There's a limit, but not to your love

I rarely write about setting limits with kids.

It's not because parenting with empathy is permissive or devoid of limits. Far from it.

Limits are extremely important and can be very compassionate when communicated with love.

...It's just that most of us have been raised with an authoritarian style of parenting and it's like having a knee-jerk reaction. Do you ever feel like you're on automatic pilot when you speak to your kids? Maybe you've even sworn to never repeat the things your parents said to you, yet here you are saying the exact same thing?

After decades of research in neuroscience we now know this authoritarian style is based in fear.

It sends a cascade of hormones to flood the brain, making it much harder for our child's brain to grow optimally. And even though we get the short-term effect of a well behaved child, we miss the opportunity to truly help our child deeply learn; learning that can only happen if the whole brain is responsive and not in fight-flight-freeze mode. Survival mode can often be our kid's response when they experience a limit, or in their perception, a threat to their safety and their core needs.

Unlearning and deprogramming ourselves and our automatic-pilot-parenting style (a style that frequently employs the use of punishments, rewards, threats, comparisons, withdrawal of love, time-outs, shaming and manipulation) takes intentional and deliberate practice.

It is the practice of following The Three Steps of Compassionate Parenting:

• Step One: Compassion for Ourselves

• Step Two: Compassion for Our Child

• Step Three: Solutions and Strengths

With the help of these steps we can weave in limit-setting effortlessly.A "no" can always be accompanied with curiosity, kindness, and attentiveness to our child's underlying needs. "You can't climb on the table honey I'm going to help you get down now. Are you feeling playful? Do you want to explore?"

...However our kids experience the "you can't climb on the table" as disconnection. Their brain interprets a limit as a threat. They can't think straight.

But we don't have to disconnect:

We can stay connected. We ask ourselves: "how reactive am I right now? Do I need to take a moment to calm?"(Step One)

We can stay empathetic: "I said no and it's really hard. I see big tears, I hear you cry, you just want to move and explore. This is so hard honey and I'm still not allowing you to climb on the table." (Step Two)

We can look for the "yes behind the no":"Your body wants to move and explore, and now it's raining outside. What other safe ways we can we come up with to move and explore? What ideas do you have? How about we play-wrestle for the next ten minutes and then I have to get back to making dinner, how does that sound?" (Step Three)

By staying empathetic we've taught our child a handful of invaluable lessons. The first is how to tolerate discomfort in a safe way. We've also helped our child experience flexibility: there are many ways to get needs met, AND, other people have needs too.

But mostly we've taught them that it is safe to feel, safe to want, safe to express. In a nutshell: it is safe to have needs. Even if they don't get met all the time the pain is tolerable when we have someone who cares about our experience.

As your child grows they will integrate these experiences into an dynamic whole, a person who understands their own needs and wants as well as the needs and wants of others. A person who works actively to co-create connection with those around them and a person who knows how to hold firm boundaries with respect because they have experienced firm and respectful boundaries themselves.

...How does this sound to you? Insanely challenging? A breath of fresh air? Maybe a mixture of both?

Let me know your thoughts! Limit-setting ends up being a huge part of the parent coaching work but with the help of the three steps we consistently turn our practice back to compassion again and again and again. It will see you through even the most difficult of circumstances- building a foundation of safety from which we grow. And freedom, healing, connection, peace, joy and laughter are the benefits we reap from this very simple yet profound act.

With so much love,

Vanessa