Improve Your Child’s Behavior by Setting Fewer Restrictions
Your child is jumping on the couch for the 50th time , despite the fact that you have repeatedly asked him not to do so. When you ask them to stop again, they just look you in the eye, continuing to jump, almost daring to force you to force them.
Your child asks you for candy right before bed, and you say no. Your child kicks you. Or they want to play with sticks like swords. You agree to play with them for 30 minutes before sitting down to take care of yourself a little with a book. You make a gentle reminder in the middle and then 5 minutes before the half hour is up, but when it’s time to read, your child will still throw a stick at you.
When our children show us their worst behavior, our instinct is to take control. In the end, if they cannot fulfill even elementary requests, for example, not to kick or throw at you, then this is, of course, because we are too lenient. And the way to be less lenient is to set more restrictions.
But what if setting more restrictions actually makes the problem worse?
You’ve probably already set more limits than you need.
When I work with parents who are upset, annoyed, and drained of their child’s behavior, the first thing we do is analyze the limits they set – and they are almost always shocked to see how often they do it. Sometimes every third statement they say begins with the word “do not” or has the word “no” in it.
In fact, psychologists find that by adulthood, many people have extremely negative associations with the word “no,” associating it with the discipline of their parents in youth or the punishment of the dog. You can test this by telling someone (partner, colleague, etc.) what you are going to say ten words, and then ask how he is feeling. Then say, “No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. “Now ask how they feel. Then say yes ten times and ask again. Most likely, answering “ No” will leave them feeling depressed, discouraged, or sad, while “ Yes” will leave them elated, inviting or greeting. (You can also try this on yourself, but the effect may be fuzzy because you know what we’re looking for.)
All of these no’s ultimately set the tone for our relationship with children. And most of us don’t want that tone to be so negative, but what choice do we have if our kids don’t even collaborate on the basics?
Set fewer constraints based on your values
In most cases, when we set limits, they are not actually based on our values. We are just looking to cooperate with our child and we set the limit in the hope that this time they will magically obey without a fight. But this approach hasn’t worked the last 50,938 times we’ve tried it, so why does it work this time?
Instead, we can set far fewer limits, and when we do, we can set limits that are firmly grounded in our values. When we drastically reduce the number of established limits, we actually shell out a lot less “no”, and you probably already know the effect: it attracts people to us and makes them work with us. And when they feel that we are getting out of our eternal “battle” mode, they will not need to be in their eternal “battle” mode. They will want to cooperate.
Setting fewer limits does not mean that children are in control of themselves. We simply choose the limits that best suit our values. Most of the times when we set limits it is due to behavior that is not new. This is due to repetitive behaviors that annoy us as hell over and over again. Instead of doing it on the fly, we can plan ahead. Is it really (really) important to us? If so, we’re going to put a limit on that.
But if we can say that this is something that is not really based on our values - and we are just a little annoyed – chances are that we can find a way for our child to do some version of it without distracting us. from the wall.
Making a strange sound right next to us? “You can make this noise – in another room.” Jumping onto the (ancient) sofa? “The sofa can break if you jump on it; you can jump on my bed if you want. ” Throwing things inside? “Let’s go outside and throw the ball!”
When we combine customization there are fewer constraints with being super-hard at the boundaries that are actually important to us, that’s when the magic happens. Our kids go from testing everything to wanting to work with us. This is because they see that we are investing in relationships, and they also want to be invested in them.
And then we find that setting fewer restrictions is one of the most important keys to better behavior — permissiveness is not required.
Jen Lumanlan hosts the podcast Your Parenting Mojo , which turns parenting and development science into tools that parents can use to make parenting decisions. She also runs the Setting Loving (and Effective!) Restrictions Workshop , a free five-day short exercise program that helps parents set far fewer restrictions than they ever thought possible and dramatically improve their relationship with their child.