If you’re here, you are probably trying to figure out family boundaries. How to keep and enforce the rules in your home for the good of your whole family. If that’s you, glad you stopped by!
(Last week I talked about what happens when we don’t keep the rules… catch up on that here first.)
This thing started happening at the dinner table.
When the kids didn’t like what I’d prepared… they told me so.Â
At first I was okay with this. A polite, “I don’t really like mushrooms” is not offensive to me. It’s just your preference and none of us can control our kids’ preferences.
However, that soon morphed into prolonged whining about dinner on nights they didn’t like what I made.
It went from saying, “This isn’t my favorite” to whining on and on about how they wanted something else or I should have separated the corn or couldn’t they just have buttered bread?!?!?
Give an inch, they’ll take a mile, came to mind.
Then, boy howdy, I started getting mad.Â
I was like…
“Oh no, kids, y’all ain’t gonna complain about the dinner that I BOUGHT and I COOKED and YOU DID NOTHING FOR but need to survive!“
So then I made a rule: anyone who whines and complains at dinner has to leave the table.
This did not go down well on a few fronts.
- I felt it was too harsh so I didn’t actually follow through consistently.
- When I actually did follow through, the kids wailed in their rooms out of hanger (and the noise disturbed us all).
- At dinner, I began to feel powerless and out of control because – if they didn’t like it – now we had a power battle on our hands.
I was having to Police this rule I didn’t even like and the kids were trying to keep the rule by crying silently at the table (bless them) instead of loudly whining because they didn’t want to get sent away. It made for miserable dinners.
Read: Siblings Fighting? 6 Simple Ways To Stop The Drama
What's in this post...
How To Keep Your Family Boundaries & Rules
So now that you’ve seen how I failed… let’s talk about how to succeed in keeping family rules and boundaries. As Dave Ramsey says… success is just standing on top of a pile of failures instead of under it.
We’ll get into how to create rules for the good of the whole family, and be able to keep them without resorting to bribery, threats, and yelling. None of us want to be angry moms.
So let’s dive in…
Don’t Have Unnecessary Rules
I’ve touched on this before, but it bears repeating.
Because unnecessary rules feel forced, you won’t end up enforcing them. (me)
It doesn’t matter what your neighbor, sister-in-law, mom, or I do in our own homes… if it’s a rule you don’t actually care about then ditch it. If at some future point you DO care about it, then you bring it in. Rules and boundaries in the home are fluid.
They’ll change with seasons, houses, ages, and maturity.
Read: It’s Official: Too Many Rules Makes For Tired And Angry Parents
Diagnose Your Doors And Walls
In Sandy’s Language of Listening®book, she goes into this in more detail. But let’s briefly address it here.
When you want to go from your bedroom to the bathroom… you use the door. If you tried to get to the bathroom through the wall what would happen? You’d hit the wall.
This is how we want our rules to be: like walls.
If we have a rule that’s really a door, the kids will walk through it day and night. Why? Because it’s open. It’s a path that allows them to go where they want. If your rule is a wall, however, they might test it here or there, but they’ll stop trying to go through it.
They’ll eventually understand… it’s not a path that’s going to get them anywhere.
Read: Boundaries, Family Rules, & Strong-Willed Children… Oh My!
Figure Out Why You’re Not Keeping The Rules
It’s not just our kids’ jobs to keep the rules. It’s our job to enforce them! I talked about that in this post.Â
So if we’ve got rules we’ve made that we do not enforce and the kids ignore… it’s time to do some diggin’.Â
Ask yourself these types of questions:
- Do I actually like this rule?
- What happens when I need to enforce this rule that makes me not want to bother?
- Is there another way (aside from this rule) that I can teach the kids what I want them to learn?
Odds are, if you’re not enforcing a rule then likely (a) you don’t like it, (2) it’s a door, not a wall for you, or (d) you’re fuzzy as to what’s your actual boundary in this matter. Refer to this post to figure out what your *actual* boundary is… these will definitely be walls for you!
Please tell me you know where a, 2, d comes from…
Read: Mom Burnout: A Hard But Freeing Truth
Tackle One Rule At A Time…
Do you identify with the following?
- The kids aren’t quite sure what the rules are.
- You feel like the house is chaos and nobody does what you want.
- You aren’t quite sure yourself what all the rules are or *should* be.
- You have a sense that you don’t have the authority in your parenting you’d like.
- You’re kinda bitter and resentful at the kids who don’t seem to get it.
Read: Time In Vs. Time Out … and is Time Out Damaging Kids?
If these are you then you’re in the right place. We’ve all been there at one time or another. In fact, we can have very excellent rules in one area and be struggling in another.
No one has life all wrapped up.Â
Start small…
So if you need to begin bringing an area in your home under control, start small.
Start with one rule.
This rule may already exist and you don’t enforce it OR it may be a brand new rule you want to bring into the home (make sure it’s a wall, not a door!).Â
When this rule becomes second nature and you have no problem standing that ground, then go for another one.
So the dinner table saga…
One evening I lay in bed wondering how I was raising ungrateful, spoiled, picky, dramatic eaters.
Melodrama is high at 9:30 p.m. for me.
Then I touched on something… I thought about the real reason this behavior bothered me deep down.
I got to my wall.
