House Rules

"No balls in the house."

"No playing with the wedding china."

"No peeing in the dog dish."

If you spend any amount of time around children, I guarantee you'll have to enforce rules of conduct that you never knew you had.  Kids are curious, adventurous, playful and persistent, all to varying degrees.  While limits are an inevitable part of childhood — there's only so much you can do when you're 3' 6" and can't drive — it's only natural kids will challenge their boundaries. Unlike bars on a cage, limits of acceptable behavior are often not visible or rigid. They can change depending on the time of day, the environment or what grown up is in the room and such subtleties are not lost on our perceptive little progeny. What can make things that much more fuzzy is when we grown ups aren't clear about why we've set a limit in the first place.  This sets up the negotiation playing field, parent on one side and child on the other, a game that will continue until the child finds the real limit or the end of their parent's patience, which ever comes first. 

Two Kinds of Rules

In our home, rules fall into two basic categories: safety-driven or value-driven. Safety-driven rules are, by far, the easiest to express and enforce. Helmets on heads is the rule. No helmet, no bike is the consequence. On the other hand, value-driven rules invite a grey zone that becomes a parent's true test of clarity.  Here's a prime example offered up by one reader: how often is too often for my 5½ year-old to visit the next door neighbors? Once a day? Twice? What if the ball goes over the fence and the visit(s) of the day already happened? Then what? One can imagine that a scenario like this poses a field day for a pint-sized master negotiator. Depending on the parent, the kid and the neighbor, an acceptable outcome to this dilemma is up for grabs. The key, on the parent's side of the fence, is to get abundantly clear about what value is driving this to be an issue for them and their child.  Here is just one possibility:

Value: Privacy

A person's home is their private place, a place where they go when they want quiet time and comfort. While that's not to say that we can't ring their bell and say hello, doing so again and again is an invasion of their time and space. 

So, if this is the underlying value and said child still wants to pay the neighbor a visit, what should the limit be? Again, that's negotiable, but if you decide it to be one visit to say hello by the front door, then stick to it. If the ball goes over the fence, of course ask for it back. If it happens again, perhaps it should stay there until the next day's visit.  And what if the little ragamuffin sneaks off next door without your knowledge? Well, they've ventured into the non-negotiable territory of safety-driven rules with a set of consequences all of their own. 

Plan for Success

That said, it's a lot easier to praise than punish, so make sure you plan for success. How and when are you going to celebrate your child learning to respect a new limit? Immediate praise is great, but developing a new habit takes time and reinforcement. One easy way is to make a chart. For each day they keep to the rule in question, give them a smiley, a sticker or some other indicator that they've 'done good.' Decide on goal and a reward.  For instance, if they keep to one visit per day for seven days, promise a trip to their favorite park with a friend. Most importantly, when they reach the goal, make sure they understand what value they've mastered.   "Wow, you really learned how to respect Mr. Malloy's privacy. Way to go!"  Not all limits need such drastic measures, but if you find you're repeating yourself, that's a pretty good indicator that it's time to get creative.