Latest / The Parenting Podcast / Navigating Pushback: Why It’s Good for Your Child’s Growth | Ep. 128

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Navigating Pushback: Why It’s Good for Your Child’s Growth | Ep. 128 · The Parenting Podcast

• 0:06
  Welcome to the Parenting Podcast.
• 0:08
  I'm your host Cheryl Lang, and I'm so glad to have you join us.
• 0:15
  Every parent who's ever dealt with a two year old knows how skillfully they can use the word, No.
• 0:26
  What many of us don't realize is that this is an incredibly healthy developmental step.
• 0:32
  It's the natural evolution of relationship boundaries as a person matures.
• 0:37
  Starting in that first year and continuing through the teen years, It's the Resurfacing Again in Young Adulthood.
• 0:46
  Today, we'll explore how recognizing and respecting this innate boundary development is essential for fostering healthy growth and maintaining a positive parent child relationship across all their ages, even when they're taller than you are.
• 1:05
  Let's jump into the discussion.
• 1:14
  Cheryl: Hey, you all.
• 1:15
  Cheryl: How are you doing?
• 1:16
  Cheryl: Hello, doing well.
• 1:17
  Cheryl: Good.
• 1:18
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 1:19
  Cheryl: We couldn't even have time on 10 episodes to talk about all the things that are different from when we were younger, or little kids.
• 1:28
  Cheryl: Yeah
• 1:29
  Ellen: Yeah,
• 1:30
  Cheryl: I just was thinking, There's so many things I didn't even know about.
• 1:35
  Cheryl: What is something that, if you go, I had no idea about this when I was younger, as a parent or just as a person, something you didn't know anything about, and you went, how in the world did I miss that?
• 1:49
  Christie: I think I didn't know that you just, you know, I thought you got to be a grown up and then you were just the grown up.
• 1:56
  Christie: That's
• 1:56
  Cheryl: exactly what I was going to say.
• 1:59
  Christie: Like I just thought, oh I've arrived, I'm now a grown up, I know, like somehow you downloaded the grown up chip into your brain and now you're done.
• 2:06
  Cheryl: I had no idea it was processe.
• 2:08
  Carol: Uh huh.
• 2:09
  Carol: Yeah.
• 2:09
  Cheryl: And so I thought, Oh, you get to a certain age and then you're this really mature adult and then you have children and you're this really mature parent.
• 2:17
  Cheryl: Right.
• 2:17
  Cheryl: Well, and through
• 2:18
  Ellen: 18 to 25, you think you are an adult.
• 2:21
  Ellen: Yes.
• 2:22
  Ellen: And then you get into your 30s, you go, Oh, I was just a baby.
• 2:25
  Ellen: Right, right.
• 2:26
  Christie: I've been in this kind of habit of the last couple of years of doing the math of how old my grandparents were at certain ages, like in certain memories I have.
• 2:34
  Christie: Because you're
• 2:34
  Cheryl: parents.
• 2:35
  Cheryl: And your grandparents were young.
• 2:36
  Christie: Yes, very young.
• 2:36
  Christie: So my parents were teenagers when they had me and then, so my, that made my grandparents very young.
• 2:40
  Christie: And so I'll think of a memory and I'll do the math and realize I'm older than my grandma was at that point.
• 2:48
  Christie: And it's just, it's very, very sad.
• 2:51
  Cheryl: It's really a surprise and gives me grace for my children as they are growing up and going into the different stages of adulthood.
• 3:01
  Christie: And my parents and grandparents.
• 3:03
  Christie: It helps me give them grace.
• 3:05
  Ellen: And I think, you know, one of the cultural shifts is, um, Adolescence, according to the psychologist, is longer.
• 3:13
  Cheryl: That's true.
• 3:13
  Cheryl: Well, I would say we had more of the trappings of
• 3:16
  Ellen: adulthood.
• 3:16
  Cheryl: Right.
• 3:17
  Cheryl: But, you know, not there,
• 3:18
  Ellen: but the
• 3:19
  Cheryl: trappings
• 3:19
  Ellen: Definitely
• 3:20
  Christie: been a cultural shift.
• 3:21
  Christie: Yeah.
• 3:21
  Christie: Okay.
• 3:22
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 3:22
  Cheryl: So, what I'd like us to talk about is A concept that I had no idea about and everybody I've ever known would have flourished better and certainly my family if I had known how to use this concept.
• 3:41
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 3:42
  Cheryl: And it is boundaries.
• 3:44
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 3:45
  Cheryl: In emotional relationships.
• 3:46
  Cheryl: With a big B.
• 3:46
  Cheryl: With a big B.
• 3:48
  Cheryl: In relationships and of course, um, listeners, we are, we We're going to be referring to the book called Boundaries by Drs.