My wall?
I care very much that our dinnertimes are remembered fondly where we shared stories, laughed, connected, and made memories. When one child is whining or complaining or blah blah all through the meal… the thing I hate is this…
Dinnertime being hijacked.Â
If no one can talk or enjoy dinner because of one person’s shenanigans then I’m ticked. That’s my wall. You can feel how you feel and we can help you, etc. but you can’t disrupt everyone else’s dinner.
And the beautiful part about that is this… when you reach your wall then there’s not so much drama. You don’t have to feel so frustrated and anxious and upset. That behavior that was making you nuts?
Now… you just won’t have it.Â
But instead of having to scream or issue threats… you are calm and collected. You feel in control and you know you have authority. And when you feel like this… you end up with lots of ideas on how to make that happen.
You don’t feel as desperate. And from that place, you are primed for success!
Other posts in this series…
- What Happens When You Let Your Kids Bend The House Rules
- 5 Calm Responses For When Your Child Digs Their Heels In
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Thank you! I’m still learning my own boundaries and walls… There is so much time where I do/or want to make threats. Just to get things done in the house, that the kids are supposed to be doing. It’s nice knowing I’m not alone in this. ?
Wait??!! What rule did you make for the winning at the table?!
ACK…. see above!
Love this! I always tell my kids, if they are not hungry enough to eat dinner, then they’re just “Not that hungry” and they don’t have to eat. Totally up to them, but I’m not making snacks or an alternative dinner instead.
(But I can get away with this because when my little ones don’t eat, it truly is because they’re not that hungry 99% of the time. I’m not so strict with the baby either)
Wait!
What was your meal time boundary?!
Home Alone!!! ??? A,2,D
“a, 2 & d” is from Home Alone! Loving this series, thank you for writing it. I sometimes feel I make rules as I get upset, but just get tired of trying to remember them & also trying to be 3 steps ahead. Love your way of figuring out what our boundaries actually are (your couch example was perfect)…I’ll be thinking on those more. Thanks!
What was your wall and then what was the solution? Greatly appreciate all of your insights so thank you.
I just resonded above… need to edit the end of that post. LEFT PEOPLE HANGING! :)
This didn’t finish how I expected. I don’t know how to hit my wall. It feels a bit like you started the post hinting at a solution ( that worked for you) and then didn’t let us in on it. Or maybe I’m just tired from poor sleep and arguing with 3 kids. Either way, can you expand on the last couple of paragraphs please?
What did u do about the supper drama?
Oh man, must not have explained that too well, ha! So my WALL was them hijacking our dinner… .will go in and edit that post?
Hey!
So what did you end up doing? Do you calmly say to your kids “no whining”? Do you say that it hurts your feelings? Would love the script of how this goes down at the table!
Thanks so much,
Markell
Oh gosh, so what was the dinner time wall? I’m so very curious!
Good article, but I still want to know if your children eat their dinner and what happens if they say they don’t like it. Did you give up on your rule?
So what did you come up with???
Home Alone!! I died ?
Wait…what did you do about handling dinner?? Or is the end of the story coming next week?
Great stuff! Feel like I have too many rules. Going to work on weeding through them.
So… what did you land on w dinner table whining?
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HI Rachel! Thank you for your blog & so many articles with parenting advice that I personally find very helpful. :)
And that’s why I can’t help but be a little confused with this last series on our parental boundaries & dinner time struggles.
My child acts the way you described at dinner table EVERY TIME, if we’re not having pizza, mac n cheese or tacos. Realizing how and why that behavior bothers me was a no-brainer. However, dealing with it without tears, loud voices, big emotions & sending back to the room remains a problem.
I was looking forward to find out the solution you found that works in your family, but the post (nore the next one, about kids digging heals) unfortunately did not make it clear for me.
I could certainly use some ideas on how to handle that specific issue. So far I just try sometimes to let her know in advance what we’re having for dinner, but most of the time it just puts her in a bad mood from the get-go, and by dinner she’s still looking at me with eyes full of hope that I made something else, still asking “What’s for dinner?”
Sorry for being so long.
And thank you again. I REALLY love and appreciate the work that you do on this blog.
I’m still wondering what the answer/new rule is too, like everyone above has asked. I can’t figure out a way that doesn’t end with tears and whining in their rooms.
I don’t understand how you solved the problem. I’ve read above, but I still don’t know how to handle the situation without a fight! Please explain the solution… Thanks : )
Hey Fiona, in retrospect I split this series up into too many posts and ticked off moms who needed answers. HA. Sorry about that, we learn as we go. Have you read the post ‘how to enforce rules’ int his series? It’s linked in here!
Absolutely love this! Your posts are a Godsend! You have truly helped me grasp my motherhood and have given me some sanity. You have a way of explaining things just so it makes it easy to implement. I come back to certain posts over and over again, it’s very helpful. Sometimes it’s like you’re in my head, but really it’s just motherhood and we all go through it. I’m glad we’re not going through it alone.
Thank you so much, Nicole, for your encouragement :)
I loved this! I just can’t find the answer to how you handle the dinner-time whining! I’m dying! I read all of the comments but can’t find it linked and I don’t know which one of the series it’s in or which ones are in the series! lol Help! This is definitely something that gets to me too and I need another point of view!