Setting Limits & Boundaries

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Setting limits and boundaries with our children can feel hard, but is important! It’s natural for children to want to push those boundaries — it’s part of their development and part of how they learn independence. Children thrive on repetition and routine. Having boundaries can help our child feel less stressed, and learn what behaviour is okay and what is not okay.

Here are three helpful strategies: front-loading our expectations, offering positive choices, and ACT that we can try when you need to set limits and boundaries with our children:

1. Front-loading our expectations, and what will happen: Let your child know in advance what is going to happen, and what you expect them to do. For example: letting them know before-hand how long an activity will be for, and what it will look like.

— “You want to watch your favourite show! First, we are going to eat our lunch, clear the table, and then we can watch it together!”

— “I love playing with you! We can play together for 10 minutes (show the clock, or set a timer), then you can keep playing with your blocks, or you can play with your dinosaurs.”

2. Offering positive choices: Giving your child choices and options helps them feel like they have a say and some control in what is going on, which can side-step those tricky power struggles. You want to offer choices that you are okay with, not choices that you will have to say no to.

— “It’s time to get ready for daycare. Would you like to wear your dinosaur shirt, or your striped shirt?”

— “It’s almost time for bed. Would you like to read two bed-time stories, or three?”

3. ACT — Acknowledge their feelings, Connect before correcting, Teach an alternative:

• A: Acknowledging their feelings — Acknowledging your child’s feelings shows them that you understand what they want and that you have empathy for them. It also helps them to feel heard and strengthens your connection with them.

— “It looks like you are very angry with Mommy. You wanted to eat a chocolate cookie and I told you we needed to eat our breakfast first.”

• C: Connect before correcting — When our children have big feelings, connecting with them helps them have a place for these feelings to go. It helps them know that they are safe with us and their emotions are accepted (even if their behaviour is not). A and C often go together. You can connect by getting down to your child’s level, making eye contact, connecting physically like rubbing their back or giving them a hug, and acknowledging their feelings. Physical affection can help release oxytocin, which can also help you and your child calm down. Physically getting down to their level to communicate will also help them feel closer to you. When children are flooded with emotions it is hard for their brains to listen and learn anything new. If we try to scold them or tell them what to do when they are upset their brains cannot absorb information. Connecting with our children before trying to correct them will help them feel calmer and safe enough to hear us.
• T: Teaching an alternative — We need to teach our children what we want them to do. Even if they’ve been told something a hundred times before, young children need repeated reminders of expected behaviour. We all learn from repetition. For example, when we tell a toddler, “Don’t run”, we’re not actually telling them what they’re supposed to do instead of running. Instead, we can offer positive choices here.

— “It’s not safe to run across the road. Would you like to hold my hand, or would you like to hold onto my jacket?”

• Let’s put them all together:

— Acknowledge child’s feelings: “You were very angry at your sister. She took the toy you were still playing with.”

— Connect before correcting: Physically get down to his level and make eye contact.

— Teach an alternative: “It’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to hit. Next time, you can say, ‘I’m not finished with that!’ or come and let me know.”

It’s natural for our little ones to try to push the limits that we set. But when we are consistent and kind with these limits, we are teaching our children what’s okay and what’s not. The parts of their brains that are responsible for logic, reasoning, and impulse control won’t fully developed until they are in their twenties. Until then, they need our help to learn how to be in the world.