• 3:58
  Cheryl: Townsend and Cloud.
• 3:59
  Cheryl: And Ellen, our old copies go, where do they go, early 80s, does it go back to early 80s?
• 4:05
  Ellen: Yeah, because I know I was doing it when we lived in a different state and that
• 4:09
  Cheryl: was years and years ago.
• 4:12
  Cheryl: I knew nothing about it.
• 4:13
  Cheryl: Now my book is older, but the concepts that are in it.
• 4:19
  Cheryl: are so healthy for relationships.
• 4:22
  Cheryl: And that's one of those things I wish I had known.
• 4:26
  Cheryl: And I'm so thankful for having it in my life now and growing in it.
• 4:31
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Ellen: And I think we would all really recommend, if you haven't gone through it, take the time to read it.
• 4:36
  Ellen: It's, it's really helpful.
• 4:37
  Ellen: It
• 4:38
  Cheryl: is fantastic.
• 4:38
  Cheryl: And Ellen, I asked Mike, because her husband's a PhD in psychology, and I've asked Ellen Every counselor I've ever known.
• 4:46
  Cheryl: Is there something better than this?
• 4:47
  Cheryl: They go, no, it's the
• 4:49
  Carol: best And, uh, so I had the opportunity to drive to Dallas last weekend.
• 4:56
  Carol: So I was listening to the audio book and going, Oh, yes, yes, yes.
• 5:02
  Carol: And even though when you look at my book, I have all these things underlined.
• 5:05
  Carol: It's just such a good reminder.
• 5:07
  Carol: But this is why we're here today.
• 5:09
  Carol: Okay, because he talked about this is how boundaries develop in children and he drew a real connection saying not just little ones because everybody who's been around little children you see boundaries develop in a two year old it's different from a one year old and how they're trying to explore their world and we kind of understand it.
• 5:33
  Carol: Uh huh.
• 5:33
  Carol: Yeah.
• 5:34
  Carol: But, he says boundaries develop two more very specific times Adolescents?
• 5:40
  Carol: And then early adulthood.
• 5:41
  Carol: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Carol: And expanded that.
• 5:43
  Carol: So I wanted us to talk about that.
• 5:46
  Carol: Because actually, I paused it and just started thinking about that.
• 5:50
  Carol: What a fantastic perspective to come into these two
• 5:55
  Cheryl: older,
• 5:56
  Carol: age groups.
• 5:57
  Carol: with this understanding.
• 5:58
  Carol: Because it's the
• 5:59
  Ellen: same foundation, the boundary idea but it's lived out differently.
• 6:04
  Carol: yes.
• 6:05
  Ellen: Because the boundary is a two year old needs.
• 6:07
  Ellen: It's a different boundary than a fifteen year old needs.
• 6:10
  Ellen: But the principles
• 6:11
  Cheryl: are exactly the same.
• 6:13
  Cheryl: And you know it's interesting.
• 6:15
  Cheryl: But I was so struck with it because we, you know, Christy way early said, remember when they're crying when you put them to bed, when they tell you no, they're beginning their own identity and develop their self and separating from you, which is the releasing process.
• 6:32
  Ellen: Right.
• 6:32
  Ellen: And that can be the teen years, too.
• 6:35
  Ellen: Exactly.
• 6:35
  Ellen: Again, yeah.
• 6:36
  Christie: Well, and we've talked about it here a lot of the comparison between the clumsiness of toddlerhood and the clumsiness of spreading their wings as teens and then as young adults.
• 6:47
  Christie: And it's just, I mean, I never, that releasing, starting at infancy, I never knew that when my kids were going through the stages.
• 6:55
  Christie: Did not.
• 6:55
  Christie: Right.
• 6:56
  Christie: Right.
• 6:56
  Christie: And so I'm, I'm so excited to share this.
• 6:59
  Christie: That we've, you know, it would have been helpful to me to have known it would have given me a lot of freedom and, and peace to know things were supposed to be this way.
• 7:08
  Christie: And
• 7:08
  Ellen: I've always said in, in public and private schools that child development should just be taught.
• 7:15
  Ellen: Just the linear of this is what development is, it doesn't have to even be philosophical because that helps, you know, what I was expecting maybe from my two year old, what I was expecting from my 15 year old weren't on the same page.
• 7:27
  Ellen: charts of maybe their developmental ability.
• 7:31
  Ellen: Right.
• 7:32
  Cheryl: Exactly.
• 7:33
  Cheryl: And now I had child development classes even in college, but they didn't talk about this.
• 7:39
  Cheryl: That's what I'm saying.
• 7:41
  Cheryl: That's one of the things we missed out.
