Setting Family Rules and Boundaries
Setting boundaries for your child at home helps to create a safe, secure environment
where they can learn and develop well. Having family rules or limits that your child understands also helps them to learn about your family’s values.
Rules and regularity in our lives help us to feel good about ourselves and each other. They help to keep us on the pleasure side of the Realtionship Roadmap:
- make the boundary clear to everyone about what is acceptable and what is not
- help everyone to understand the family’s values
- give some organisation and predictability to what we do every day
help your family to learn that ‘no’ is a part of learning rather than the end of the world.
Family rules are the specific things that we do or don’t do within our families. Try to act as a role model and praise your child when they follow the rules. You are teaching your child about how to relate to other people happily.
Explain your family rules and boundaries clearly to your family. You may want to tell them why your family has a certain rule – whether it is to keep them safe, protect them, show them how to behave, keep them healthy, or to keep everything working well in your family.
Try to:
- take time to have fun (the chores will still be there later)
- show love and affection (remember the bonding that we need to have as shown on the Realtionship Roadmap PAIRS For Life pg. 11)
- respect your family members – they are an important people and they need to know that they count.
- Many of the family rules apply just as much to the adults in the house too.
Remember the “Supports of a Realtionship” from PAIRS For Life pg. 82. Our relationship is “held up” by lines of commuication which include: Commitment, Self-Esteem, Trust, Chemistry, Humor and Communication – we must make sure that all of those are working together to have a healthy relationship and family.