Parents, Kids & Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries support everything! There can’t be true Conscious Parenting unless boundaries exist in your home. Personal boundaries for you as a parent, and healthy limits and boundaries for your children in your home. When a child is raised with clear and conscious boundaries that are fair and thoughtful, they’re given a deep foundation of love, safety, and trust. Children who are directly communicated to with these healthy boundaries in a loving way, grow up knowing what is expected of them, and know what to expect. So even in ever-changing and evolving times, your child has something consistent and safe to fall back on. True love cannot exist without respect and respect can’t live without clear and loving boundaries.
Photo: : Tamara Iglesias
Children desire freedom, freedom to feel, and freedom to play. It’s your job as the parent to allow this freedom to exist by building the walls of your child’s world. It’s then within these walls of clear boundaries, mutual respect, trust, and loving communication that a child can truly thrive and feel free. There’s so much you can’t control as a parent. We’re living through those times right now, schools closing overnight, so many unknowns, so many shifts, changes, and transitions, but what you can control is your child’s relationship with you, their loving, confident parent, their leader, and guide. This deeply affects a child’s relationship to self. Do they feel secure,will they get sick? Are their needs met, do they have consistency within the home, within their limits and boundaries so that even when everything outside their home changes, they have the stability of routine, of communication, of healthy boundaries to fall back on? Yes, there will still be big feelings, testing, triggers, and more, but with this solid foundation laid for your child, they will be that more connected, that much safer within your relationship to transition, and adjust to this ever-changing world around them.
As a conscious parent you have a choice; will you heal your wounds, heal your triggers and parent from this place of healthy boundaries and clear, loving communication or will you default to guilt and shame in moments of stress or crisis? One of the main reasons parents default to guilt and shame is because it's what so many adults grew up with as children. It's not your fault. It's not even your parent's fault. It's best to leave blame out of it and to take the awareness as a gift and to move to a new way of conscious parenting and relating to yourself and your child. Guilt and shame are often used to manipulate behavior, which may work in the moment, but the damage it creates runs deep. It takes so much to repair this cycle of shame and it sets your kids up for a life of questioning their worth and how they love themselves. When guilt and shame are used, healthy limits and boundaries often aren't. These boundaries, as I shared, are key to a healthy, conscious relationship and flow within your family. When they're communicated with consistency, love, and respect, it eliminates the need for shame and builds an incredible foundation of love and trust. We dive into all this and more in my 4-week Masterclass on Healthy Limits & Boundaries! You can join us for a special Have a Nanny discount here.
Now more than ever, children need to know your personal boundaries, expectations, and the limits and boundaries of your family. When you're consistent here it helps guide them and shows them exactly where the walls of their world start and stop. Remember these walls create safety within a child’s home and within themselves. This is needed so much as children are being asked to shift, change, and adapt to new environments so quickly right now. Most children’s worlds were turned upside down overnight. Yes, children are resilient, but they can also be highly sensitive, absorbing and taking in so much of the world around them, the stress around them, and what their parents are feeling and emoting as well. Children need these walls in the form of healthy boundaries, consistency, love, and respect. What children don't need is guilt and shame. Can you imagine not knowing the limits or what is expected of you and then getting screamed at for breaking them? How does that serve your child or you? Normally it comes with a heavy dose of mom or dad guilt that can leave your bond disconnected and in need of much repair.
We’re in a time of deep work, needing deep rest and support, and many have fewer resources these past few months. It’s such a powerful time to know your limits and personal boundaries, to stand behind them, and follow through and allow the healthy expression of any feeling your child needs to feel to come up and out. Feelings are potentially at an all-time high, for you and for your children. These feelings need to come up and out, to be processed and released. Boundaries allow this to happen, they’re something for your child to push up against, to lean into, so they can let go. And it's then, that you open your arms and love them fiercely as they let all their feelings out, while still holding true to the boundary. You set the boundary and they get to feel however they need about it! From here your child can feel safe with you and within their world and explore all the emotions that arise as they do so.
I think we're all desiring to feel safe right now and boundaries will help your child with this, as you lead them through this time and of course through life as their confident guide and conscious parent. Remember punishments don't teach a child anything except shame and isolation. True natural and logical consequences serve children and help them understand the rules of their family and the way of the world. If a child throws a toy and then they can't have dessert what does that teach them? But if they're told that that toy is too hard and could hurt someone, they begin to understand the natural consequence of their behavior and how it affects them and all those around them.
I know at first it can feel like more work, more time, but trust me it gets easier. Children self-correct because they know you follow through and stand behind your boundary so why fight. They also know that you have their back and you accept all of them and all their feelings. It's truly a win-win. Your family gets a beautiful, respectful flow and everyone is honored and seen. If you want to go deeper into this work and learn how to truly establish healthy limits and boundaries, then you can join us in the upcoming 4-Week Virtual Masterclass on Healthy Limits and Boundaries! Enjoy a discount for being a part of the Have A Nanny community. Sign up here!
Does your care provider align with your parenting methods? A great idea is doing Tamaras Masterclass with them So your family can thrive in consistency.
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