Hajja Salesjana January February 2017

22 children to take you seriously. Consequences also need to be revised over time, as kids get older and the nature of misdeeds change. Emotional boundaries are a slightly more difficult concept to teach. Children must be taught to have dignity and respect for themselves. This is achieved through direct and honest communication. Have you ever broken something, and immediately had a go at the person in closest proximity to you? Indeed, parents should not blame children for “making them” whatever: angry, sad, heartbroken, or frustrated. A good way for parents to model healthy emotional boundaries is to take ownership of their own feelings. Children should not feel responsible for the emotions of their parents. Parents can teach children that people are responsible for their own feelings. Once these boundaries and rules of the house are established, it is important that you and your spouse think through how to be consistent with those boundaries and what will happen when a child pushes against the boundary. Try to remember that you are human, so it will be natural to feel angry at times. How will you hold the boundary in a calm way? Many of us have a “breaking point”. What is yours? Is it after your child has been on the floor screaming for over an hour? Is it your child hitting the baby? Is it running around the house? Make sure that you and your spouse discuss how you will help each other deal with your breaking points. The tricky part is that most of us are still learning appropriate ways to articulate our anger, so we may not get it right the first time. As we try to learn more effective ways to express our anger, we demonstrate to our children that adults can grow too.