Boundaries for Parenting in 2024: New Year, New Boundaries
It’s 2024, and you’re ready for a new start. As you think about how you want 2024 to be different, it’s a great time to reconsider what worked and what didn’t. It’s a great time to re-evaluate your boundaries when it comes to parenting. You know parenting comes with many rewards and challenges when it comes to raising children and teens. Re-evaluating (or establishing) boundaries for parenting is key in fostering a healthier family and a healthier you. This blog will suggest several ideas to help you set new boundaries for the new year.
Set a Vision for Your Family
Have you ever gone to the grocery store without a grocery list? You might have had a mental list in your mind of what you needed but then walked out the store with several other items you hadn’t planned to purchase. If you do it once or twice, it might be okay. But if you do it frequently, it might cause other issues, such as going over the grocery budget or not having a place to store the extra food items in the fridge or pantry.
Like going to the grocery store without a list, if you don’t know what’s most important to your family, you can get swept up by many opportunities that pop up as the year progresses. Opportunities with your child’s schooling, work responsibilities, extracurricular activities, ministry, friends and family commitments…you name it! All of these might be good things but saying yes to everything might lead to a packed schedule leading you to feel burned out and overwhelmed as a parent juggling all the opportunities.
Prayerfully, you can start today by asking God to show you the vision He has for your family this year and what opportunities and responsibilities fall into that vision. If you have a vision, then that vision can help steer to what your family commits. When the questions come from your children about why you’re prioritizing some opportunities over another (AKA saying no), you come back to that vision and remind them of the vision God has provided for your family!
Commit to Consistency in Your Boundaries for Parenting
Let’s be honest…consistency is hard. It means staying the course. It means keeping up with something even when you don’t want to or are too tired. Consistency and predictability as a parent are crucial to helping your children thrive. Consistency demonstrates to your children that it increases trust and reliability. For children, consistency also produces an increased sense of security and order. All of these factors are shown to be important as children develop and build a healthy attachment.
One area where consistency can be particularly hard is in the area of discipline. When adults respond inconsistently to children’s misbehavior, it can often create confusion for the children. Children may have difficulty understanding what response or consequence they may receive from a parent, which can produce anxiety.
Using a schedule each day, having a consistent set bedtime and wake time, establishing family times or traditions, and preparing age-appropriate rewards and consequences can all be a part of building a consistency within your family this year. As you model this consistency to your children this new year, it sets a positive example and strengthens the healthy consistent boundaries you want to set as a parent.
Use Calm, Clear and Direct Communication in Boundaries for Parenting
Imagine working a job where your boss tells you what you’re expected to do sometimes. Now, imagine that same boss gets upset with you for doing something that wasn’t communicated to you but was expected. You’d probably feel confused as an employee. Often, children voice this same dynamic with parents. They realize their parents are upset but are confused about the response to something that wasn’t clearly communicated.
Let’s look at a couple of examples here:
For young children, for example, asking a question as a direction is interpreted as a choice. “Do you want to put your shoes on?” is interpreted as a literal question. By asking a question, instead of giving a direction, a child interprets it as a question about whether the child does or doesn’t want to do something. A parent might be confused about why the child has not put on shoes if the child doesn’t do it after being asked the question.
A teen may interpret a slightly raised voice or agitated tone from a parent as yelling. A parent may expect a teen to be respectful in communicating with a parent and might feel disrespected when the teen uses the same response back to the parent.
By using calm, clear, and direct communication with your children, these communication misunderstandings can begin to decrease. As a parent, you have the most important role in modeling and teaching boundaries in communication to your children.
Each new day and new year has the potential to start fresh as a parent. If you’ve messed up (this makes you normal because who hasn’t?!), it’s not too late to implement one, two or all of these tips for setting boundaries as a parent. Just be sure to give yourself some grace as you think about implementing these boundaries.
If you’re looking for more support in boundary setting with your children, connect with our office today. We’d love to provide support to you and your family as you work to build healthy boundaries this new year.
Stay tuned for our next blog about setting boundaries as a Christian woman in 2024!