• 7:43
  Cheryl: Um, one of my children has their master's in counseling psychology and Um, my children talk to me, we talk about these kind of concepts, and they talk about, Mom, you never did that, why did you, because it was never taught, you know, and my perspective
• 8:03
  Carol: was incorrectly that going
• 8:04
  Cheryl: To a counselor was for, Diagnosable mental illness, you know, instead of just the struggles of emotional health or depression or rejection or bad boundaries.
• 8:17
  Cheryl: Yeah,
• 8:18
  Ellen: because sometimes when I know when I was younger, you'd go to you like I had older friends.
• 8:24
  Ellen: I would go to them.
• 8:25
  Ellen: But in a sense, they.
• 8:26
  Ellen: They didn't mean to give me bad advice, but they gave me advice from maybe their era of parenting, which was a little bit different than maybe what I needed.
• 8:36
  Cheryl: Yeah, definitely.
• 8:37
  Cheryl: So we do recommend this book so much to you and y'all, what about today?
• 8:43
  Cheryl: That's what I'd like to do is explore, um, what, Is the boundary formation, what does it look and feel like for our littles, for our teens, and then for the young adults?
• 8:55
  Cheryl: Never saw the parallels that these brilliant doctors drew in..
• 9:01
  Christie: Well, I
• 9:01
  Ellen: was, you know, I was thinking about how it's an ongoing process.
• 9:06
  Ellen: boundaries is.
• 9:07
  Ellen: Mm hmm.
• 9:07
  Ellen: I'm kind of touching on that a little bit.
• 9:09
  Ellen: And I think that's a really hard thing because we tend to think of it in like stages, but really from the moment they're born till we go and pass on, it's, we're, we're having boundaries.
• 9:22
  Ellen: That's true.
• 9:22
  Ellen: You know, and we're teaching boundaries and we tend to think of boundaries as bad things, you know, like, Oh, well, this is the boundary line.
• 9:29
  Ellen: You can't go over that or this fence is set up as a boundary, but it's one of those things that we kind of have to that, that the boundary is good for safety.
• 9:40
  Ellen: At all ages, including ourselves, having boundaries.
• 9:44
  Ellen: And if we don't, that's when we run into a lot of problems.
• 9:47
  Ellen: If we don't, if our children don't understand the boundaries, or we don't understand the boundaries, and a lot of times it's the parents that don't understand the boundaries, and that's why we have so much conflict sometimes in the parenting process.
• 10:00
  Cheryl: And because, like they say, boundaries make good relationships.
• 10:04
  Cheryl: Yes.
• 10:05
  Christie: Well, you know, I was thinking as I was going back through this section where he talks about bonding and attachment, I was thinking so much of what we talked about with Uh, the parenting styles and one thing I thought of is how we drew out some of those pros of each parenting style and it really lines up with the things he's saying.
• 10:23
  Christie: So I think that, you know, parents are really on the right track, like with the attachment parenting with the bonding we talked about before, because he says, you know, that, that bonding is foundational to setting good boundaries.
• 10:35
  Christie: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 10:36
  Christie: And I thought that, that's something I wouldn't have put together to realize that the child has to feel safely attached to the parent in order to feel safe with the boundary the parent gives.
• 10:48
  Cheryl: However, I want to say again, you don't have to ascribe to that parenting style, but just the foundation.
• 10:56
  Cheryl: Sort of like when you're building, this is sort of like building a house, okay?
• 10:59
  Cheryl: And the cement that's poured is bonding that core relationship and the foundation.
• 11:07
  Cheryl: You can always improve on it, but it's the bonding between the parent and the child is the core relationship.
• 11:13
  Cheryl: And then we start
• 11:13
  Carol: building,
• 11:14
  Cheryl: well, you build
• 11:15
  Carol: boundaries,
• 11:15
  Cheryl: you build the walls.
• 11:16
  Cheryl: And, uh, that's one of the things he says that they say that the two R's, what are they?
• 11:23
  Cheryl: That boundaries define our relationships because it defines our responsibilities, you know, and then, we want to build boundaries, not walls, and then to teach our children again, I would have benefited so much from understanding this, because when my children began what is a healthy pushing of the boundaries and pushing,
• 11:46
  Carol: back but actually they're building boundaries, but it felt like rejection to me.
• 11:52
  other: Mm hmm.
• 11:52
  Cheryl: And so I didn't understand that this is a developmental thing because it's a process.
• 11:58
  Cheryl: Mm
• 11:58
  other: hmm.
• 11:58
  Cheryl: And it's all of life, but the way they describe it, it happens, those three particular sections of our lives.
• 12:07
  Ellen: Well, and it's always hurtful the most to mom because you're saying, we feel rejection when that happens because that's how you feel.
• 12:14
  Ellen: It's not.
• 12:15
  Ellen: It's a normal process of life.
• 12:17
  Ellen: Mm hmm.
• 12:17
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 12:17
  Ellen: But it still feels like, Oh, what's wrong with my kid?
