(*Some of in the information in this blog post including the tenets for respecting boundaries is an adaptation of Chapter 21 – From Discipline to Enlightened Boundaries in The Awakened Family: How to Raise Empowered, Resilient, and Conscious Children by Shefali Tsabary, PhD. Learn more about Dr. Tsabary’s wise work here.)

Particularly for the highly sensitive child, strong boundaries are key to creating the containment necessary for a healthy release of emotions.

Here are some tenets for Respecting Boundaries:

Disciplinary strategies often result from parents struggling to create appropriate boundaries and then blaming the highly sensitive child for the experience of feeling out of control. These strategies are often received by children as efforts to control and manipulate, which can create dis-ease in the parent-child relationship leading to further behavioral issues.

Many disciplinary issues with children, however, actually occur because of a lack of discipline within the parent. It is a parent’s responsibility to set a basic structure for a child that will provide predictability and containment as well as plenty of room for play and fun. By setting boundaries that are too rigid or too loose, we often create environments for children that make it difficult for them to thrive. It is natural for a child to act out when they are facing unpredictable situations.

If we create clear, consistent compassionate boundaries for our children, the need for disciplinary strategies is unnecessary. Healthy limits allows a child to feel secure and is just as important as close connection.

You cannot set a boundary you don’t have. The first step is for parents to become clear on our own internal boundaries. A parent must become clear in their heart what it is they actually want to create congruency that your highly sensitive child will respond to with ease.

One of the most common issues that parents bring to our sessions is that they feel out of control in setting and respecting boundaries with their children.

I am seeing over and over again that traditional disciplinary strategies particularly for the highly sensitive child do not work, and when parents set consistent and loving boundaries, most discipline is not necessary.

Relatedly, Dr. Tsabary’s body of work on conscious parenting has been giving me (and many parents that I work with) huge AHA moments lately as I consider that perhaps the children in our lives are actually our clearest “portal to higher consciousness” versus any type of problem.

I want to share what I am learning about child-parent boundaries.

And because we tend to replicate the neural templates for attachment set in childhood in our relationships with our parents into our adult relationships, these lessons can be applied to any relationships that we currently find ourselves in.

I have identified a 5 part approach to respecting boundaries with yourself and your children:

Clarity – Know what you want. You cannot set a boundary that you don’t have. If you are setting limits from a spineless internal believe systems, your child will be the first to pick up on your incongruencies which they will actually perceive this as a threat to their nervous system. (Imagine that I had a huge grin on my face while I was telling you that I was mad at you…your “something is not right here” warning signals would go right off). Children will not respect a boundary that you are ambivalent about. Know your boundary, know how it serves you and your child, and know if this boundary is negotiable or nonnegotiable. A highly sensitive child will be the first to call you out when you are not being congruent or authentic!

Dr. Tsabary identifies 4 categories of life enhancing boundaries including:

Respect for oneself – self-care through hygiene and sleep.
Respect for one’s environment – a tidy room and home.
Respect for one’s mind – the process of education either formally or informally.
Respect for family and community – connecting and contributing to society.

2. Patience - Nothing is urgent when it comes to parenting. Your highly sensitive child does not need to learn not to jump on the couch at this very moment (and likely a few months from now they will be testing your boundaries in a totally different way). Take a moment to take a breath and go inside to identify what it is that you want for you and your child. There is also very little productive learning that can occur when both you and your child are in reactive stress responses (this would be like 2 toddlers trying to negotiate healthy boundaries while having temper tantrums).

3. Curiosity - Take another moment to simply be with your child and see what it is they might be trying to communicate to you. Perhaps by jumping on the couch, your child is trying to tell you that they have a ton of energy in their body from doing virtual learning all day that they need to find a way to release. Perhaps your child is reflecting a part of you that you have not taken time to understand.

4. Presence - Show up with full embodied presence in connection to both yourself and your child as you set a boundary with “clarity, calmness, and compassion.” Our children rely on us to regulate. This is we sing and rock while soothing a baby. An older child (or partner) is no different – they will mirror us and only become as calm and present as we are able to be. Once you and your child are connected and present, explain the boundary in a way your child can understand AND establish a clear and logical consequence that will occur if the boundary is crossed. Help your child respect the boundary and set logical consequences by identifying what your boundary is actually intending to teach your child.

For example if your child is always slow during the morning routine, they may need your help setting stronger limits at bedtime so they get adequate sleep and are less tired in the morning. If they still can’t hurry up their act in the morning, they will experience natural consequences of being late to school. Furthermore, if they continue to have trouble motivating in the morning, there are likely much deeper needs being expressed around their emotional well being that will take further compassion, presence, and connection from you versus punishment that gives them the message there is something wrong with them.

5. Commitment – Once we’ve made a commitment with ourselves and our children to establish a clear boundary, it is important that we hold it. Just like a slot machine, if your child learns that the boundary is breakable, just once, they will keep playing…and more importantly, you will be giving yourself the message that your boundaries do not need to be respected. It is also important that we identify ways that we may be engaging in hypocritical behaviors that do not respect our children. For example, how can we expect them to get off of their screens, when we are checking Instagram at the dinner table?

And remember… you are already an amazing parent (with or without boundaries)!

An invitation to more support:

Learning how to set clear, consistent and loving boundaries (and for both parents to be on the same page with those boundaries) is a skill that takes education and practice. Something we hear over and over again from parents that take our TUNED IN parenting course is that they are so relieved to feel confident in setting boundaries with their kids. Check out all the details on our self paced course here. We hope to see you inside!

Level up your parenting by replacing disciplinary strategies that don't work with strong boundaries that do.