From their book “Boundaries” Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend teach:
Have you ever been around children who can’t hear no, who keep wining, cajoling, throwing a tantrum, or pouting till they get their way? The problem is that the longer we hate and resist the limits of others, the more dependent we will be on others. Rather than simply taking care of ourselves, we expect others to take care of us.
At any rate, God has constructed life itself to teach us this law. It’s the only way we can live on this planet together. Sooner or later someone will say a no to us that we can’t ignore. It’s built into the fabric of life. Observe the progression of nos in the life of person who resists others limits:
1. the no of parents
2. the no of siblings
3. the no of schoolteachers
4. the no of school friends
5. the no of bosses and supervisors
6. the no of spouses
7. the no of health problems and overeating, alcoholism, or another irresponsible lifestyle
8. the no of police, courts, and even prison
Some people learn to accept boundaries early in life, even as early as stage number one. But some people have to go all the way to number eight before they get the picture that we have to accept life’s limits: “Stop listening to instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge (Proverbs 19:27). Many out-of-control adolescents don’t mature until their thirties, when they become tired of not having a steady job and a place to stay. They have hit bottom financially, and sometimes they may even have to live on the streets for a while. In time they begin sticking with a career, saving money, and starting to grow up. They gradually begin to accept life’s limits.
No matter how tough we think we are, there’s always someone tougher. If we don’t teach our children to take a no, someone who loves them far less will do the job. Someone tougher. Someone stronger. And most parents would much rather spare having their children go through this suffering. The earlier we teach limits, the better.
A second, even more important, reason why accepting the limits of others is important for kids is this: heeding others’ boundaries helps children to love. At the heart, the idea of respecting others’ is the basis for empathy, or loving others as we’d like to be loved. Children need to be given the grace of having their no respected, and they need to give that same grace to others. As we feel empathy for the needs of others, they mature and deepen their love for God and others: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Say, for example, that your six-year-old accidentally but carelessly bonks you on the head with a softball. To ignore it, or act like it didn’t hurt, is to give the child the feeling that his actions have no impact. He can then avoid any sense of responsibility or awareness of others’ needs or hurts. However, telling him, “I know you didn’t do that on purpose, but that ball really hurt me—try to be a little more careful,” helps him see, without condemnation, that he can hurt people he loves and that his actions do matter.
If this principle isn’t taught, it is difficult for children to grow up as loving people. Frequently, they become self-centered or controlling. At that point, God’s program of maturity becomes more difficult. A client of mine had been trained by his family to ignore others’ limits. His subsequent manipulation had landed him in jail for stealing. Yet this process, painful as it was, taught him empathy.
“I really never knew that other people had needs or hurts,” he once explained to me. “I was raised to concentrate on Number One. And when I began getting confronted on my lack of respect for others’ something happened inside. A space opened up inside my heart for others. I didn’t ignore my own needs, but for the first time, I saw progress. I actually started feeling guilty about how my actions have hurt my wife and family.”
Did he have a long way to go? Absolutely. But he was on the right road. Learning boundaries later in life was a start to becoming an authentically, biblically loving person. ~ Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1992, 2017), 184-85