• 12:20
  Cheryl: Or what's wrong with me?
• 12:23
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 12:23
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 12:24
  Cheryl: My child would reject me.
• 12:25
  Cheryl: What did I do wrong?
• 12:26
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 12:26
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 12:27
  Christie: And it does depend on the child, too.
• 12:29
  Christie: I have some that are more independent and some who need a little encouragement.
• 12:32
  Christie: And I think, you know, the ones that were independent broke my heart.
• 12:36
  Christie: Yes.
• 12:37
  Christie: And then the ones that who were needed the encouragement, It kind of made me grow up a little bit, because I was like, now I have to be the grown up and say, you need to fly, you need to do these things, you need to
• 12:47
  Ellen: gently toss you out of the nest.
• 12:49
  Ellen: Even though
• 12:49
  Christie: every instinct in me wants to hold you close.
• 12:52
  Christie: Yeah.
• 12:53
  Christie: That's true.
• 12:53
  Cheryl: Yeah, definitely.
• 12:54
  Cheryl: I've talked about on here before, but the core teaching, they say, of what we call the releasing process here at TPP is that this is me, this is not me.
• 13:07
  other: Mm hmm.
• 13:07
  other: Yeah.
• 13:07
  Cheryl: And that children with good bonding, they have to learn,, this is mommy, this is me.
• 13:13
  Cheryl: And that's what happens, that precious little one year old or even before that, that they're just this loving little one.
• 13:22
  Cheryl: And all of a sudden, they start walking away from you.
• 13:26
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 13:26
  Cheryl: And they start separating from you and wanting other things.
• 13:32
  Cheryl: You know, if you are attached too much, that feels rejecting.
• 13:36
  Cheryl: Right.
• 13:37
  Cheryl: But that that's the healthy thing is
• 13:39
  Carol: their
• 13:39
  Cheryl: saying, I am not you and I have to figure out what my life is.
• 13:43
  Ellen: And that's really hard as a mom because you know, the tendency is to either be over controlling and wanting your hands in everything and then you're just.
• 13:51
  Ellen: child's resentful or not doing enough and your child feels like you just left him in the wilderness.
• 13:57
  Ellen: So, I mean, it's just really hard being a parent.
• 14:00
  Christie: Absolutely
• 14:01
  Ellen: That's
• 14:01
  Cheryl: why this teaching is so good.
• 14:03
  Cheryl: I think the misconception I had as a parent, and what he's addressing here, is that
• 14:09
  other: yeah.
• 14:10
  Cheryl: Boundaries help us to have safety.
• 14:12
  other: Yeah.
• 14:12
  Cheryl: And also healthy identities and relationships.
• 14:16
  Cheryl: The children, our teens, our young adults.
• 14:19
  Cheryl: We all have to learn.
• 14:20
  Cheryl: They have to learn to separate
• 14:22
  Carol: and begin to develop their own individual self before it's healthy and good to come back.
• 14:28
  Carol: And that's what I was encouraged with is this.
• 14:31
  Christie: Yeah, I mean, he talks in the book about the first maybe six months or so a lot of that time is spent bonding and attaching with parent.
• 14:40
  Christie: And then there's, there's, They start exploring, they start seeing the world around them, they start, you know, moving about and understanding, Hey, there's some things that I could explore in this world.
• 14:51
  Christie: And as they're learning to crawl and learning to walk and putting things in their mouths, they are doing that.
• 14:59
  Christie: You know, we have to be there to help them have some safe parameters, but for the most part we should be celebrating this newfound freedom in their toddlerhood
• 15:11
  Ellen: but you may need to put up a gate so they don't fall down the stairs.
• 15:14
  Ellen: You know, those are the boundaries.
• 15:16
  Christie: Well, and he gives a really good example in the book too that I thought was a good, um, um, way to kind of visualize what safe parameters look like.
• 15:25
  Christie: He said, you know, toddlers need to jump on beds and he said, parents need to not say no to jumping on the bed, but not let them trample all over your orange juice or coffee and, and rip things up and, you know, and be unsafe.
• 15:40
  Christie: So you know, letting them have fun and be enthusiastic and adventurous with your toddler But with some safe, you know, you're there to catch them in, in unsafe situations.
• 15:52
  Cheryl: Well, and see, that's what I didn't know is that this is such a healthy development, that they move away.
• 15:59
  Cheryl: They want other things and that the really healthy thing is for the parents to be excited about it.
• 16:04
  Cheryl: Right.
• 16:05
  Cheryl: You know.
• 16:06
  Cheryl: And
• 16:06
  Ellen: childproofing your home.
• 16:08
  Ellen: Is a way to make sure the boundaries are good because we're talking right now about small children They can explore their environment without getting electrocuted or eating poison or whatever, right?
