Communicating
Limits to Improve Parent-Child Relationships
By
Evelyn Solis, M.A.
As adults, we recognize and accept the rules established and enforced as part of the social contract. We know that everyone’s compliance with guidelines promotes peaceful co-existence within families, communities and societies. We also know and support the natural and logical consequences society imposes for ignoring or defying these limits. We recognize that freedom without limits holds the potential for serious personal, interpersonal and social difficulties for everyone. Yet, we frequently become frustrated, hopeless or even apathetic as our kids continue to ignore our requests, defy our rules, and endlessly test the limits we set for THEM.
The fact is that few of us have ever sat down to think about and define what OUR personal limits are! Even fewer of us make the effort to define what our PARENTAL limits are and how far we want to bend backwards to accommodate our kids. Below are some steps that may be useful in communicating your limits effectively.
1. Define YOUR values! Make a
list of YOUR personal values, beliefs, and limits, not theirs.
For example, all
family members are expected to eat what you have prepared for them rather than
being a short-order cook for their various culinary preferences. Or, you expect
to complete a phone call without being interrupted or having to referee on-going
sibling warfare. Or, from now on, your child is responsible for homework
completion to reduce the time you spend hovering and to eliminate the daily
power struggles between you.
2. Generate potential choices.
Think about your limits and come up with a list of your “parental policies”.
Then write down two choices per limit that you are willing to offer your
child as well as a set of reasonable natural /logical consequences to back up
your rules.
3. Identify three of the most important limits and two choices per limit.
Limit your generosity to two choices. For example, if your parental limit is
“I’m no longer a short-order cook”, then the two potential choices might
be (1) you may eat what’s offered, or (2) you may have a bowl of cereal
instead. Or “I am on the phone right now, dear—you may (1) play quietly in
the room with me or (2) play noisily in your room.
4. Communicate your limits. If
you have ever gone through a first-day orientation as a new 
employee you will
remember being told about rules and regulations, consequences for absenteeism,
and so forth. These policies were most likely communicated in a polite,
professional, no-nonsense manner that left no room for whining, arguing,
waffling, or bribing. The same approach is used with your kids: First, you
clearly, calmly and self-assuredly explain your policies along with the choices
you are willing to live with. Then, you invite them to make their choice. Young
children may need brief explanations of your expectations and choices, and you
will need to double-check if they understood everything. Second, you write up a
simple, brightly colored chart with the rules, choices, and positive/negative
consequences and post it where everyone can refer back to it.
If your older child is reasonably mature you may engage in a solution-oriented negotiation because pre-teens and teens benefit from learning to engage in a mutually respectful, mature process of resolving disagreements and how to reach consensus from the most important role models—their parents! Discuss why certain rules are important to you, how society would function without people working together and cooperating with each other in a civilized manner.
5.
Eliminate nagging and whining. When
your child insists on nagging and whining despite your clear statement, you may
want to interrupt the power struggle by offering empathy a
nd saying, “I know
this is tough, and what were the choices?” Constrain any further arguing by
introducing the “broken record” technique. This means that you simply
reiterate the choices you offered with the same words, the same calm and polite
mannerism as many times as is needed for your child to catch on to the fact that
“wearing you down” isn’t working anymore. A word of caution: Please do not
use teasing, sarcasm, belittling or cynicism in these interactions because such
“verbal weapons” are highly shaming and humiliating. They also damage your
relationship with your child.
5. Provide consistency and
follow-through. You need to provide ample calm, polite, empathic feedback
and consistent positive/negative consequences until your child 
respects your
limits and learns to make good choices. It may take several weeks of patient,
consistent follow-through for your child to catch on that you mean business.
Most likely, you will experience regular setbacks as your child randomly tests
your limits to see if these still hold. You will experience good and bad days
when either or both of you resort to the old, ineffective ways of interacting.
Once the first set of limits is solidly incorporated in your family, you
introduce the next three limits on your list, and so on.
© Evelyn Solis, M.A.
Evelyn
Solis, M.A., is a registered Marriage and Family Therapist Intern (Supervised by
Dee Ann Marx-Kelly, M.A., LMFT). She also teaches regular and ADHD parenting
classes at Counseling for Modern Life in San Jose. She can be reached at (408)
246-3874 Voicemail extension 12.
She
can be e-mailed by clicking the mailbox link: 
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