Parenting Pathfinders Establish Healthy Boundaries with Children

LET GO Step 2: EXERCISE RIGHTS
Boundaries Needed for Healthy Family Life Boundaries:

LET GO Step 2: EXERCISE RIGHTS

Your next step you need to do is to EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS to set up your boundaries with your older children. This is essentially to say "NO" to those hooks which keep you boundary-less. You also need to identify what boundaries you want to set up so that you do not lose yourself in your relationship with our adolescent and young adult children.. To help you exercise your rights, here are some boundaries you need to establish if your family life is to be a healthy:

Boundaries Needed for Healthy Family Life Boundaries:

1. You need to put limits on your time focused solely on the children.

You need to establish a good sense of time management so that you do not give all of your time over to the establishment and maintenance of your relationship with your older children. You will need to develop a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly schedule for your time. You will need to set aside time enough for your work, sleep, self-nurturing activities, family nurturing times, family involvement, friends involvement, support group(s), recovery work, spirituality endeavors, exercise, having fun, leisure time, vacation times, alone time and family time. You cannot afford to give away precious time to a relationship with your older children which needs to be spent in the necessary activities which insure that you are not lost or swallowed up in it.

2. You need to put limits on the money you spend on your children.

You need to establish a budget for your money so that you do not spend inordinate sums of money on your adolescent and young adult children. You need to be clear that your money will not be used to rescue or save your children from fiscal irresponsibility. You need to be clear that your money will not be squandered on high risk activities such as gambling or "get rich quick" schemes. You need to be clear that you will not foot the bill to support fully adult children who are not willing to take responsibility to find a job or get a better paying job for which they are qualified. You need to set limits as to how long you will fund your adult children who are out of work before the funding is pulled. You will need to be clear that your money will not be spent to cover legal costs if your older children are purposefully involved in illegal activities. You will need to maintain a budget so that you do not over spend and get yourselves into unreasonable debt spending money on your older children.

3. You need to set limits on your external resources in your family.

You and your children need to set limits for your adolescent and young adult children, on the use of your house, car(s), or other pieces of property you own. If you own a business or have a supervisory position on your job you need to set limits on how much your children can become involved in your work. You need to set limits on how you will do in terms of chores or work load to take care of the "shared space" in your house or other property you own if the children live or use it. You need to set limits on how much your older children will have access to your extended family, friends and support system. You will need to set limits as to how involved you will allow your children to become in your individual recovery and spiritual renewal support group(s) activities.

4. You need to set limits on your internal resources in your family.

You will need to set limits on how much of your talents, skills and abilities or internal resources you are willing to expend on your adolescent and young adult children.. You need to be clear with your children how much of your internal resources you are willing to share or give away to establish or maintain you relationship with them. You need to be clear with yourself that your skills and abilities are commodities which others pay for (be it on the job or in the market place) and that you do not have to give them away for free just to keep your older children in a relationship with you. You are not required to give and give in a relationship of your talents, skills and abilities without expecting something substantial in return. You need to set limits on how much you will give before you will stop giving of yourself.

5. You need to set limits on your emotions in your family.

You will need to set limits on how much you will emotionally invest in your older children. You will need to recognize the emotional hooks which keep you stuck in your relationship with them. You will need to set limits on how "hooked" you will allow yourself to become. You will need to set time limits on how long you will allow a hook to go on in the relationship. You will need to develop a sense of emotional detachment so as not to get hooked and drowned in an unhealthy enmeshment with your children. You will need to develop emotional limits so that you will be able to figure out where you begin and end and where your children begin and end.

To assist you to develop healthy boundaries read 12: Establishing Healthy Boundaries in Growing Down-Tools for Healing the Inner Children (Messina, J.J., Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, Iowa, 1992). Once you have identified the five areas of boundaries you need for a healthy family life then you are ready to proceed to the next LET GO step.

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