Boundaries with Kids : When to Say Yes, When to Say No, to Help Your Children Gain Control of Their Lives

Keys for establishing healthy boundaries--the bedrock of good relationships, maturity, safety, and growth for children and adults. To help their children grow into healthy adults, parents need to teach them how to take responsibility for their behavior, their values, and their lives. The authors of the Gold Medallion Award-winning book Boundaries bring their biblically based principles to bear on the challenging task of child rearing, showing parents: * how to bring control to an out-of-control family life * how to set limits and still be loving parents * how to define legitimate boundaries for the family * how to instill in children a godly character

Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend are popular speakers, psychologists, cohosts of the nationally broadcast New Life Live! radio program, and cofounders of Cloud-Townsend Clinic and Cloud-Townsend Resources. Both graduated with doctorates in clinical psychology from Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology, and both maintain private practices in Newport Beach, California.

Boundaries with Kids
Copyright © 1998 by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cloud, Henry.
Boundaries with kids : when to say yes, when to say no to help your children gain
control of their lives / Henry Cloud and John Townsend.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-310-24315-7 (Softcover)
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-24315-7 (Softcover)
1. Discipline of children—United States. 2. Self-control in children—United States.
3. Parenting—United States. I. Townsend, John Sims, 1952–. II. Title.
HQ770.4.C55 1998
649'.64—dc21
98-10491
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New
International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible
Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
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permission of the publisher.
Published in association with Yates & Yates, LLP, Literary Agent, Orange, CA.
Interior design by Sue Vandenberg Koppenol
Printed in the United States of America
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The Future Is Now
It was a normal day, but one that would forever change my
friend’s parenting.
We had finished dinner, and I (Dr. Cloud) was visiting with
my friend, Allison, and her husband, Bruce, when she left the
dinner table to do some chores. Bruce and I continued to talk
until a phone call took him away as well, so I went to see if I
could lend Allison a hand.
I could hear her in their fourteen-year-old son Cameron’s
room. I walked in to a scene that jolted me. She was cheerfully
putting away clothes and sports equipment and making the
bed. She struck up a conversation as if things were normal: “I
can’t wait for you to see the pictures from our trip. It was so
much—”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m cleaning up Cameron’s room,” she said. “What does it
look like I’m doing?”
“You are what?”
“I told you. I’m cleaning up his room. Why are you looking
at me like that?”
All I could do was to share with her the vision in my head.
“I just feel sorry for Cameron’s future wife.”
Allison straightened up, froze for a moment, and then hurried
from the room. I walked into the hall to see her standing there
motionless. Not knowing what to say, I said nothing. After a few
moments, she looked at me and said, “I’ve never thought about
it that way.”
Nor have most of us. We parent in the present without thinking
about the future. We usually deal with the problems at hand.
Making it through an afternoon without wanting to send our children
to an eight-year camp in Alaska seems like a huge accomplishment!
But one goal of parenting is to keep an eye on the
future. We are raising our children to be responsible adults.
Parents interact with their children in a way that comes naturally
to them. For example, Allison was by nature a “helper,”
and she gladly helped her son. Others have different parenting
styles. Some, who are more laid back and uninvolved, leave
their son’s room alone. Those who are stricter inflict heavy punishment
for a less than regulation-made bed.
Certainly, child rearing requires many different interventions.
There are times for helping, for not getting involved, or for being
strict. But the real issue is this: Is what you are doing being done
on purpose? Or are you doing it from reasons that you do not
think about, such as your own personality, childhood, need of
the moment, or fears?
Remember, parenting has to do with more than the present.
You are preparing your child for the future. A person’s character
is one’s destiny.
A person’s character largely determines how he will function
in life. Whether he does well in love and in work depends on the
abilities he possesses inside. In a world that has begun to explain
away people’s behavior with a variety of excuses, people are
left wondering why their lives do not work. Most of our problems
result from our own character weakness. Where we possess
inner strength, we succeed, often in spite of tough circumstances.
But where we do not possess inner strength, we either get stuck
or fail. If a relationship requires understanding and forgiveness
and we do not have that character ability, the relationship will
not make it. If a difficult time period in work requires patience
and delay of gratification and we do not possess those traits, we
will fail. Character is almost everything.
The word character means different things to different people.
Some people use character to mean moral functioning or
integrity. We use the word to describe a person’s entire makeup,
who he is. Character refers to a person’s ability and inability, his
moral makeup, his functioning in relationships, and how he does
tasks. What does he do in certain situations, and how does he do
it? When he needs to perform, how will he meet those demands?
Can he love? Can he be responsible? Can he have empathy for
others? Can he develop his talents? Can he solve problems? Can
he deal with failure? How does he reflect the image of God?
These are a few of the issues that define character.
If a person’s character makeup determines his future, then
child rearing is primarily about helping children to develop character
that will take them through life safely, securely, productively,
and joyfully. Parents—and those who work with children—
would do well to keep this in mind. A major goal of raising
children is to help them develop the character that will make
their future go well.
It wasn’t until Allison saw this future reality that her parenting
changed. She loved helping Cameron. But in many ways her
helping was not “helping” Cameron. He had developed a pattern
in which he felt entitled to everyone else’s help, and this
feeling of entitlement affected his relationships at school and
at church. Allison had always been glad to help Cameron through
the messes he was creating. Another undone project was another
opportunity to love him.
Yet Allison was not only a mother, but also a grown woman
and a wife. When she looked into the future and saw a time when
Cameron would be leaving responsibilities for others to do, she
became concerned. What a mother doesn’t mind doing, others
deplore. She glimpsed the reality of character destiny. And she
changed how she interacted with Cameron to help him develop
a sense of responsibility, to help him think about how his behavior

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