What Are Boundaries and Why Parents Need Them, with Cathy Cioth

ABOUT THE EPISODE:

This week's episode is a Summer Replay originally aired in 2023. 

You have rules. You have said them out loud, more than once. And somehow your kid is still doing exactly what they want, and you are the one lying awake wondering why nothing you say seems to land.

Before I knew the word boundaries, that was my whole life. I felt invisible in my own house. Like a doormat. Like the rules I set were something my son found funny. The anger built until I was short with everyone, and I once yanked the cord out of the wall and threw an Xbox across a room. I'm definitely not proud of that reaction and never thought I'd be that mom.

What changed things for me was learning that a boundary has nothing to do with controlling how someone else behaves. That distinction sounds small but it's not.

Cathy and I sat down for this one because we watch parents struggle with it constantly. Not with coming up with the boundary. The hard part is holding it, and there is one specific reason we see people fold, and it is probably not what you think.

We get honest about our own attempts, including the ones that went badly. Cathy shares the boundary she was too scared to enforce for a long time. I share the one that took therapy to get through; the day the moving pods were packed and my son was in a sleeping bag in an empty room.

Fair warning. When you start holding boundaries after years of not holding them, things usually get more uncomfortable before they get better. We talk about that too.

If you feel like you have lost your footing in your own home, start here.

YOU'LL LEARN

• The one reason we see parents abandon boundaries they have already set, and why willpower has nothing to do with it
• Why an ultimatum and a boundary can sound identical out loud and do opposite things
• The picket fence and the hula hoop, and which one you need for which kind of boundary
• The boundary Cathy was too afraid to enforce, and the conversation with her husband that finally made it possible
• What it actually cost me to hold the hardest boundary of my life, and who I needed around me to do it

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Setting and Holding Healthy Boundaries workshop
• Original episode: Ep. 174  
• Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms 
• Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol 

This podcast is part of a nonprofit called Hopestream Community
Learn about The Stream, our private online community for moms
Find us on Instagram here
Watch the podcast on YouTube here
Download a free e-book, Worried Sick: A Compassionate Guide For Parents When Your Teen or Young Adult Child Misuses Drugs and Alcohol

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