Teaching Teenagers Personal Boundaries

Teenagers live in a culture where boundaries seem to be non-existent. So, teaching them about your own personal boundaries will help them think about developing their own boundaries and how to respect other people’s personal space, time and belongings. 

When I mention boundaries, don’t confuse it with household rules. Boundaries have more to do with what we all need to build around ourselves to guard from being walked all over by others who are less considerate. Boundaries are enforced by rules, but they are different from your household rules, because they have to do with protecting who we are as individuals and what we choose to put up with as we interact with others. 

Boundaries protect us; they define who we are, and who we are not.

Think of boundaries as you would your “personal space.”  When someone steps up and talks to you with their nose two inches away from your nose, you may feel that your personal space is being violated.  It can feel uncomfortable when that invisible barrier is crossed.

Likewise, teens who haven’t learned to respect personal boundaries can fail to realize that their parents are human beings who need their own space.  Naturally selfish teens can step over the line by putting more and more demands on a parent’s time, money and patience. If allowed to go on, the parents will eventually get walked on, dumped on, yelled at, and feel demeaned or disrespected.  They can begin feeling like their life is no longer their own; rather, it belongs to the care and feeding of their teenager’s selfishness. 

Reestablishing and communicating your need for personal space once your child reaches the teen years is important.  It will help them know that you are still a person, not just a parent, and you have needs, too.  For instance:  

• Privacy (I will decide who to allow in my personal space)
• Time (I will decide what will occupy my time….not my teen)
• Money (I can give to my teen out of love, but I owe him nothing)
• Action (I can say “no” to my teen’s demands, if I want to)
• Emotions (I won’t be “dumped” on or disrespected)

Boundaries…Even if You Love Serving Your Teenager

Some parents relish being needed by their teenager.  They dote on them and take care of their every need.  They ask “How high?” when their teens says, “Jump!” They may even take abuse and disrespect from their teen when it is directed their way, thinking, “Oh, they’re just having a bad day.”  These parents need to step back and understand that boundaries must still be established, for the teenager’s sake, and consequences need to be applied for stepping over those boundaries. If not, it will lead to selfish, bossy and entitled adolescents who don’t understand personal boundaries. 

My Teen is Going Too Far

It’s easy to tell when your teenager has gone too far.  You’ll feel frustrated, violated or a little “put out.”  But the question is, do they know they’ve crossed the line, or do they just think you’re the one being unreasonable in your reaction? They won’t know they’ve violated your boundaries until you clarify what those boundaries are.

When teens can get the feeling that we owe them everything,
tell them “I don’t owe a thing, but I want to give you everything.”

So, when you feel violated by your teenager’s inconsiderate nature, write down the boundary that could be a solution.  For example, “I need to be spoken to with reasonable respect,” or,” I need to have a clean car with a few drops of gas in the tank after it is borrowed,” or, “I need to be asked several hours in advance if a ride is needed,” or, “I need to be asked before you enter my room, dig in my purse, or borrow things from my closet.”  When you get these things under control, you’ll be protecting your privacy, your day, and a little bit of your sanity from your teenager’s selfishness and lack of consideration.

Communicating Boundaries

Once you’ve had some time to get your list together, cut it down to just ten items as a first step; which may be difficult, but teenagers have difficulty learning more than ten new concepts at a time.  Then sit down with your teenager after dinner to tell him something like, “There are a few things I am going to change having to do with how we interact with each other.  It’s time that we begin to interact in a more adult way.  Therefore, here are ten things that will change, effective immediately.”   Then, list the items, like: “I will no longer do your laundry…I will no longer drive you to school…I will no longer wake you up in the morning,” etc.

While normal discipline should be consistent across the family, personal boundaries can be different; they can be unique for each individual. Mom’s may be different from dad’s, and they may be different for a teenage girl versus a boy.  As you communicate your own boundaries, don’t make it one-sided.  Ask your teenager to develop their own personal boundaries as well.  Have them think about and list their own personal boundaries for the people they interact with, including you.  It’s a powerful way for them to think through their own individuality and how they’ll react to the influences in their life, including their peers.

Whenever you require your teenager to step up to the plate to take on adult responsibility or behavior, also communicate ways that you’ll be treating them more like adults in return.  For instance, giving them more freedoms or the ability to make their own choices. And let them know that you’ll respect their personal boundaries as well (as long as they are respectful and not counter to your household rules or your job as a parent).

What If My Teen Still Won’t Respect My Boundaries?

Your child may never fully agree with all of your boundaries, but he or she can be required to respect them, even if they don’t agree, or face the consequences of not respecting them. Breaking personal boundaries is a pretty big offense in my book, so be sure to set your consequences appropriately.

Your job, for as long as your children live with you, is to faithfully provide an arena for your children to learn respect, relationship, and boundaries. If not, they’ll about it and stumble off to college, to work, or to become parents themselves leaving in their wake a path of destructive behavior and relational missteps. 

As you begin to think about setting your boundaries, ask yourself, “What do I want the relationships and behavior toward me to look and feel like?”  Think about and communicate what you want changed in how your teenager relates to you. It will bring sanity to your home and help teach your children how to respect another person’s time, privacy, energy, space, and authority.  More importantly, it will ultimately teach your children self-control and to be good parents who teach boundaries when they have kids of their own.  So the cycle of life continues.

HEAR THE WEEKLY RADIO PROGRAM ON THIS TOPIC:  for more help on the topic of “Boundaries,” go to www.parentingtodaysteens.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mark Gregston is an author, speaker, national radio host, and the founder of Heartlight, a residential counseling opportunity for struggling adolescents. Learn more at http://www.heartlightministries.org or call 903-668-2173.

