I'm a little ashamed to admit this...
Why consistent boundaries make your kids feel better, and what happens if your boundaries are not consistent.
So here's something I'm not very proud of:
Yesterday (Sunday) my kids watched a lot of TV.
And when I say a lot, what I really mean is that they watched TV all day long.
You see, my husband was away for the day, I was tired, and the kids just kept coming up with all these convincing reasons why I should extend their TV time.
"We just started our new show, please let us just finish it!"
"We just started playing the game, please let us finish it!"
"We just want to watch some more, please let us watch!"
Ok, so their reasons weren't great.
But in the moment, they were good enough to convince me to take out my phone, open our TV blocking app, and give them another hour of TV time.
Then, suddenly I got a little notification on my phone telling me:
***Kids have reached their 5 hour 15.0 minute daily time limit***
Oops...
Normally, we try to be strict with the TV-time in our house. We have TV and phone blocking apps installed, and the kids only have a limited amount of time every day.
Except, sometimes...
This whole event reminded me of a recent interview I did with Naama Cameron, a behaviorist, parenting coach, and ex-nursery school teacher.
In our interview, she explained that it is very important to set consistent boundaries for your kids.
That's because having consistent boundaries makes your kids feel safe and builds trust. Even if your kids don't like the boundaries, if you consistently enforce those boundaries then they know what to expect from you.
And the more consistently you enforce the boundaries, the easier it becomes, because they stop trying to test you.
But if you don't have consistent boundaries, kids start to feel insecure. They start feeling like they need to test the boundaries. This leads to nagging and fighting, simply because they don't know how much they can get away with.
So, try to be consistent. But also understand that you are just human. Sometimes, you are tired, and the kids are consistent, and you end up breaking your boundary. Like letting your kids watch 5 hours of TV.
When that happens, it is critical that you "reset the expectations".
In our interview, Naama explains what you should say and do ASAP when you make the mistake of breaking the boundaries that you've set.
If you want help to identify, set, and keep boundaries, then check out the full interview with Naama Cameron in our ebook How To Get Kids To Listen, available for free download here.