Your Child’s Pain Should Not Control Your Actions

Recommended Reading: Your Child’s Pain Should Not Control Your Actions by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

The Boundaries series is excellent and I keep coming back to the advice of Dr.’s Cloud and Townsend. This excerpt from their book Boundaries with Kids gives you a very practical example of why setting clear expectations, following through and being consistent is important. It’s right on the money.

Boundaries with kids begins with parents having good boundaries of their own. Purposeful parents stay in control of themselves. If your child is controlling your decisions by protesting your boundaries, you are no longer parenting with purpose.

Terri was having problems with her thirteen-year-old son Josh not doing his homework. I helped her come up with a plan that would require Josh to set aside a certain time each night to do homework. During this hour Josh had to be in his study place with nothing else but his work, and he was not to do anything else but study. Terri had no control over whether or not Josh actually chose to study during that time. What she could control was that he do nothing else during that time but sit with his homework.

When I saw her the next time, Terri looked sheepish. She had not lived up to her end of the plan. “What happened?” I asked. “Well, we were all set, and then he got invited to go to a baseball game with his friend. I said no, that his hour was not up yet. But he got so upset, I could not talk him out of it. He seemed so mad and sad…” Read the rest of the article.