To Set Appropriate Boundaries, You Must Have an Experience of Safety Children who have experienced developmental trauma (in the womb or in early childhood) have an over-active arousal system. This means that even if they are safe, they don’t feel safe. This lack of understanding what “safe” feels like creates lots of boundary issues as they get older. The Under-Boundaried Kid “I feel like I can’t let my kid out of my sight.” “My kid would follow someone off a cliff.” “My kids would try any substance that was given to them. They literally have no sense of independence or safety.” These are the types of phrases I hear from parents with under-boundaried kids. These kids do generally well in the right environment, but if there are rotten apples in the bunch, they join them quickly in whatever activity they are engaging in. They may stay out of trouble until they get a phone, and then they begin to unravel at that point. The Over-Boundaried Kid “My child is always ready to fight.” “Honestly, I hate to ask anything of her. I would rather do it myself than deal with her attitude for every small request.” “My kiddo bosses everyone around. I am shocked he still has any friends.” “She doesn’t care if she breaks our rules or makes us upset.” “He just does whatever he wants.” These are some phrases I hear from parents of over-boundaried kids. These kiddos often avoid safety and seek danger out. Safety feels unfamiliar to them. Safety feels boring and eerily peaceful. Yes, kids can also move back and forth between being over-boundaried and under- boundaried as well, which is extra complicated.

Be a Good Parent-Detective No child will come to you and say, “I have been placed in a toxic environment where my growth is limited, and my feelings of safety are compromised.” They don’t have the ability to keep themselves safe. I’m always very irritated when I hear of Bully campaigns that put the responsibility on the victim for seeking help and telling adults. In an ideal world that would happen, but that is just not possible for most victimized children. It is the adults’ job to structure the environment for safety, not the kids’ job to keep themselves safe. You just have to learn to recognize the signs, and if you are confused, then go to the child’s suspected toxic environment and gather information. Volunteer in their school or Sunday School class and observe how your child is functioning in those settings. Don’t listen to other adults more than you listen to your child’s behaviors. No one will pay attention to your child the way you do. I have had so many parents say different versions of these statements to me over the years: “The teacher said he was well liked, but when I observed him in his classroom, I could tell he irritated everyone.” “The school counselor says he is doing fine, but anytime I show up at a classroom party, he is hiding from the other kids.” “The soccer coach doesn’t see any issues at all, but when I pick him up from soccer, he is so dysregulated that it takes me all evening to settle him down.” I understand there are times you can’t take a child out of a toxic environment. Let’s say the neighborhood kids are all mean to your kid, and moving is just not a financial option for your family. In these situations, we can do our best to build a hedge of protection around our kids with more structure. You can tell your child that they are not allowed to play with the neighborhood kids, and instead you can figure out a couple of play dates a week with someone who is kind to them. This will be more time and trouble for you, but this teaches your child that we say “no” to toxic environments and nurture safe ones.

Sign up for every VBS within a 20-minute drive from your home. If you plan it out well and start early, you can end up with 6 or 7 weeks of free childcare. Plus, you have the added benefit of having your kids scream, “Hey, that’s our church!” every time you drive past any chapel in any direction. Do not hold me accountable for the annoying songs your children will sing loudly ALL YEAR LONG even if your eyes start twitching. And you know how you “lose” things you no longer want your kids to play with, watch, or listen to? Well, you can only “lose” two of the song CDs before your kids catch on.

I find it interesting that we consider infants to have “risk factors”, but there is no ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) score for a newborn. Why is it that infants have “risk factors”, but then as soon as they are born healthy with an Apgar score above 8, everyone breathes a sigh of relief?

Sometimes I think organizations hire me just to talk about things like “masturbation”. When is the last time a parent posted on Facebook about their kindergartner, “Noel just showed the neighbor her vagina and asked to see his penis!” Or how about, “I caught Miles looking at pornography for the third time!” Both of these things are about as common as someone winning the cross country meet, but they aren’t discussed. Parents are discreet about sex, and by the time most kids go through puberty, the kids understand this discretion. However, this isn’t true of all kids.

“You have never had to do anything this hard in your life,” our teen son said to us after being given the job of raking and moving an enormous pile of leaves to the front yard. We burst into laughter. He felt so persecuted, when in reality he could move those leaves a thousand times, and it wouldn’t come close to the amount of time, energy, agony, stress, effort, and money that we have put into raising him. Kids are naturally self-centered. Even the most responsible, hard- working, compassionate kids are naturally self-serving.

There is a new fad called “brush changing sequins”. You can find these appealing, brushing sequins on everything from key chains to bedspreads. I had a little girl come into my office with a flip sequin t-shirt on the other day. It was dark blue with a large, glittery silver heart on the front. I am thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight years old, and let me tell you that I had to restrain myself from reaching out and brushing the sequins up and down on her shirt.

"We all have a window of tolerance. When we are operating outside of that window, we behave badly. This window is widening or shrinking, depending on what happens during the day. When we sleep well, eat well, and get the physical movement that we need, our window is larger. Every choice we make during the day either enlarges the window or shrinks it. Every trauma that a person endures shrinks that window of tolerance.

We still live on the raft, but we visit the island frequently now.  At some point along the way, we got used to the sweetness of the raft – the way it doesn’t matter what you have there or who you are – the way you focus on all the treasures you have, and they seem so many while you are on the raft – the closeness of the people on the raft and those sweet friends that join us here on occasion.