Investing in boundaries with young kids

Recently my family was waiting in an airport. Jeff took the kids while I walked around, and when I came back he had trained our two-year-old to stay in the carpeted area of our gated area. She was running around there while he sat down. At one point she paused at the edge of the allowed area with a mischievous smile, and he poised on the edge of his seat ready to dash after her, but she didn’t test it (this time). She would go over onto the first tile but no farther.

I asked him what he did to teach her:

• He walked with her and told her “don’t go past this line” as she approached the line between the carpet and tiles. She stopped.
• A little while later, he was still nearby and she walked over the line. He immediately physically brought her back.
• She spent a long time running between him and the line. At one point she tried running off sideways, parallel to the line, and he did the same process (told her to stop, and brought her back physically when she didn’t).
• At this point it seemed like she had the idea, so he went and sat down with our bags thirty feet away. (He says with our second child who was more impish, he would have chosen a shorter distance.)

Here’s what I think worked:

• The boundary is easy for adult and child to identify: in this case, a literal physical line.
• An adult is ready to enforce the boundary right away if she breaks it (by running after her and bringing her back to the allowed area.) I think this is key!
• It’s built on a history of knowing each other: he knows what boundaries she’s able to learn, and she knows that he’ll enforce boundaries right away.
  

Caveat: it worked this time, with this child. Would it have worked with a child with less impulse control, or a different personality, or a history of less consistency from the adult? Maybe not.

And some attempts just won’t work: on an earlier flight I tried to teach her she could walk up and down the plane aisle IF she didn’t pat sleeping passengers in passing. She unable or unwilling to follow that, so we went back to our seats. Another time Jeff tried to teach her to stay in a given area of a park by not going past a light post, but the light post on the side wasn’t that obvious while she was racing down the sidewalk.

When you’re physically and mentally tired, the last thing you want to do is get up and physically chase after a kid. But Jeff’s willingness to retrieve her promptly a few times here worked really well for getting what they both wanted: she got to run around, and he got to sit and rest. The other likely alternatives are that a tired adult escorts the toddler wherever she wants to run in the airport or that the toddler isn’t allowed to run (perhaps distracted with a screen, or physically held on an adult’s lap.)

I think consistency and inconsistency can both spiral: the more exhausted a parent is, the less willing and able they are to hold firm on a boundary they’ve set. The more strong-willed and unpredictable the child is, the more exhausted the parent will be. I think we partly lucked out in having children who are easier than some others.

But I also think a method like Jeff’s is very much worth trying!

More from Jeff:
Predictable parenting
How to parent more predictably