Search Results for: blog setting healthy boundaries for your children 1

How to Parent Adult Step Children

Almost thirty years ago, Robert married a woman who had five grown children. No big deal, right? They ranged in age from mid-twenties to mid-thirties, so they had all been on their own for many years. They appeared to be well-adjusted, independent, responsible adults. They lived locally, and Robert and his wife socialized with them on a regular basis. So what was the problem? It turns out that there were many, but primary among them was the fact that his wife’s family was, what the shrinks would call, enmeshed. They were ‘all up in’ one another’s business—they spoke to one … Continue reading →

Other Ways Children’s Behavior Can Affect a Marriage.

Yesterday we looked at some ways children’s behavior can affect and undermine a marriage. Here is another way. Some children, by their anti social behavior, affect friendships and marriages. Take this example, of a couple I know who invited another couple and their child over for dinner one evening. After dinner, the child who may have been hyperactive or maybe had a problem like ADHD started to swing on a tall piece of furniture which threatened to topple over. If it did it could have caused serious injury to the child and also have caused damage to the furniture and … Continue reading →

Setting Boundaries When You Have a Mental Illness

It’s important for everyone to have a healthy set of personal boundaries, but even more important when you suffer from a mental illness. Boundaries take many shapes and forms, such as how you let people speak to you or speaking up if you feel you are being belittled because of your illness. Today, however, I would like to talk about once specific boundary in particular. It is when others use the fact that you have a mental illness to their advantage. Let’s take a look at the case of Megan. Megan suffers from agoraphobia, but like many mental illnesses, the … Continue reading →

12 Suggestions For Raising Godly Children

So you want to bring your children up in God’s ways so that they will follow Him. Here are some suggestions for ways you can help achieve this. 1. Pray for and with your child. Let them see the reality of your faith as you turn to the Lord in prayer when problems or hard times come, or just for God’s help with decisions each day. Encourage them by your example to praise God for the blessings of life every day. 2. As you pray for your children, pray for those they will grow up to marry. From the time … Continue reading →

Mental Health Week in Review: May 11-18

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It’s been a big week for family relationships in Mental Health this week as we looked at further ways of setting healthy limits for your children in Setting Healthy Boundaries for Your Children (3) and Setting Healthy Boundaries for Your Children (4). These two blogs complement the first to in this series when we talked about how it is important for parents to teach their children that they can, in fact, deal very well with the word “No”. In fact, it is imperative to their future health and happiness that they do learn how to deal maturely with the N-word. … Continue reading →

Setting Healthy Boundaries for Your Children (4)

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The process of setting healthy boundaries in your child starts very early in life. By the time a child can say “No” he or she has long grasped the concept of personal boundaries and so it is the responsibility of the parent to let their child know one very important concept: They can’t have everything. It can be hard to say “no” to a pair of beseeching eyes but it is up to you, the parent, to be the strong one in this parent-child relationship into which you have entered. It is so easy to fall into the trap of … Continue reading →

Setting Healthy Boundaries for Your Children (3)

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In the previous article in this series we looked at the most common violation of childhood boundaries: that of discussing adult issues such as financial difficulties and marital problems with your child. The other common boundary problem involves the physical boundary violation of childhood sexual abuse. So common is this phenomenon that, by the age of 18, over 70% of females report some level of sexual abuse. This issue is covered in several articles which can be found under the category of Sexual Harassment and Abuse. Today’s article focuses on more subtle boundary violations, in particular the inability by some … Continue reading →

Setting Healthy Boundaries for Your Children (2)

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The most important gift you can give your child is a healthy set of boundaries. It is the ultimate gift of love, even though in setting boundaries, your child will probably tell you that you don’t love them. They may even tell you they hate you. But that is okay. The problem that many parents have in parenting their children is that they try to be friends with their kids. This is not possible. Parents and children are not peers and therefore cannot be true friends. That comes later, when the child matures into an adult and the parent-child relationship … Continue reading →

Parenting God’s Way – part 2

“Modern mums equate the word wellbeing with ‘happiness’, as if happiness is all that counts or is at least more valuable than discipline, responsibility or overall health,” says social trends researcher Sure, we all want our kids to be happy, but to expect happiness all the time in life is unrealistic. Loss, hard times, sorrow, disappointments come. They are part of life. How are our children going to cope with them if they have not been trained properly, during their growing years? My children both tell people they had happy childhoods. We spent lots of happy hours, reading to them, … Continue reading →

Setting Healthy Boundaries for Your Children (1)

In Are You Breeding a Frankenkinder we looked at the preponderance of overindulged and underdisciplined children in today’s society and how we are actually doing our children a gross disservice to “give them everything.” It’s not easy being a parent today. But it’s never been easy being a parent. Or at least, an effective one. We can blame the media for creating a world where our kids just want more and more, but in doing so, we as parents are just passing the buck and refusing to take responsibility for our own actions. Parents today are time-poor, or so we … Continue reading →