• 16:19
  Christie: Well, and then I just love the way all of this transfers and that's whole point of this is it transfers to again to their teen Years.
• 16:26
  Christie: Yes.
• 16:26
  Christie: Yeah, we can't just Shut down and say, you know, nobody's going anywhere because the world out there is crazy.
• 16:33
  Christie: We'd like to.
• 16:34
  Christie: Yeah.
• 16:34
  Christie: Right.
• 16:34
  Cheryl: I love that because what we just said about little ones, most everybody kind of understand.
• 16:39
  Cheryl: Right.
• 16:40
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 16:40
  Cheryl: Common sense.
• 16:41
  Cheryl: And remember, the good thing is the third stage is, if they get to do all this, they're They kind of come back.
• 16:47
  Cheryl: Okay, because if you think of what, uh, like four to eight, tends to be kind of what I think is the
• 16:55
  Carol: somewhat easier Yeah, the peaceful years.
• 16:58
  Carol: Because they're not going through this turmoil of change and growth and development and boundaries building, like they are these three other times.
• 17:06
  Carol: They tend to be a little
• 17:06
  Ellen: more compliant in that, in that time.
• 17:09
  Ellen: Because they're
• 17:09
  Cheryl: not having to transition.
• 17:10
  Cheryl: Right.
• 17:11
  Cheryl: They're kind of in a good stage.
• 17:13
  Ellen: Yes.
• 17:13
  Cheryl: Okay.
• 17:14
  Cheryl: So how how do we do that in teen years?
• 17:16
  Cheryl: And then how would we do that with young adults?
• 17:18
  Cheryl: We can't put baby gates up on our teens.
• 17:21
  Cheryl: What does that look like?
• 17:22
  Cheryl: And then what should our responses be?
• 17:25
  Christie: You know, when they're young, we kind of gave you the example that everyone would understand of jumping on the bed, but then that translates when they're older, Yeah.
• 17:33
  Christie: You're working with someone who can understand your words now, so that's a benefit.
• 17:38
  Christie: So able to verbalize some of the dangers you see and, and talk them through that.
• 17:43
  Ellen: But they also have a mind that says, well, I don't agree.
• 17:46
  Ellen: Sure.
• 17:47
  Ellen: Sure.
• 17:47
  Ellen: So that, which is where natural consequences can be helpful.
• 17:51
  Cheryl: But he's saying this is so normal and healthy.
• 17:54
  Cheryl: That just like it would be wrong for a three year old to only have mommy carry him around and keep him in a snuggly all the time.
• 18:04
  Cheryl: Um, that would not be healthy.
• 18:06
  Cheryl: The same thing, it doesn't always feel healthy in the teen years.
• 18:11
  Cheryl: It feels scary.
• 18:13
  Cheryl: Well, it is scary.
• 18:14
  Cheryl: It is.
• 18:15
  Cheryl: It's big people
• 18:16
  Ellen: scary.
• 18:17
  Ellen: I can put a gate up so the toddler doesn't go down the stairs.
• 18:20
  Ellen: But I can't control their environment so much that they don't do anything wrong.
• 18:26
  Cheryl: And the issues are more serious.
• 18:29
  Cheryl: It's sexuality, gender identification, um.
• 18:34
  Ellen: Learning how to spend money, learning to work outside the home, complicated relationships with your peer group.
• 18:40
  Cheryl: Right.
• 18:41
  Cheryl: It really is.
• 18:41
  Cheryl: And, it's real easy to say, I'm not going to let you run in the street.
• 18:45
  Christie: But
• 18:47
  Cheryl: driving
• 18:47
  Christie: the street is a different matter.
• 18:50
  Cheryl: So how can we bring this concept of what he's trying to teach into this?
• 18:56
  Cheryl: Number one, I want to say, oh, by the way, it's the same thing.
• 19:01
  Cheryl: Remember when they did it when they were little?
• 19:02
  Cheryl: They're doing it again.
• 19:04
  Cheryl: it's a healthy pushing of the boundaries
• 19:07
  Ellen: Well, you have to do some preventative thinking.
• 19:10
  Ellen: How's that?
• 19:10
  Ellen: As a parent.
• 19:11
  Ellen: Just as you do with your toddler, you go, okay, there's dangers in the stairs.
• 19:15
  Ellen: So how do I prevent my kid from tumbling down a set of stairs?
• 19:18
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 19:19
  Ellen: A little gate across.
• 19:20
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 19:20
  Ellen: Well, in the teen years, you can't do it all, but you kind of have to think through.
• 19:23
  Ellen: What What, what kind of freedom at this age do I want to give them?
• 19:28
  Ellen: What do, before they maybe even ask, what's appropriate?
• 19:31
  Ellen: How do I introduce them to doing more independent things so that I'm comfortable that they're able to handle some of the things that are out there?
