Re-establishing Boundaries

A quick note. 

A friend is struggling with her adult children.  They seem to have very little recognition that she is a distinct, separate human being.  Reflecting on this problem and considering my personal and professional experiences with this sort of issue, I thought I'd write a quick note. 

First, I had similar struggles as a parent.  My experience was confused and convoluted by the death of my wife when our boys were young so it might be a little different than your experience, but it'll be worth considering.

Boundaries: the basic idea is that we are each separate and unique human beings.  This may seem infinitely obvious but it's really not.  When an infant is born, he / she came out of their mother.   For some period of time ... these two (or more) individuals were not separate and distinct. 

Infants may be newly separate and distinct individuals, but they are clearly entirely dependent on their caretaker/s.

Toddlers.  How many times have I seen exasperated parents struggling under the stress of a clinging toddler?  I too have experienced this sensation. Nothing feels more urgent that the desire to peel the little person off one's leg or body and just have a moment of respite as a  separate and distinct person. 

Bath room violation.  There is no privacy or respite in the bath room.  Small children just march right on in as if they are still connected by the umbilical cord.  

I could go on. 

I'm sure different parents / caretakers work to address these problems at different times during the development course of their children progression toward adulthood.  We all will need to eventually.  I did it when my children were somewhere around 10.  At first I asked them to respect the privacy and sanctity of my bedroom.  This did not stick.  My sons had been coming and going from that space at all times of day from birth on.  This was complicated by their Mom's death, which made me feel like they really did need to have access to my support at all times of day and night, but by the time they were around 10, I was beginning to buckle under the endless pressure of having no privacy, no personal space.

Asking them, requesting this from them, did not work ... so I installed a locking door knob.  At first, they chaffed against this imposition.  My younger son went so far as to pry the knob off with a screw driver.  But, in time they accepted and internalized the change and the lock became unnecessary. 

By adding the lock, I reset our family dynamic and re-established some separation between my sons and my self.  Phew.  What a relief this was.  With better boundaries set in place, parenting became at least a little bit easier. 

This is the quick note version.  I'm happy to answer questions via e-mail.  I may add to this another time, going into more detail. 

Love & Acceptance

Only through the full and unconditional love and acceptance of each of our children, exactly as they are at any given time, complete with their full array of human flaws, can we even begin to lovingly and gently guide and support them in developing the skills and abilities they will require to become the successful adults we all hope they will become. 

Kenneth H. Little, MA 

603-726-1006

KenLittle-NH.org

The Very Best Response

The very best response to the vast majority of children’s misbehavior is a simple, quiet conversation moderated by reason, wisdom, and compassion; a conversation that guides the child quietly and gently to a better, more helpful place in life.

Raising children is a long, gradual process. It takes years and years of patient and persistent effort. Gentle guidance is the primary choice in parenting. Sometimes a planned system of positive and negative consequences makes sense. This is not a system of rewards and punishment, so to speak, but a well crafted system of inductive consequences; constructive and instructive consequences that gradually teach better behavior, better problem solving skills, better stress management skills, and better decision-making skills.

Arbitrary and / or harsh consequences should be avoided. They are far more likely to inflame the situation and create resentment within the child which will obscure any learning benefit. It is far more likely that arbitrary and / or harsh consequences will increase misbehavior, rather than decrease it, and decrease the frequency of positive behaviors.

Everything in life is practice to mastery. Everyone needs the opportunity to practice new skills gradually over time in order to master them. Everyone makes mistakes and needs the opportunity to practice making amends and to practice regrouping and moving forward again.

Instructive, constructive, and reparative consequences gradually influence thinking, feeling, and behaving in a productive direction.

Kenneth H. Little, MA 

603-726-1006

KenLittle-NH.org

The Purpose of Behavioral Programming

Our dedication is to the whole child.  Our interest extends to the child’s family, neighborhood, school, and community.  Each child’s well-being is contingent on the well-being of the extended network surrounding and supporting their growth.

