Boundaries
Both my kids have certain habits I've been trying to cure them of. My daughter Tala is apparently incurably friendly. This is well and dandy except she has a thing for walking up to complete strangers and introducing herself to them, a trait which, under the wrong circumstances can prove pretty scary if it goes unchecked. While her mother and I have tried, and are still trying, the old "never talk to strangers" lecture, a three-year-old isn't quite yet in the condition to absorb this information. So we just make it a point to watch her like hawks.
My son Apel, on the other hand, is a chip off the proverbial block(head); when he is introduced to someone who is sitting down and eating he has the habit of helping himself to that person's food. Now, to my knowledge I didn't used to do that when I was a kid, but I know I had a thing for food, and I know I didn't have a very good concept of other people's boundaries (still struggle with it sometimes, really). He also barges into bathrooms and bedrooms without knocking. It's a good thing Theia and I make it a point to lock our door when we want to get busy. He even knows how to jimmy the bathroom door open when it's locked (it has that kind of lock, for emergency purposes) so his tendency to infringe on people's space isn't even stopped by locked doors.
So basically I sat him down yesterday to explain, sternly but gently, the concept of personal boundaries, basically saying that he should knock before going into rooms and ask before taking other people's food, or things in general. It's tricky trying to explain something so abstract to a six-year-old, but I started with the image of walls and tried to work from there. Essentially, I tried as best I could to instill in him the ability to respect someone's decision to say "no" to him, which is a mighty hard thing to do when talking to a six-year-old son, especially one of a parent who despite being 32, still has trouble taking "no" for an answer.
Of course, the flipside was that I explained that he had his own boundaries which other people would have to respect. I was lucky enough never to experience child molestation, but it's a crazy world out there these days and so without going into any graphic descriptions I did my version of the stranger talk with him (his mother had already started it some time before). He shouldn' talk to strangers or allow them to touch him, I basically said. Just as other people have boundaries ("walls" I said) he should respect, so does he have boundaries other people should respect. And just as he should learn to accept "no" as an answer, so should he learn to give it.
I think he got the point; I'll have to follow up as time goes on.
As for Tala, well, she can't quite appreciate the concept of the stranger yet, but we're still working on it. This can be pretty tricky stuff, I think.
I may have made a number of dodgy decisions as a parent, but I hope I at least get this particular attempt to orient my children in the ways of the world correctly.
My son Apel, on the other hand, is a chip off the proverbial block(head); when he is introduced to someone who is sitting down and eating he has the habit of helping himself to that person's food. Now, to my knowledge I didn't used to do that when I was a kid, but I know I had a thing for food, and I know I didn't have a very good concept of other people's boundaries (still struggle with it sometimes, really). He also barges into bathrooms and bedrooms without knocking. It's a good thing Theia and I make it a point to lock our door when we want to get busy. He even knows how to jimmy the bathroom door open when it's locked (it has that kind of lock, for emergency purposes) so his tendency to infringe on people's space isn't even stopped by locked doors.
So basically I sat him down yesterday to explain, sternly but gently, the concept of personal boundaries, basically saying that he should knock before going into rooms and ask before taking other people's food, or things in general. It's tricky trying to explain something so abstract to a six-year-old, but I started with the image of walls and tried to work from there. Essentially, I tried as best I could to instill in him the ability to respect someone's decision to say "no" to him, which is a mighty hard thing to do when talking to a six-year-old son, especially one of a parent who despite being 32, still has trouble taking "no" for an answer.
Of course, the flipside was that I explained that he had his own boundaries which other people would have to respect. I was lucky enough never to experience child molestation, but it's a crazy world out there these days and so without going into any graphic descriptions I did my version of the stranger talk with him (his mother had already started it some time before). He shouldn' talk to strangers or allow them to touch him, I basically said. Just as other people have boundaries ("walls" I said) he should respect, so does he have boundaries other people should respect. And just as he should learn to accept "no" as an answer, so should he learn to give it.
I think he got the point; I'll have to follow up as time goes on.
As for Tala, well, she can't quite appreciate the concept of the stranger yet, but we're still working on it. This can be pretty tricky stuff, I think.
I may have made a number of dodgy decisions as a parent, but I hope I at least get this particular attempt to orient my children in the ways of the world correctly.
posted by Jim Arroyo | 12:36 AM
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