In the world of coaching, the topic of boundaries comes up frequently.  The majority of my clientele are parents so I often pose the question:  “Do you think this is a boundary issue?”  Sometimes I’m referring to communication they’re describing between themself and their spouse and sometimes it’s between parent and child.  Other times it’s among the kids.  I can almost guarantee it’s going to come up at some point during the time we have together. 

Why is it that so many of us have weak boundaries?  Is it because many of us grew up fearing our parents so we complied without ever questioning?  Is it because we’ve never learned how to protect our own personal space?  Is it a reflection of the value we put on ourselves?  Is it a fear of disapproval?  Are we terrified of confrontation?  It may be a combination of all those things. 

Once we become aware that some of the problems we’re facing are due to our lack of boundaries we start learning to say “no” and communicating clearly to people who cross our boundaries, that they’ve gone too far.  It’s like a muscle that has to be flexed.  It takes practice and likely once we start, we’ll fall back to our old patterns but as I often tell clients “Everyday presents a new opportunity to try again”.  For change to become permanent we have to move in baby steps until we develop a new normal.  For awhile, it’s a forward and backwards movement.  We do well for awhile and then find ourselves responding in the old way.  That’s normal. 

Once we learn to protect our sacred space, as some people call it, it feels great.  We might experience a disappointed or disapproving response but it’s temporary.  People soon get over it and start to learn they’ve gone too far.  In other words, once we learn to value and respect ourselves, people in turn value and respect us back. 

When we have children, everything we do as parents is teaching our children to do the same.  That of course includes the way we set boundaries.  Our kids have a much better chance of setting clear boundaries when they’ve witnessed their parents doing the same.  They are also more likely to protect their personal space when they value who they are.  When they encounter someone who is crossing the line, they know how to respectfully assert themselves.  I think this is one of the greatest life skills we can teach our kids.  It starts with us.

I was coaching a couple yesterday around creating memories for their kids.  If you’re a parent, you’re creating memories everyday.  Once in awhile it’s good to just sit back and become more conscious of how our kids might look back at their childhood. Is it in line with how we’d like them to remember their early years? [...]

This week I gave a talk to a group of about 25 parents on the topic of over-scheduling.  Rather than present facts and opinions for an hour and a half, I decided to make the workshop completely interactive and allow the group to come up with answers to the questions I presented. 
I first of all [...]

In my work I talk a lot  about the reasons children misbehave, and there is always a reason.  Sometimes it’s obvious but often it’s not.  Children are human beings and like all human beings we do what works for us, even though it may seem nonsensical.  We might be protecting ourselves in some way or our [...]

I remember when we brought our first child home from the hospital I said: “Well Claire, we’ve got the next 20 years together.”  Those 20 years have flown by and she is now almost 23 years old.  Marc arrived 2 years after Claire and he will turn 21 this July.  We also have 2 older ones who [...]

A few days ago I gave a workshop on Work/Family Balance to a group of working parents.  They were all parents of young children.  I asked what challenged them the most.  They said things like guilt, meeting the needs of so many people, finding “me” time, finding couple time and transitioning from the work day [...]

In the past week I’ve presented to two different groups on the subject of sibling rivalry.  I always like to start out by asking people how their own parents handled rivalry and how they wished they would have handled it.  I think we learn a lot by trying to see things from a child’s perspective. 
One [...]

CBC television recently aired a documentary called Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids  It discussed how parenting somehow has become more about producing a “product” than raising a child.  Many parents do whatever it takes to make THEM look good.
I’m co-leading a parenting group for the next few weeks.  A mom recently brought me aside and [...]

Apart from private coaching, I lead and co-lead parenting groups.  Invariably a topic comes up which leads to further discussion around a specific aspect of the topic.  Yesterday we were discussing temperament and how important it was to know your child’s natural temperament and be able to accept it.  Some children are just naturally more [...]

Yesterday my daughter Claire and I had a morning that was completely unplanned.  I was scheduled to start teaching my first Signing with Babies class for the winter session at a community centre here in Vancouver which is just off a street called Commercial Drive, or so I thought.  The plan was, we would drive there [...]