Our interest in the whole child includes their well-rounded and well-balanced development.  We must attend to each area of need and support carefully weighted, balanced, and multi-dimensional growth: music, art, sports, friendship, family, hobbies and interests, academic achievement, ethical and spiritual well-being.  No one area can be allowed to consume our attention at the expense of another area.  We must remain flexible and responsive to the child’s needs. We must nurture each child’s strengths and carefully attend to their weaknesses.

Elements of Character, Development, and a Healthy Lifestyle: 

• Honesty

• Creative Well-being

• Cooperation / Teamwork

• Physical Well-being

• Work

• Emotional Well-being

• Loyalty

• Intellectual Well-being

• Enthusiasm

• Ethical Well-being

• Determination

• Spiritual Well-being

• Curiosity / Inquisitiveness

• Community Well-being 

• Playfulness

• Filial Well-being

• Optimism

• Social Well-being

• Resourcefulness

• Caring & Compassion

Growth is a dynamic process; a process leading toward resilience, a process leading toward a healthy and productive adult participant in society.  

Leadership initiates the process.  

Leadership is the beacon toward which the children grow. Leadership is the example or model we provide.  What does our model look like?  How do we nurture a carefully weighted and balanced lifestyle in our own lives and in the lives of the children we serve? 

How do we nurture resilience?  How do we nurture a sense of community in which growth and resilience will flourish?

The purpose of programming is to create a sense of community that will nurture, protect, and celebrate the children. 

“I was seeing in a sacred manner the shape of all things in the Spirit and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being and I saw the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle wide as daylight and as starlight. And in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father and I saw that it was Holy.” 

~ Black Elk

Kenneth H. Little, MA 

603-726-1006

KenLittle-NH.org

© 2009 Kenneth H. Little. All rights reserved.  

Open & Honest Communication

Raising children requires open and honest communication. The only way children will ever participate in an open and honest dialogue is if they feel safe to speak openly and honestly.

If you as a parent create any sensation of fear, even the slightest amount, if you are angry, harsh, critical, or punitive, you are creating a sizable obstacle to effective communication with your children.  All problem solving and all skill development requires safety and trust.

Children may forgive our transgressions, but they will not necessarily forget.

Now, with that said, I have never met a parent who did not lose their sense of calm at least every now and then.  So, what do we as parents do when we make parenting mistakes?

The first step is always to take a step back, take some time to consider what went wrong and to regain a sense of calm.  It may take a while to figure out what went wrong, but once we do regain our composure we will want to go back to our children and apologize for our loss of self-control, to take ownership and responsibility for the error, and to remove any sense of responsibility from the children. 

Whatever they may or may not have done, it's not their fault or responsibility that we lost control.

The next step is to repair the relationship.

Different people tend to do different things after a fight or argument.  Somethings will bring people back together, healing any hurt feelings. Somethings leave the relationship damage unresolved. Each infraction left unresolved diminishes the relationship more and more over time. As parents, it's best if we can heal hurt feelings and resolve relational problems as they occur. Our children will need us most during adolescence. It's best to have a strong and intact relationship going into this stage of life.

There are many ways for parents to keep their head in the right place. A proactive parenting plan will help you keep stay calm more often and safeguard a strong, trusting relationship with your children.

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Kenneth H. Little, MA 

603-726-1006

KenLittle-NH.org

© 2019 Kenneth H. Little. All rights reserved.  

Trust & Faith

Parenting requires two key elements: trust and faith. It's very important that parents
trust their children and have faith in their innate goodness and capacity, while
continuously working to develop the required skills, ability, and character.
With constructive proactive parenting the likelihood is very high that your children
will turn out to be the good, capable, successful adults they were born to be. 

Believe this. Believe in your child’s natural goodness and innate ability from birth on.

The probability of a good outcome declines as parents implement parenting plans and
methods that are based in fear, anxiety, anger, and mistrust. For example, if you
believe that children are inherently sneaky and dishonest, you are likely to parent
them in a way that increases their sneakiness and dishonesty. Similarly, overly
restrictive parenting designed to increase child obedience and safety often inspires
increased rebellion and risky behaviors.