• 19:41
  Christie: Well, and maybe uncomfortable, but being calculated in, in the risks that you're willing to let them take and the consequences you're willing to let them face.
• 19:51
  Christie: Yes.
• 19:51
  Ellen: Cause we, when our children start driving as teenagers, most parents put down some boundaries.
• 19:56
  Ellen: This, you can only drive in this and you can't have a carload of kids your first month of driving in the, you know, just different things like that.
• 20:04
  Ellen: So I think it's not, uh, It's weird to think ahead and think, well, if my child asks to go to this party, what are the boundaries that are there?
• 20:12
  Ellen: How do we determine that this is a good place for them to be in, go to a party or go off with a friend and how much do they need to check in depending on their age group?
• 20:23
  Cheryl: See, and I'm listening to that because I started out saying all the stuff I didn't know.
• 20:27
  Cheryl: I never looked at it.
• 20:28
  Cheryl: And I looked at it through the lens that this is a boundary development time.
• 20:34
  Ellen: Right.
• 20:34
  Cheryl: And instead of just thinking, how can I protect and defend?
• 20:39
  Cheryl: And one of the areas that they grow in is, what do I believe?
• 20:44
  Cheryl: What are my values?
• 20:45
  Cheryl: And I will say, I have a lot of parents talking to me.
• 20:49
  Cheryl: They're very concerned because their children are exploring, just like that little, you Six months, eight months old is exploring the physical world.
• 20:58
  Cheryl: They're exploring the metaphysical world.
• 21:02
  Cheryl: What do I believe and where do I attach to other things?
• 21:06
  Cheryl: And it feels really scary.
• 21:09
  Cheryl: But, for me, if I had a child that age, and I understood, oh, this is the same boundary development thing, it's just different.
• 21:18
  Cheryl: And
• 21:18
  Ellen: it is scarier, though.
• 21:20
  Ellen: Yeah, the stakes are higher.
• 21:22
  Ellen: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Ellen: That's good.
• 21:22
  Ellen: Because when,
• 21:23
  Christie: when a, um, you know, when a toddler finds a Lego on the floor and puts it in his mouth, you know, there's the fear of choking, but you don't think they're going to become a Legotarian and only eat But when a teenager is trying on hats of different belief systems, it's easy to be quick to think, Oh, this is going to lead to X, Y, Z, and this is going to be the rest of their life.
• 21:47
  Christie: And they're really just trying on the hat.
• 21:49
  Christie: You know, they're, they're not necessarily going to give themselves entirely to this belief system, but they need a minute to explore.
• 21:57
  Ellen: And some kids learn the hard way.
• 21:59
  Ellen: Unfortunately, even though you may have laid a foundation for them, they are still going to go, I'm going to see if that's really true.
• 22:08
  Cheryl: And they may not align with what the parents belief system or, uh, what we would have wanted for my children.
• 22:17
  Ellen: Right.
• 22:18
  Ellen: You know because I think Cheryl one of the problems is we think that if we get them through the teen years That's the finished product And it's not mm hmm.
• 22:26
  Ellen: The finished product is the end of their life.
• 22:29
  Ellen: Yes, you know, but we tend to go especially as Americans Okay, we got point a B and C right and now they're at C.
• 22:35
  Ellen: So it's the finished prod I launched them right all is good, but That's
• 22:39
  Christie: well, we never stop growing.
• 22:41
  Christie: It goes back to our identity.
• 22:43
  Christie: That's when we get our report card.
• 22:44
  Christie: That's true.
• 22:45
  Christie: You know, we think, oh, at 18, that's when I get my report card of how well I did.
• 22:49
  Christie: Yes.
• 22:50
  Christie: And so we want all of those marks to look the way we want them to look.
• 22:54
  Christie: We
• 22:54
  Ellen: want the bragging rights to go up.
• 22:55
  Ellen: Yes.
• 22:55
  Ellen: Everything was good.
• 22:57
  Cheryl: But you talk about identity.
• 22:59
  Cheryl: See the core The thing underneath boundaries is this is me, this is not me.
• 23:05
  Cheryl: And so we can see the teen fighting for that.
• 23:08
  Cheryl: No, this is me.
• 23:09
  Cheryl: I'm going to dye my hair purple or whatever, however they're trying to try and push the boundaries and find what is me.
• 23:20
  Cheryl: I
• 23:20
  Carol: didn't always see it through that lens, that they're trying to develop it.
• 23:24
  Carol: The who is me, and it's separate from me, and that I, as the parent, had to respect that.
• 23:30
  Christie: Right, and by respecting that, you're earning some relational equity and returning respect from them.
• 23:40
  Christie: Going into that next phase that he talks about, of them realizing, hey, maybe my mom or dad aren't complete idiots, maybe they know a few things, and then they face a challenge and they're like, Hey, I know who I could ask about this.
