she'd
reached her limit.
Limits. I'm no expert, but today I have few things to say
about kids and limits.
Limits are learned through example, and there is no
correct limit. Though it may sound otherwise, I am not judging the actions
of this woman at the park. She would have been no less or no more of a mom if
she'd hauled JJ's ass out after the last minute warning or waited until she
convinced him to go on his own accord. She would have just been setting a
different limit. But, I will say this about my very generous interpretation of
the whole situation, actions speak louder than words! And what JJ took from
this situation was not anything about leaving the park at a reasonable time so
that mommy could make lunch, what JJ learned was, “JJ throw sand in mommy's
face, JJ go home.” More accurately, he learned what mommy's limit was,
and, for better or worse, he will take that forward when going to set his own
limits in the future. I know in my own life, my 5 and 7-year old have been
struggling with the old 'who-gets-the-pink-booster-seat' quandary. This had
been dragging on and on and had come to the point where we needed to address
it. As far as I could tell, there were a few ways to go about this...We could
let them argue for as long as it took to figure it out. My best guess is that
that would result in blood and last no less than 30 minutes. We could take
turns. We could employ the 'you sit where I say you sit' method, or we could
assign permanent booster seats. Now, again, I'm not suggesting this is the
correct solution, but we opted for the taking turns approach. That is the ‘limit’
we chose to set on this occasion, and for us, it is the compromise between them
having a say in the location of their ass in our vehicle and our own
patience/time when it comes to dealing with the issue. Don't get me wrong,
there is still plenty of disagreement as to who sat where last and for how long
they sat there, but for now this is something we can all live with. Now, I will
be clear, I see nothing wrong with parents who assign permanent booster seats
so as to avoid the bickering entirely, and I can also entertain the
merits of letting them hash it out on their own...However long it takes…Whatever
blood is shed…While you wait and wait and wait. Having said that…
The length of your tether is not directly proportional to
your virtuousness. If I put that in the context of limits, I might say, one
is no more (or no less) virtuous just because it takes longer to reach their
limit. We've all met a parent or two whose patience seem endless--the ones at
daycare pick-up with that perma -smile on their face, even as they remind their
child for the 20th time that it's time to put on their shoes, those
that keep smiling and speaking in the gentlest of voices while their child
throws their vegetables on the floor AGAIN. 'Peas stay on our plates, sweetie.'
Or better (worse?) yet, the ones who have seemingly endless time to engage with
their kids in conflict-resolution strategies whenever there is a tussle over a
toy, say. No doubt, patience is a virtue, and there are all kinds on wonderful
lessons to be learned from engaging in a situation this way, but let’s not
forget the getting-shit-done-and-meaning-what-you-say-the-first-time virtue. I
have a tremendous amount of respect (and maybe a little jealousy) when I see a
child who doesn't need reminding when their parent has asked them to put their
shoes on, or who quite simply puts an end to what might be a painful and
time-consuming conflict-resolution process with the simple words, “We share our
toys.” Again, I'm not suggesting one is better than the other, just that these
types of parents set different but comparably valuable limits.
Having no limits is just plain dangerous. Though I
have ventured to not place too much value on the types of limits one sets for their kids, I will say this...DO set
limits. Whatever they are. A quote from my own father, by some measures the
most experienced dad I have ever met…“Kids need limits. Kids thrive with
limits.” And he is absolutely right. Limits are those things which make kids
feel safe physically and emotionally. They make life predictable, help us the
develop good habits, and altogether help us navigate successfully through the
variety of social and occupational situations we encounter throughout our
lives. For instance, if parents set a 'bedtime before 830 on a school night'
limit, this limit not only serves to make the bedtime hour more manageable and
predictable, but it is hugely responsible for the readiness of that child to
learn the next day and, further down the road, helping that child as an adult
to make responsible decisions such that they are able to be at work on time and
be a productive participant in their career of choice. On the flip side, and I
haven't seen this type of the thing very often, but I was once on a play date
with a few moms, and an incident occurred where one child choked another child.
When this was met with a mere eyebrow raise and a flippant comment about how,
‘he was just kidding’ from the offending child’s mom, at first, I felt certain
rage on behalf of the choke-ee and her mom, but, on further reflection, I also felt
very sorry for the little boy. Apparently, for him there are no limits when
engaging in dangerous behavior, and one can’t help but wonder what life will
look like for him going forward.
‘No’ is the most valuable limit your child
will ever learn. Kids need to
be comfortable with the word ‘No.’ They
need to say it, mean it, hear it and heed it, in no particular order. I
draw attention to this specifically because in my years of parenting, I have
certainly noticed a trend toward not saying ‘No’ to a child as if the word is
somehow negative or needs to be dressed up in some flowery way. I think I
have even seen and read articles entitled something like, “10 things to say to
your child instead of No” but I can't stress enough what a great disservice
this is to our children. I could go on
and on and on, but I will leave it at this...Would you want your college-age
daughter (or son) going to a frat party where no one had ever heard the word ‘no’?
Me neither.
You don’t always need to justify your limit. It is easy to get caught up providing
lengthy explanations to our children as to why we have chosen to set such and
such limit (God knows they demand to know…'Why, Mom?’) and though there are
plenty of situations where is this absolutely necessary and appropriate, I’m
going to take this opportunity to remind you that limits are set more
powerfully by action. Oftentimes words can actually take away from the clarity
of a limit, and whatever your age, it is easy to get backed into a corner in
these types of conversations. Imagine this:
FunFriend: Hey, it’s
ladies night at ClubX on Thursday. Male strippers! Wanna come?
You: I don’t think
I’ll make it.
FunFriend: Why?
You: I have to work
early on Friday.
FunFriend: So do I.
Come on, it’s just one night.
You: Nah, it’s not
really my thing.
FunFriend: Why do
you have something against strippers?
You: I don’t know.
I’ve never been.
FunFriend: All the
more reason!
You: I’m too broke
to go out anyway.
FunFriend: There’s
no cover. I’ll buy you a drink. I don’t want to go by myself and, hunky Jack is
bartending.
You: I don’t think I
have the car that night, anyway.
FunFriend: Great, I’ll pick you up, and you can buy the drinks next time. Bye
So, I’m going to propose that the actual
reason you didn’t want to go to Club X is of no consequence. The point was
that you said you weren’t going, and the rest of the conversation just served
to confuse that.
When it comes to setting a limit with your children, maybe in some cases you
have done so for the betterment of their health or safety, or maybe sometimes you
have set a limit because you desire to teach them to be respectful of other
people, or maybe you needed to set a ‘no-toys upstairs’ limit because you are
just sick of the noise and the mess. The point is, you don’t always need to provide an explanation,
just as you wouldn’t want your kids to have to always feel obliged to provide
an explanation when they have set a
limit. So let’s try this again…
You don’t always need to
justify your limit. Period.
And finally…No
brainer, but limits are most successful when you enforce them consistently. The
other morning my son asked me if he could play on my phone while he waited for
the bus. In my rush around to get lunches ready and breakfast cleared away, I absent-mindedly
replied, “Sure.” My husband says, “Yesterday you said no screen time on
weekdays??” And, I totally had. And this
is why we are ALWAYS fighting about screen time. And when I have some magical
parenting tip as to how one enforces limits consistently, I will totally get
back to you, but I’m pretty sure I’m right not wrong in saying it.
So yea, wherever
this finds you on your parenting journey today, I wish you the best of luck.
Don’t mistake any of this as advice given from some position of superiority. I’m
too busy sucking out at these types of things to judge you. All the best.
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