When Nothing is Working

What if nothing seems to be working to encourage your teenager to head in a better direction? Perhaps you’ve applied consequences to correct their inappropriate behavior, and have progressively taken away many or all of their privileges, but they still break your rules and they still defy you.

Having a child who is struggling will wear you out.  The parents who drop off their teenagers at our Heartlight residential counseling program are at wit’s end, tired, and frazzled.  They’ve literally spent every ounce of emotional energy in a struggle that has taken place over many months. It’s not easy for any parent to leave their child in the hands of strangers, but at that point, they are desperate for solutions. >> Article continued…

3 Ways to Connect With Your Teen

Are you connecting with your teenager or growing farther apart every day? Here are three things you can do to communicate and connect on a deeper level.

So, what do you and your teen talk about? My guess is that you discuss such items as academics, work, behaviors, privileges, sports involvement, picking the right friends, choosing the right clothes, performing chores, and obeying the rules of the house.

Now, take a minute and think about what else you talk about. Pretty short list, isn’t it?

Most of what we talk about is what they’re doing or need to do, not about what they’re thinking or what their passions and goals are in life. This imbalance can create the impression that your relationships with your teen is determined by their actions and how they perform, versus your desire to really know them.   >> Article continued…

Signs of Drug Use in Teens and Tweens

If you’ve seen an unexplainable or drastic change in your teenager’s honesty, grades, behavior, attentiveness, or friends, it may not be hormones. It could be that they are experimenting with intoxicating substances that are as close as your kitchen drawer, medicine cabinet or garage.

It used to be that older teens were most susceptible to drug experimentation, but kids today are experimenting earlier and earlier.  In fact, 10- to 14- year-olds are now the most likely to begin experimenting with one intoxicating substance or another. >> Article continued…

Undoing Parenting Mistakes

Don’t you wish there was a great big “Undo” button in life; where you could completely erase your parenting mistakes? I bet some parents would give anything for such a button. 

Unfortunately, there is no such “undo” button.  But perhaps the best way to avoid the need for one is to avoid the kind of mistakes parents sometimes make.  To learn what those could be, you might sit down with a few veteran parents to ask them what they would have done differently if they could turn back time; in other words, what they would have “undone” if they could have.  And that’s exactly what I did this week, through our Facebook page.  Hindsight is always 20-20, and if the regrets expressed by these parenting veterans are taken to heart by current and upcoming parents, it may help the “rookies” avoid some of the same heartaches. >> Article continued…

Pull Out All the Stops to Help Your Teen

For parents, there is no worse feeling than watching your child spin out of control while nothing you do seems to make any difference.  If your teenager’s behavior is giving you feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and fear, I would like to offer you some suggestions. 

First, stop what you are doing and start a new way of thinking in regard to how you are handling the situation.  Albert Einstein defined insanity as ”Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  If your home is feeling a little “insane” these days, perhaps you need to change how it operates.  >> Article continued…

Facebook Wisdom for Parents

In late December, I launched a new way of reaching out to parents of teens and preteens — through a Parenting Today’s Teens page on Facebook. Since then I’ve shared hundreds of communications with the growing number of “friends”who have joined our page—almost 2,500 in just 60 days. See it at http://www.facebook.com/parentingtodaysteens.

For those who have not joined our discussion and encouragement group on Facebook, I thought I’d share just a few of those conversations and the profound words of wisdom from others, as we’ve discussed everything having to do with raising teenagers. I’ll first indicate my post and then some of the selected comments others have made in response to it. Their Facebook name is removed for their privacy. I hope you will learn some bits of wisdom from both, or perhaps you’ll chuckle or cry, as I did.

>> Article continued…

Adoption in the News

There’s much in the news these days about adoption; especially as it relates to the kids caught up in the tragic circumstances of the earthquake in Haiti. Adoption is a great opportunity for a child who might otherwise face a life without a mom or dad, and it’s a great way for couples to shower their love and compassion on a child.

I firmly believe that God is the ultimate authority on adoption. I believe that His hand is on every case and that He purposefully provides specific parents with specific children, knowing each one’s needs. >> Article continued…

Proper Response to Teen Rulebreaking

When a teen breaks the rules, they need a responsible adult to respond, not react. To respond is to offer calmness, honesty, love, grace and support while seeking to correct the misbehavior. However, to react is to become emotional, angry, hurt, quick to judge, and often harsh.

Knee-jerk reactions are almost always counterproductive. We have all done it. Our teen comes home two hours past curfew. We have been waiting up, worrying about all the possible horrible reasons for him being late; we’re an emotional wreck at this point. Then he calmly waltzes in, and ignores us sitting in the chair. That does it! Our brain seems to turn off. We feel disrespected and start yelling. “Where have you been?” “I’ve been waiting up for hours.” “How dare you!” >> Article continued…

Confronting Your Teen’s Mistakes

“The difference between the exact right words and the almost right words is like the difference between lightning bugs and lightning bolts.”  – Mark Twain

Avoiding toxic words and wrong motivations helps maintain a solid relationship while effectively confronting your teen’s mistakes.

I haven’t met a teen yet who doesn’t want to know they will continue to be loved when they’ve made mistakes. Loving someone seems easy when everything is going well.  It’s a quite different matter when your teen breaks your rules, and their life spins out of control.   In those times, the best way to demonstrate your continual love for them is to take care in the way you confront their misbehavior, avoiding toxic words and wrong motivations.

The first step is to let your teen know why you are confronting their misbehavior. It is that you love them and want to help them avoid bigger problems later in life. Demonstrate your respect for them by your demeanor, assuring them that you will move toward them in times of difficulty and struggle, not away from them.  Tell them that you can’t possibly love them any more than you do, and you’ll never love them any less, not even when they are at their worst. >> Article continued…