• 23:53
  Christie: I know somebody I respect and who respects me that I can go back and talk to about this and get their thoughts.
• 23:59
  Ellen: Or I blew it and I can go talk to my parents and they're not going to come unglued.
• 24:04
  Cheryl: Because we haven't built walls.
• 24:07
  Ellen: We've
• 24:07
  Cheryl: tried to keep boundaries and the old bridge analogy that we've had, trying to keep that as open as possible so they feel safe to come across whatever it is.
• 24:17
  Cheryl: Okay, so this is the teen years.
• 24:19
  Cheryl: And then we moved from the teen years into young adulthood.
• 24:24
  Cheryl: And I loved what they talked about because they said, again, there is a big loss of structure.
• 24:31
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 24:32
  Cheryl: And foundations.
• 24:33
  Cheryl: young adulthood You know, whether they go to college, get married, get a job, whatever, out on their own.
• 24:40
  Cheryl: Although they act with confidence, maybe, that internally they're losing all this structure.
• 24:46
  Ellen: Even though they may
• 24:47
  Cheryl: act with great confidence and talk with great confidence to realize that Because underneath, there's this great insecurity of the loss of structure of these different things.
• 24:57
  Ellen: that's really true.
• 24:59
  Cheryl: And again, they're going back through the same things of, I have to establish who I am.
• 25:04
  Cheryl: I am not a clone.
• 25:06
  Cheryl: I am not mommy.
• 25:07
  Cheryl: I'm separate.
• 25:08
  Cheryl: This is me.
• 25:10
  Cheryl: So they're trying all this and I bear
• 25:11
  Ellen: the responsibility of my choices, you know, there isn't anybody to sweep those up Yes, that may be in the early teen or mid teen years You come alongside your child if they've blown it and you help them, but once they go into adulthood, they have the law and Society that way
• 25:30
  Cheryl: mm hmm.
• 25:31
  Christie: Well, and, and for young parents listening, I, I think it feels a little unfair that this is how it is, but you're laying the groundwork in those toddler years for your relationship with the 25 year old version of this.
• 25:45
  Christie: Yes.
• 25:45
  Christie: Yes.
• 25:46
  Christie: And, and Like I said, it feels a little unfair because you're much less mature when they're toddlers than when they're 25.
• 25:52
  Christie: But if you can have some awareness of this at two and three years old, then you're building that relationship for when they're 17 and 18 and 24 and 25 and there's a pattern that's being established for how you're going to respond to these things.
• 26:09
  Carol: yes,
• 26:09
  Christie: And you
• 26:09
  Ellen: haven't necessarily done anything wrong.
• 26:12
  Ellen: If they maybe reject your values in that trial period of adulthood or even if they do in the
• 26:18
  Cheryl: future.
• 26:19
  Cheryl: Yes.
• 26:20
  Ellen: But I mean, our, our natural instinct is to feel like, Oh, they're not accepting my, you know, they're not doing it the way I wanted them to do it, I guess.
• 26:27
  Ellen: And having to have a, an open heart on, they are figuring out what they have to do and we can't hold their hand until they're 70.
• 26:35
  Christie: Right.
• 26:36
  Christie: Wow.
• 26:36
  Christie: Well, and, and for those that, you know, Maybe have older kids.
• 26:39
  Christie: I was going to read this because it brought me a lot of comfort.
• 26:42
  Christie: What, um, the author said, he said, a problematic childhood.
• 26:47
  Christie: It can be helped greatly by lots of hard work in the family during adolescence, but serious boundary problems during both these periods can be devastating during the adult year.
• 26:57
  Christie: So to me, since we've already all said, we didn't know these things.
• 27:02
  Christie: No.
• 27:02
  Christie: When our kids were toddlers.
• 27:03
  Christie: That brought me a lot of hope that there's always a chance.
• 27:06
  Christie: Yes.
• 27:07
  Christie: To repair.
• 27:08
  Christie: Right.
• 27:08
  Christie: I can go back and I can apologize that I didn't know these things.
• 27:11
  Christie: Right.
• 27:12
  Christie: And I can own it and I can set new boundaries in our relationship and, and make something new.
• 27:18
  Cheryl: Because that's the thing about boundaries is they are flexible.
• 27:21
  Cheryl: Mm hmm.
• 27:21
  Cheryl: And we've said process, it, and that's the wonderful thing.
• 27:25
  Cheryl: And that's why we always say, I'm sorry.
• 27:27
  Cheryl: It's one of the most wonderful healing tools we can bring to our relationship and to come back and say, Oh my goodness, I had built a wall.
• 27:38
  Cheryl: You're right.
• 27:39
  Cheryl: I didn't respect you.
