Limit Setting, in many ways, is what parenting is all about. We have to do it, often, many times a day.

Listen to a recent Webinar on Setting Limits

Madeleine outlines

• Why children test limits
• Why connection is important
• How to build emotional safety into your relationship so that you can set limits effectively
• The relationship bank balance
• Learning to handle upsets
• Getting support for yourself

She answers questions about how to manage bedtimes, transitions, and staying connected with your kids via Video conferencing in the time of Covid19 and when parents are separated.

Why children test limits, and what to do about it

Children test limits when they have gone “off-track”.  This happens when – for whatever reason – they have lost their sense of connection with themselves, and with us.  Often this is because they are carrying a big load of emotional tension.  When we bring limits, it can provide an opportunity for a child to offload that tension. Rather than being a problem, children’s upsets about our limits are actually the pathway – admittedly sometimes rocky – towards co-operation and workable behaviours.

We can bring limits playfully, sometimes firmly, but always warmly and gently.  The laughter that erupts around playful limit setting eases the way – either to co-operation, or to tears and tantrums as children release deeper hurts.

In Hand in Hand, we encourage adults to take responsibility for setting limits by:
• Stopping thoughtless or hurtful behaviour, without blame.
• Moving in close to children, holding out a reasonable limit without backing down or being angry or hurtful to the child.
• Staying to listen to feelings and upsets about the limits we have set.

Children will recover their co-operative, reasonable selves once they have offloaded their feelings.

The relationship bank account

Our relationship with our children can be thought about as a kind of “bank account”.  We need to keep it in credit for things to go well.  Connection provides that credit – and when we bring necessary limits with our children, we often use up credit.   Each time we do that, we need to find a way to replenish our child’s sense of connection with us.  The Listening Tools of Special Time and Playlistening are very efficient ways to do that.  A child who feels respected, seen and appreciated will respond better to reasonable limit setting – either accepting the limit once enough connection is furnished, or offloading the feelings which are driving the off-track behaviour.

Why consequences don’t work

It can be so easy to reach for consequences when you feel frustrated with your children. And while you are more powerful than your child, they might get some results.

But in the longer run, that exercise of power doesn’t work. As our children get older, and gain some power of their own, your efforts at coercion will show up in conflict and tension.

Find out more: Why Consequences Don’t Work

Expect Upsets

One of the confusions about setting limits is that our children often get upset when we set them!  But it turns out, that is the point.  Emotional tension drives our children “off-track” and that’s what triggers the need for us to bring a limit.  When we do that with enough warmth and connection, the upset that follows – the tears, the storming, the tantrum – is the pathway to co-operation.  We can learn how not to take this personally, and how to listen to our children through this.  On the other side of the upset, our children are often able to co-operate with reasonable limits.

Want to learn more?

Try this course: I can highly recommend the short, online Course  Setting Limits and Building Co-operation.   It explains why children test limits, and how to set limits while strengthening your connection with your children.  You’ll gain valuable new skills for building co-operation, defusing power struggles and solving problems in your family. Plus, you’ll learn how to deal with your own frustrations and exhaustion. In three hours of video and reading materials, designed to be watched in bite-sized pieces at your own pace, you’ll be introduced to a step by step process for making limit setting a positive experience.

Cost: For $US55 it’s a real bargain.  Combine it with a Parenting Consultation with Madeleine  to make a connection plan that will help you find more good times in your family life. Learn more and register

Listening Tools

Download helpful PDF’s on:
The Hand in Hand Toolbox
Staylistening
Special Time
Listening Partnerships
Handouts for “Setting LImits and Building Co-operation” Webinar”
If you are downloading these, please respect our copyright policy.

Want to know more?  You may find this video interesting.  Founder of Hand in Hand Parenting, Patty Wipfler, outlines two steps in setting limits.  Watch here

Would you like to talk to someone in-person?

Get immediate help –  Book a Free Short Consultation now! You weren’t meant to parent alone and we would love to help.

Here are some stories about setting limits:

When She Must Have a Phone: Children often use pre-texts – issues to get upset about – but they are really needing to download about much more important things. In this story, a mother holds a limit on giving her pre-teen daughter a phone, and Staylistens as her daughter pours out her worries and feelings. Afterwards, her daughter accepts that she can’t have a phone now.

Switching off the Screen – How to Set Limits Around Screen Time: Screens are a big issue for most parents! Our children may be using screens to keep feelings at bay, and/or they might find screens stimulating (the feeling, largely, is frustration). Either way, eventually, the screen has to go off, and often, feelings often erupt. In this story, a parent “brings the limit”, and then listens.

 

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© 2014-2024 by Madeleine Winter