Boundaries by Henry Cloud; John Townsend

Author:Henry Cloud; John Townsend
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-03T16:45:09+00:00

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Boundaries and Your Children

Shannon couldn’t stop crying. A young mother of two preschool children, she couldn’t imagine herself being angry, out of control, and certainly not abusive. Yet a week ago, she had picked up three-year-old Robby and shaken him. Hard. She had screamed at him. Loudly. And it wasn’t the first time. She had done it numerous times in the past year. The only difference was that this time, Shannon almost physically injured her son. She was frightened.

The experience had so shaken Shannon and her husband, Gerald, that they called and made an appointment with me to discuss what had happened. Her shame and guilt were intense. She avoided eye contact with me as she told her story.

The several hours before Shannon had lost control with Robby had been horrible. Gerald and she had had an argument over breakfast. He had left for work without saying good-bye. Then one-year-old Tanya spilled cereal all over the floor. And Robby chose that morning to do everything he’d been told not to for the past three years. He pulled the cat’s tail. He figured out how to open the front door, and he ran outside into the yard and into the street. He smeared Shannon’s lipstick all over the white dining room wall, and he pushed Tanya to the floor.

This last incident was the straw that broke Shannon’s back. Seeing Tanya lying on the floor, crying, with Robby standing over her with a defiantly pleased look, was too much. Shannon saw red and impulsively ran to her son. You know the rest of the story.

After she had calmed down a little, I asked Shannon how she and Gerald normally disciplined Robby.

“Well, we don’t want to alienate Robby, or quench his spirit,” Gerald began. “Being negative is so.. .so.. .negative. So we try to reason with him. Sometimes we’ll warn him that ‘you won’t get ice cream tonight.’ Sometimes we try to praise good things he does. And sometimes we try to ignore the bad behavior. Then maybe he’ll stop it.”

“Doesn’t he push the limits?”

Both parents nodded. “You wouldn’t believe it,” Shannon said. “It’s like he doesn’t hear us. He keeps on doing what he jolly well pleases. And generally, he’ll keep it up until one of us explodes and yells at him. I guess we just have a problem child.” “Well, there’s certainly a problem,” I replied. “But perhaps Robby has been trained to not respond to anything but out-ofcontrol rage. Let’s talk about boundaries and kids....”

Of all the areas in which boundaries are crucially important, none is more relevant than that of raising children. How we approach boundaries and child rearing will have enormous impact on the characters of our kids. On how they develop values. On how well they do in school. On the friends they pick. On whom they marry. And on how well they do in a career.

The Importance of Family

God, at his deepest level, is a lover (1 John 4:8). He is relationally oriented and relationally driven.

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