My husband and I were recently visiting family in Tennessee. We were sitting at the dinner table, and our 3-year-old granddaughter was devouring a piece of pumpkin spice cake, completely unaware that her hair was getting caught in the frosting. My husband pulled her hair back to keep it clean.

“Stop it, grandpa,” she said.

Now, he was just trying to keep her hair clean. However, that’s not the important part of the story. The important part is what happened next. Her dad held up his hands and said, “She said what she said.”

It made my constantly-looking-out-for-healthy-boundaries heart happy. Not only did this little girl feel empowered to tell someone (an adult, no less) to stop invading her personal space, but her father supported her. I’m silently fist-pumping as I write this.

Our Earliest Boundary Lessons

How would that play out in your family now? What about the family you grew up in? I’m fairly confident that if I had ever told a grandparent or aunt or uncle to stop touching me, I would’ve been immediately reprimanded: “They are adults. You need to respect them.” Or some other cringe-worthy response that led to 40+ years of unhealthy boundaries.

I’m not trying to throw parents under the bus. Most people are just doing their best with the information and skills they have at that moment. However, think about your childhood. Were boundaries a topic of conversation? Were healthy boundaries modeled by your parents and the other adults in your life? Or did you receive inadvertent messages that taught you that you didn’t have the right to your personal space, material possessions, or opinions?

Children are constantly watching, listening, and learning through their environment. What did you learn as a child, and what are you teaching your kids?

Teaching Boundaries to Children

When it comes to teaching healthy boundaries to children, there are three lessons to impress upon them:

Even as a child, they have the right to establish and maintain boundaries.

Children (much like adults) have the right to set boundaries in the following areas:

• Material possessions
• Time
• Physical
• Sexual
• Emotional
• Mental

When children are given permission to set boundaries when they are young, their self-confidence will grow. As they age, they’ll face increasingly complex challenges like bullying and peer pressure. Thankfully, with healthy boundaries instilled, they’ll be able to stand up for themselves and say No in uncomfortable or even dangerous situations.  (Say, getting into the car with a friend who has been drinking or engaging in sexual activities beyond their comfort level).

A note about material possessions: One of our earliest lessons is the importance of sharing. Of course, being a generous, loving person is important and actually makes you feel good. However, forcing a child to share when they don’t want to does two things:

• It makes them resentful and completely skips the lesson you were shooting for
• It teaches them that their material possessions are not their own… therefore, they don’t have the right to create and uphold a boundary.

In “Do You Force Your Kids to Share,” the author states:

Children’s toys and food are among the few things they actually have ownership of and control over in the world. Expecting them to automatically give them over to friends, siblings, and sometimes even complete strangers seems unreasonable. Not to mention, a clear double standard seeing as we, as adults, don’t rush to share our shoes, cars, laptops or lipstick with any friend that happens to appear.

Remember the classic children’s book, “The Rainbow Fish?” It’s recently come under some scrutiny from a 5^th grade teacher who believes the message (regarding the importance of sharing) is actually a dangerous lesson against having boundaries.

He doesn’t have to give up part of himself for anybody,” he said. “When Rainbow Fish said ‘no’ and drew a boundary, all of the other fish decided not to play with him. That made it more about how all the fish didn’t accept him because he didn’t give up any of his scales rather than them responding to his stuck-up behavior. He only got acceptance when he gave up parts of who he was. He had to change to get others to like him. – Mr. Vuong

It’s important to check in and ask yourself, “What’s the most important lesson I can teach my child?”

There’s a difference between being assertive and being rude.

Setting boundaries and being disrespectful are NOT synonymous. It is completely acceptable for a child to say something like, “It makes me feel uncomfortable when you do that. Please don’t do it again.” On the other hand, releasing a stream of obscenities that would make a truck driver blush is unnecessary and unacceptable. Your child doesn’t have to insult the other person or be nasty. They just have to communicate that the behavior is not okay and needs to stop.

Teach your kids how to communicate healthy boundaries with compassion, clarity, and consistency. When they do set and communicate a boundary, support them. Praise your child and reinforce it with the other person if need be.

If they expect their boundaries to be respected, they must respect other people’s boundaries.

Boundary setting isn’t a one-way street. Sure, your child has the right to set boundaries… but so does everyone else. Children need to learn that mutual respect is essential. Whether it’s their family, peers, teachers, or anyone else they come in contact with, they must respect boundaries to have their boundaries respected.

Conclusion

No matter what lesson or values you are trying to instill in your child, remember they are always watching. If you aren’t modeling healthy boundaries with them and with the other people in your life, they won’t understand how it’s acceptable (or possible) for them to do it in their lives.

And in case you were wondering, when my husband explained what he was doing to our granddaughter’s hair, she shrugged and said, “Okay, grandpa.” He pulled her hair back, and she finished her cake happily.

About Sheryl Green

Sheryl Green is a Mental Health speaker and author and the “How to Say No” Expert. She works with individuals and organizations to establish healthy boundaries to improve relationships, communication, and well-being. Her mission is to make the world a better place… one boundary at a time. Learn more about her entertaining and illuminating programs or contact her at 702.885.4309.

Get her How to Say No cheat sheet.