Trust

I often hear parents say to a child who has made a mistake -- "you broke my trust".
This in my view is a deep parental mistake, more akin to shaming than guiding and
correcting. Under what circumstances does a parent think create illusory conditions
of trust based on the expectation that their child will never make a mistake?

Mistakes are expected, not surprises. Trust your children to make mistakes as they
grow up. 

Children are born with natural goodness and abilities, not as perfect beings. Life is a rigorous and demanding practice-to-mastery activity. Mistakes are an expected part of life. When a child makes a mistake, it will be more reasonable and honest for a parent to say, "ah, that was expected. Let's see if we can figure out what went wrong." Mistakes are an expected part of growing up, not betrayals of trust. It's much more reasonable and accurate to trust that children will make mistakes, understanding that this is a very ordinary part of growing up.

Smile at the mistakes and reassure them.

Faith

Have faith in your children. Believe in them, that they are essentially good and
capable. Children make mistakes. They will need coaching and corrective guidance
on life skills, but this does not make them bad. "Bad" behaviors are much more
accurately seen as expected mistakes.

This is not an exercise in semantics.

How you feel about children in general will leak out all over your children. Many
parents (and teachers) that I've worked with over the years have expressed the belief
that children are essentially "bad", that they are liars and are always "up to no good",
trying to get away with some bad behavior. This is a belief, a basic assumption about
children and human beings. It's not a fact. 

While it may apply to a very few, most children are not inherently "bad". If you believe that children are basically bad, this belief will be infused into every parent-child interaction: it will be in your eyes, in your tone of voice, in the conclusions you jump to, and in the way you talk with your child after events. Your child will gradually internalize your beliefs over time and have increasingly bad behavior as a result.

This parenting approach is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The parent believes it and interacts with their children accordingly who then internalize the belief and ... act it out in the real world.

My strongest possible recommendation is for you to question your beliefs about
children and work continuously to develop a belief in their inherent ability and
goodness. They do not misbehave intentionally as an expression of "being bad"
humans. Children are inherently "good'. Think of misbehavior events as “just a mistake”, not a catastrophic indicator that they will grow up to be felons or failures.

Note: there are a very few children who do certain things that are indicators of a much
larger problem. This is rare. I have worked with these children. They do need extra
help. It's unlikely that your child is this child. I'll do a post on red flags another time,
but just as an example, cruelty toward animals is an example of a child in significant
distress. If you are concerned, consult with your child's medical doctor first. If you
are still concerned speak with a clinical specialist.

Even if your child is in a high-risk category, your belief in their essential goodness
and ability to overcome can have a significant constructive impact on future outcomes
while in the opposite direction, your belief that they are inherently bad is more likely
to cement their destructive future fate.

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Kenneth H. Little, MA / 135 Lee Brook Road / Thornton, NH 03285 / 603-726-1006 / Achieve-ES.com

© 2019 Kenneth H. Little. All rights reserved. 

The Great Adventure!

When my wife and I brought our first son home from the hospital, all packed into the warm winter snugly fleece in his little car seat, I carried him into our apartment and placed him, still in the car seat, in the center of the kitchen floor ... very much like a bag of groceries. 

We stood there looking down at him.  I looked at my wife.  "Now what?"

Groceries, I know what to do with.  You unpack them and put them away.  An infant was a whole new and anxiety producing adventure for me.  My wife -- a pediatrician in training -- seemed a wee bit more confident, but not as much as I would have liked.

Although I had been working with children as a mental health professional for over 5 years, I had no direct parenting experience at all, had never changed a diaper in my entire life. I began rummaging through his bag of things.  Where is the owner's manual?  How do you turn this thing on, off; change its settings?

I had no idea ... none.

I'm sure there must be parents who are completely skilled and confident about parenting from the very start; people who transition seamlessly into parenting. However, I'm not one and I've never met one. For my self and the parents I know and have worked with, parenting is as struggle.     

© 2019 Kenneth H. Little. All rights reserved.