I haven’t written much about parenting itself on the blog. After all, I don’t have any kind of background in early childhood education and seeing as my oldest isn’t quite four. What kind of authority am I, anyways?
Some of the most impactful parenting advice I’ve ever received, though, hasn’t come from “authorities.” It’s come directly from the mouths of other parents who are going through (or have recently gone through) similar challenges and have figured out solutions that work for them.
A big and natural part of toddlerhood is testing boundaries and learning the consequences. I.e. when a boundary is crossed, what happens? Everyone has different styles of teaching and discipline. We personally espouse gentle, responsive parenting and natural consequences.
Yet many people confuse gentle parenting with permissive parenting, and they simply aren’t the same. If one of your children is smacking another, gentle parenting does not tell you to sit back and do nothing about it! Or to just say, “honey, that isn’t nice” (because when has that ever worked on a toddler who literally does not have a logical brain?).
Boundaries We Hold Strongly While Parenting Toddlers
Another part of parenting of course, is to know when to let things slide versus when to hold strong boundaries. That’s part of natural consequences after all–if you jump and down on a toy and it breaks, mama can’t always fix it and then it goes in the trash. If you wipe your chocolatey hands on your favorite shirt, that shirt has to go in the wash now and you can’t wear it until it’s clean again. C’est la vie!
I try to let natural consequences do the work for me much of the time, as experience truly is the best teacher. However, there are a few boundaries that we always hold firmly when parenting our toddlers–with our children and with others outside our immediate family.
- Respectful versus disrespectful treatment of others. Physical violence, name calling and taunting are no-go’s in our house. We enforce natural consequences in these situations, like removing the offender from the situation until he can calm down, talk things through and rejoin in a respectful way.
- Serious safety concerns. I am definitely more laissez-faire than my own parents about safety. We embrace skinned knees, bruised toes and sore bottoms as a part of outdoor play for example! However, giving baby a toy he could choke on, or messing with the electrical outlet could seriously hurt someone.
- Genuine apologies and making things right. Kids are always looking for ways to make things right after they make a mistake. So, we try to find ways to make that happen. A canned “sorry” isn’t often the way, you have to go a little deeper and rebuild the tower of blocks.
- Bodily autonomy for everyone. Roughhousing is okay only if all participating parties consent to it. And extended family or friends are allowed to ask for hugs, but we never pressure our kids to give them.
- We choose the food–you choose what to eat. Pretty simple but we never make back-up peanut butter toast, even if we’re having curry, frittata or something else the kids don’t love.
- Parents get a chance to eat, too. We don’t get up to refill waters, slice more bread or whatnot until we’re done with our plates. Serving meals family-style allows us the freedom to do this!
- We are not the only caregivers to our children. Raising children is a joint effort between us, teachers, grandparents, church nursery staff and often other friends or family too. Even if a child is sad about us going out on a date while Grandma babysits–it’s better for everyone to emulate the “it takes a village” approach to parenting when possible. Watching my parents’ relationships with my kids blossom through the years has been an unexpected but incredible part of the journey.
- Clarifying how we parent with other caregivers. We’ll always have our differences, however we need to agree on the important things like not forcing our kids to finish their plates and respecting bodily autonomy. If someone can’t respect those boundaries, they won’t be left alone with our children.
- Protecting family time from activities outside the home. We live for slow weekend mornings, holiday traditions at home and nightly family dinners. Those will always take precedence over extracurriculars. Even when it’s hard to say no and feel like our kids are missing out on “enrichment.”
- What is kind/safe to share online. I don’t frequently share photos of my kids and when I do so publicly, I usually cover their faces. I don’t share disparaging or embarrassing things, publicly or privately–who really wants to read about potty-training, anyways?–and I don’t share pictures or information that could be used to determine where our house is, where my kids go to school etc.
- Limiting screen time and type of content viewed. Right now only my oldest watches ~30 minutes of TV daily. He likes “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” which I vetted before he started watching. It’s a PBS Kids show about feelings and childhood experiences. We don’t do tablets, YouTube, Disney/Nickelodeon or any show or movie that normalizes disrespectful treatment of others.
- Buying toys is only for special occasions. I know, this list makes me sound like a barrel of fun, right! 😛 This was my parents’ rule too though. New toys are gifts and not given “just because.” I halved our baby toy collection before our almost-move and I also rotate toys so everything isn’t out at once. I love to see my toddlers imaginative play and I’m more convinced daily that when you have a good imagination and the great outdoors, you don’t need much else to be a happy kid.
But tell me–what are some important boundaries in parenting to you, whether you have toddlers or not?
xx Claire
