How to Set Boundaries With Kids | Dr. Becky Kennedy & Dr. Andrew Huberman
00:00:00.000 | - You mentioned that boundaries are something that we do
00:00:05.000 | and that the requires that the other do nothing.
00:00:09.300 | Can we go a little bit further into that
00:00:10.580 | because it's a beautiful concept
00:00:13.140 | and this notion of boundaries,
00:00:15.820 | but like a gaslighting narcissism
00:00:17.840 | and all the other things that we hear about nowadays,
00:00:19.500 | I think is often badly misunderstood.
00:00:22.140 | So tell us more about boundaries
00:00:24.620 | and how that looks in the action sense of it.
00:00:28.400 | - And this is also connected to what you're saying,
00:00:30.180 | that other, other relationship.
00:00:31.640 | I'm a person, you're a person.
00:00:33.060 | And so many times that's actually is what gets merged.
00:00:35.720 | And so my kid gets upset that I say
00:00:38.860 | they can't watch another show.
00:00:40.880 | And a parent really in that moment,
00:00:42.920 | it's like, whose feelings are whose?
00:00:45.180 | Like they were upset, was I was upset?
00:00:47.020 | A second ago, I thought I should set the boundary.
00:00:49.140 | And now all of a sudden I'm changing my mind.
00:00:50.740 | There is this complete role kind of confusion and merger,
00:00:54.620 | which is one of the main reasons
00:00:56.380 | that kids get actually really scared
00:00:57.800 | and escalate their behavior
00:00:58.920 | 'cause they don't have a sturdy leader
00:00:59.940 | when they really need one, right?
00:01:01.140 | So boundaries are what we tell someone we will do
00:01:04.140 | and they require the other person to do nothing.
00:01:06.100 | I like this definition for a lot of reasons.
00:01:07.740 | I'm just very practical.
00:01:08.740 | So it allows me after I set a boundary to like assess,
00:01:11.980 | was that a boundary or not, right?
00:01:14.020 | Because let's take the TV example.
00:01:18.300 | It's whatever time at night,
00:01:19.500 | my kid has just watched a show
00:01:21.120 | and they know they're supposed to watch one show
00:01:22.740 | and then, you know, turn off the TV.
00:01:26.000 | I hear from parents a lot, my kid doesn't listen
00:01:28.500 | or my kid doesn't respect my boundaries.
00:01:30.420 | And I'll say, okay, like that sounds hard.
00:01:32.180 | Let's get into that.
00:01:33.020 | So then I'll say, so I told my kid to shut off the TV.
00:01:35.580 | They just kept watching.
00:01:37.780 | They just kept on.
00:01:38.620 | I told my kid to stop jumping on the couch
00:01:40.900 | and they kept jumping.
00:01:42.340 | They don't respect my boundaries.
00:01:43.300 | They don't listen.
00:01:44.940 | To me, this is like a beautiful example of like,
00:01:47.940 | this is a problem, I agree,
00:01:49.500 | but this is not a boundary problem.
00:01:51.540 | You made a request of your child.
00:01:54.140 | And frankly, if you have your,
00:01:55.800 | I'm making this up, seven-year-old watching TV,
00:01:57.600 | I'm not so good at putting away TV and a phone at night.
00:02:00.440 | Like, it's just hard for me to do.
00:02:01.800 | So your seven-year-old probably is just, you know,
00:02:03.800 | addicted to what's ever happening.
00:02:05.440 | And we're kind of asking our kid to do our job for us
00:02:09.160 | because we don't want our kid to be mad at us
00:02:10.680 | or whatever it is.
00:02:11.840 | A boundary in that situation would be saying,
00:02:14.880 | ooh, you didn't put off the TV.
00:02:16.320 | Look, by the time I get over there,
00:02:18.200 | if you haven't turned off the TV,
00:02:19.920 | and I don't want to do this, but I will,
00:02:21.600 | I will take the remote out of your hand and shut it off.
00:02:24.900 | A boundary saying, ooh, after my request doesn't work,
00:02:28.300 | can you get off the couch?