• 27:41
  Cheryl: And I had just never seen boundaries as an integral part of describing these uh, scenarios or these stages of our children's lives.
• 27:52
  Cheryl: I
• 27:52
  Ellen: always tell my adult kids who will come back and go, Mom, why'd you do that that way?
• 27:56
  Ellen: And I usually say, if I knew, if I knew then what I know now, I would have did it differently.
• 28:03
  Ellen: In both directions,
• 28:05
  Christie: some of my boundaries were way too strict.
• 28:07
  Christie: And then some I should have had stricter boundaries.
• 28:10
  Christie: Yeah.
• 28:11
  Cheryl: It's interesting.
• 28:12
  Cheryl: My daughter didn't know that I was reading this, Boundaries book and she sent me a letter.
• 28:19
  Cheryl: Uh, a song that she found, I think, on Spotify for children about this is my boundary.
• 28:24
  Cheryl: This is my boundary.
• 28:26
  Cheryl: So it's a little song.
• 28:27
  Cheryl: And I go, oh my goodness, you know, I'm thinking about talking about it on TPP.
• 28:34
  Cheryl: And she said, well, you know, you didn't teach us any.
• 28:36
  Cheryl: And I go, sweetheart.
• 28:37
  Cheryl: Yeah.
• 28:38
  Cheryl: I didn't know.
• 28:40
  Cheryl: I didn't know.
• 28:40
  Cheryl: And that's the wonderful thing is with life we can always learn, we can always apologize and seek to repair the bridge and the boundaries that were not where they should have been.
• 28:53
  Cheryl: Whether, like you said, they were too small or too big or they were walls.
• 28:58
  Cheryl: It's wonderful.
• 28:59
  Cheryl: We can always grow and change and be different.
• 29:02
  Christie: Well, and it's, it's a good thing.
• 29:04
  Christie: Wouldn't that be horrifying if I were the same person today at 45?
• 29:08
  Christie: That I was at 25, so it, growth is a good thing, but it, it does sometimes bring, bring some regret and, and wish that things could have been different.
• 29:18
  Ellen: That's life.
• 29:19
  Ellen: That's how we grow is usually in the things we're sorrowful for or the things we regret because those are the things that get our attention and make us go, oh.
• 29:28
  Ellen: I don't want to do that again.
• 29:29
  Ellen: Touching the stove burnt my hand.
• 29:32
  Ellen: I don't want to do that again emotionally.
• 29:34
  Ellen: Well,
• 29:35
  Christie: and even now we're modeling how to handle regret or how to apologize.
• 29:41
  Christie: We're still teaching our kids by example and we're able to do that.
• 29:44
  Christie: And,
• 29:44
  Cheryl: you know, we're out of time, but parents, Well, this conversation was kind of a process because the Boundary Book is an inch thick and the learning from it is miles thick, all right?
• 29:57
  Cheryl: And what we're just trying to do is bring a little bit of insight on it as an encouragement to you to say it is important.
• 30:07
  Cheryl: Good boundaries make good relationships.
• 30:09
  Cheryl: And Maybe, y'all, we could come at some time and, like, work through, like, remember we did, um, a book study last year on, whole Brain Child.
• 30:19
  Cheryl: Maybe we could do, boundaries book study at some point, Yeah, that'd be great.
• 30:24
  Ellen: And everybody could kind of follow along, if you grab the book and then we'll try to, Okay, so
• 30:28
  Cheryl: listen in and, uh, maybe we'll get back to it, maybe, um, at some point here.
• 30:33
  Cheryl: We just encourage you, and that's, boundaries have to do with what I'm getting ready to say.
• 30:39
  Cheryl: Remember, hang in there, keep loving, keep persevering with those boundaries, because it's worth it.
• 30:52
  Thanks for being with us on the Parenting Podcast today.
• 30:57
  In this episode, we delved into the natural progression of boundary setting in children, focusing on its crucial stages during early childhood, the teenage years, and young adulthood.
• 31:10
  These phases are essential for their growth and healthy maturation.
• 31:15
  Even the foot stomping no from a two year old.
• 31:19
  Or the walk away from a young adult can be encouraging signs of a positive progress in their lives, despite how challenging they may feel to you in the moment.
• 31:31
  Reflect on your default response to these boundary forming episodes.
• 31:36
  Do you tend to control or to take it personally?
• 31:43
  Now, consider how you might overcome that instinct and instead choose to support your child's journey through these growth phases and embrace their pushback and desire for independence as healthy and vital.
• 31:59
  We also recommend the book Boundaries by Drs.
• 32:02
  Cloud and Townsend, which we referenced and spoke from on this episode.
• 32:09
  Say, we'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences at contact at theparentingpodcast.
• 32:15
  com.
• 32:15
  So, until next time, cherish these moments of growth and let your child's independence flourish.