Some days with B. are great, some days are difficult and some are extreme, crazy, loud and chaotic. I have never felt comfortable going through those extreme days. I tried to understand why B. does what he does, explain him what his actions do to other people, his surrounding.

Respect vs disrespect

I used to think I was taking a respectful approach to parenting until I realized I did not. That approach was respectful to B. but not to myself. I used to feel like a humiliated doormat, a failure, a wreck. And if the approach is not respectful to everyone, it is not respectful at all.

I unintentionally allowed B. to treat me disrespectfully by not clearly stating my personal boundaries and firmly sticking to family rules. M. even let B. do him what I considered too much. He allowed B. to hit him just because it did not hurt and because he is too small to understand. I kept asking M. why B. does not hit me. And I am sure it is because he knew it was my firm boundary that I will not allow him to hit me. We did it totally wrong. I knew it but I did not see the way out. So I kept looking for help in articles, videos, lectures, books for years…

Quest for solution

I have not read all the books in the photograph above yet. I am gradually working my way through them. There are so many more resources I studied from. Each of them explains approaches on real-life situations but I did not find any that would be similar to ours. So I just randomly tried sets of recommendations and they did not work in a long-term. That is why I looked for more, tried, bought more books… Until I found something familiar.

That book used examples of children’s behavior that very much resembled B.’s behavior. It was just a preview in one of online bookstores but I immediately knew that we need to have this book. Even M. read the preview and said it’s exactly like B. When the book arrived we started to read it together.

Still learning…

I realized I did not communicate my expectations and rules so B. could understand them. I was not firm enough. I think I did the respecting part well most of the time. I also have tried to understand why he does things – is he tired, scared, does he need more closeness, is he too young to understand…? The list could be endless. But never would I think, none of the resources I studied have suggested it, that he could lack clear and firm boundaries.

Now it seems unbelievable I did not consider this option, as I know I have problems with creating my boundaries but I thought it is just problem with other people, not the closest ones. But again, I was proved wrong. I am a person who tries to obey, fulfill wishes as soon as they are mentioned. B. is a researcher who test whether rules are just uttered or there are actions, consequences behind them. For me this is really hard to understand – not to cooperate and to try how far I can go and what other people can bear.

Looking back, I remember that this journey of boundaries gradually began some time ago. One of the steps I took was writing this post. Another step was watching a video about saying “no” to children. So I take more steps on this journey and hopefully it will lead to more balanced family life.