00:02:29.220 | You can jump on the floor.
00:02:30.440 | Look, if by the time I get over there,
00:02:31.780 | you haven't gotten off the couch, I will pick you up.
00:02:35.480 | That is like, I would say,
00:02:36.780 | I'm not gonna put the success of my intervention
00:02:39.300 | in my like seven-year-old's hand.
00:02:40.780 | I care too much about my own needs
00:02:42.940 | and my own role as a leader in my home to do that, right?
00:02:47.100 | Same thing with, let's say in-laws.
00:02:49.140 | My mother-in-law doesn't respect my boundary.
00:02:50.800 | She always shows up without calling.
00:02:53.520 | Now, I don't wanna get to this point,
00:02:54.680 | and there's a lot of things in a relationship
00:02:56.160 | we can do before we get to this point,
00:02:58.040 | but if that's really a boundary,
00:02:59.720 | and I have a very kind of intrusive mother-in-law,
00:03:02.680 | a boundary would be saying, look,
00:03:03.960 | this is gonna be awkward, and I know you mean well,
00:03:06.280 | but the next time you come unannounced,
00:03:09.640 | I will come to your car and say,
00:03:11.560 | oh, this time doesn't work for us.
00:03:13.680 | You cannot come in,
00:03:15.040 | and I will go back into my house and close the door.
00:03:18.240 | Like, now, there's gonna be lots of feelings around that,
00:03:20.540 | but you are now setting a true boundary,
00:03:24.980 | and when we say our kids don't listen,
00:03:27.520 | those are often situations, not all of them,
00:03:30.780 | but there's a big percentage
00:03:32.580 | where I'm actually not setting a boundary early enough
00:03:36.580 | and in a sturdy enough way,
00:03:38.700 | which is what my kid needs because at that point,
00:03:42.140 | they simply don't have the skills to inhibit an urge,
00:03:45.580 | and they need me to be the boundary for them.
00:03:49.180 | - We hear sometimes that kids are craving rules.
00:03:53.560 | They're craving boundaries.
00:03:55.140 | I don't know, I was kind of a wild adolescent and teenager,
00:03:59.260 | maybe a little more than wild.
00:04:02.060 | I don't recall ever craving rules,
00:04:04.620 | but I do recall paying attention to their lack of presence.
00:04:09.200 | So what of that?
00:04:13.340 | Is this notion that kids really want
00:04:15.180 | and crave rules and boundaries,
00:04:16.500 | is that sort of a, I don't know,
00:04:20.340 | projection that we put onto them?
00:04:22.560 | And I'm not exploring this just for fun.
00:04:24.820 | I'm exploring it because I think that one thing
00:04:27.340 | that's very helpful in setting boundaries,
00:04:29.380 | especially with kids, is the idea that, gosh,
00:04:32.560 | even if it's a bit painful to see them in discomfort,
00:04:36.100 | there's that empathy piece that you talked about before,
00:04:38.260 | that empathic attunement
00:04:40.700 | can get in the way of boundaries, right?
00:04:43.260 | These are, and they're not mutually exclusive,
00:04:45.200 | but these are somewhat competing forces at times.
00:04:49.220 | So if we know, or if we can acknowledge,
00:04:52.340 | or at least explore this idea
00:04:53.640 | that rules are deep down what they really want,
00:04:56.660 | not just what they need, maybe it would help.
00:04:59.900 | - Yes, and I think, by the way, in my taking the remote away
00:05:03.900 | or taking my kid off the couch, just to be clear,
00:05:06.460 | if I do that to my kid, they are not going to say,
00:05:08.940 | "Oh, mom, you are the best mom in the world, thank you."
00:05:11.220 | They are going to cry and scream.
00:05:12.860 | And that's where boundaries and empathy,
00:05:14.860 | those two parts of our job, actually do always go together.
00:05:17.380 | I think they're actually partners.
00:05:18.580 | They're not actually at odds
00:05:19.780 | because as soon as my kid is upset,
00:05:21.260 | what I would say to them is,
00:05:23.280 | "Oh, you wanted to jump on the couch.
00:05:25.300 | "It's not as much fun on the floor.
00:05:26.560 | "Oh, you really wanted to watch another show.
00:05:28.720 | "You didn't even want it this big.
00:05:30.200 | "You wanted to watch it this big."
00:05:32.420 | It sounds crazy 'cause you're like,
00:05:33.380 | "Wait, why am I empathizing with that feeling?"
00:05:35.140 | They just kind of disobey.
00:05:36.420 | No, they're two different things.
00:05:37.460 | I'm doing my job and setting a boundary.
00:05:39.460 | They're actually doing their job and feeling their feelings.
00:05:41.740 | That's actually their job.
00:05:42.880 | The only way you can ever learn to regulate a feeling
00:05:46.780 | is through feeling the feeling.
00:05:48.540 | So they're doing their job.
00:05:50.240 | Now I'm gonna validate.
00:05:51.380 | And this is how kids learn emotion regulation.
00:05:53.420 | Boundaries, they feel.
00:05:54.700 | I validate, I hold the boundary over and over and over.
00:05:58.100 | So do kids crave rules?
00:06:00.060 | And I think one of the issues
00:06:01.980 | is that most parenting approaches have one or the other.
00:06:04.660 | And I think they're both very incomplete strategies.
00:06:07.420 | If you just lead with rules, right?
00:06:10.060 | I don't know who said it.
00:06:10.900 | Probably wasn't me.
00:06:11.740 | Like, what is it?
00:06:12.560 | Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.
00:06:14.460 | Yeah, that's what happens, right?
00:06:15.940 | So that's not good.
00:06:17.500 | But I see the stainage.
00:06:19.300 | We've swung the other direction.
00:06:20.820 | It is also not a complete parenting strategy
00:06:23.220 | when your kid's jumping on the couch to do nothing
00:06:25.380 | if you think that's dangerous and to say,
00:06:27.240 | "Oh, you really wanna jump, jump, jump
00:06:29.580 | and such big feelings."
00:06:30.820 | Like that's not what kids need.
00:06:33.420 | I think kids crave boundaries
00:06:35.780 | and they crave feeling seen and understood.
00:06:38.440 | Because as kids are growing up,
00:06:40.840 | like I think the questions they're always asking parents,
00:06:43.760 | even though of course they never say this,
00:06:45.460 | it's just, "Am I real and am I safe?"
00:06:49.340 | Every interaction, that's what they're asking us.
00:06:51.520 | The reason we have to validate their feelings
00:06:54.020 | when they're upset, even though they're so upset
00:06:55.860 | just that their string cheese broke, whatever it is,
00:06:58.720 | is feelings don't have markers like blood
00:07:01.120 | or like they don't know.
00:07:02.480 | And so when we say,
00:07:03.300 | "Oh, you wanted your string cheese to be together."
00:07:05.880 | What we're really saying
00:07:07.360 | is the things you experience inside of you are real.
00:07:12.360 | But kids are also desperate to know like,
00:07:14.560 | "How far do things go?"
00:07:16.080 | No one likes to feel boundary-less as a kid.
00:07:17.980 | That's terrifying, right?
00:07:19.920 | And so when we set a boundary,
00:07:22.280 | we actually say to a kid,
00:07:24.400 | like, "I will always protect you."
00:07:26.840 | Like, "I won't let things get so far out of control."
00:07:30.280 | So I do think, I don't know if it's rules,
00:07:32.520 | but kids crave connection.
00:07:35.240 | And I think boundaries and kind of validation and empathy,
00:07:39.160 | they are the two forms of connection
00:07:41.280 | that kids, yeah, are really desperate for.
00:07:43.760 | - Thank you for tuning in
00:07:44.600 | to the Huberman Lab Clips channel.
00:07:46.440 | If you enjoyed the clip that you just viewed,
00:07:48.560 | please check out the full-length episode by clicking here.
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