Can you imagine your family free from power struggles?
How can you tell if you are being caught in a power struggle or if you genuinely setting boundaries?
This episode delves into the topic of creating a power struggle-free zone in your home. You will hear about three common areas of conflict between kids and parents: food, getting to shower, and screen time. Those examples will help you to understand the underlying reasons behind these boundaries, such as promoting healthy lifestyles and development, so you can effectively communicate to your children why you set those boundaries and what are the expectations from your kid.
Can you imagine your family free from power struggles?
How can you tell if you are being caught in a power struggle or if you genuinely setting boundaries?
This episode delves into the topic of creating a power struggle-free zone in your home. You will hear about three common areas of conflict between kids and parents: food, getting to shower, and screen time. Those examples will help you to understand the underlying reasons behind these boundaries, such as promoting healthy lifestyles and development, so you can effectively communicate to your children why you set those boundaries and what are the expectations from your kid.
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Tammy Afriat:
Hey, and welcome back to the Playground Talks podcast. My name is Tammy Aat and I am your host. I'm a certified parent coach, and a mother of three kiddos, and I'm here to help you own your parenting style. You might ask yourself, so what are the types of parenting style and what does it even mean? So last episode, I actually covered. That in an episode called Roaring with Compassion, discovering your Parenting style. So , if you haven't tuned into and listened to that, I will add that to the show notes and , I want to share with you exciting news. I am starting a new newsletter. The idea is to keep it in a short and sweet format, just like this short episode so in the newsletter, I will Summer Up topics, important topics so you can get your parenting principles and And fill confidence and joy in your parenting journey. So again, in the show note, you can find the link to subscribe to the newsletter. Okay. Today we'll be talking how to create your home as a power struggle free zone. And in other words, it's like, when can you recognize that You're not setting a boundary, but rather falling into this power struggle with your kids. And the main thing to understand that is to ask yourself, why do I set this boundary? What's the value that I'm trying to enforce here? if you can. Answer the question, why do I set this boundary? Most likely it's not a power struggle. It's not that you are expecting your kids to just comply because you said so, but you really have a long-term vision or some value you want to enforce. So let's take three different example. We'll start with food. I know many of us has, you know, conflict around food. So the first question again, let's ask why do you want to set the boundary? There is a great chance you want to set. Boundaries around food. For example, don't eat as many candies, ice cream and sweet stuff because you want for your kids to have a healthy lifestyles, meaning to have a healthy eating habits. And that's why it's your role to set those boundaries and say, listen, first you're gonna eat your meal with protein, with meatballs, rice, vegetables. Then you can have the dessert. By the way, day. First, then is a pray tool to use in many areas. So keep that in mind. And so going back to the eating habits, as a parent, you set the, framework of what do you serve on the table? And the kids can choose so he can get the sense of control, because today he wants to eat peppers and he's not touching the cucumber, that's totally fine, but he's not gonna get a dessert unless he eats something that really helps his body grow So that's about conflict around food. Let's move on. There's another topic that I hear many parents struggle with, which is shower, brushing their teeth, you know, all these things. And obviously when you ask, why do I want my kids to do that? That's because you want, again, to develop healthy hygiene habits. And also, you know, kids develop the perspective taking along the years. They don't have it when they're two years old. They don't get why they have to brush their teeth cuz it's not that they have cavity when they're two years old there is a better chance they will develop C cavity when they grow up. So they don't get why they have to do that, but you know, they have to do it otherwise they will suffer from pain and. It'll cost money, obviously. So the point is, there are area in your kids' life where it's still your responsibility to set those boundaries. When it comes to hygiene, it's totally for you to enforce and saying, well, you get to brush your teeth every day. In terms of shower, it's again, to avoid inconvenience and rush and itchiness in your body. But with the shower, I wanna say something that sometimes we spend a full day in the house when it's really cold out there. And for example, if we did so many activities we did some. craft Board game and I know that my kids was not sweaty as much , if my kid comes to me and say, Hey mommy, I'm too tired to take this shower. Then I will show some flexibility and I'm gonna say, you know what? I get that today you are not feeling. That's nasty It's your choice to take shower or not. But tomorrow you will definitely do that. So I think that when you use some common sense, even when you set those boundaries, really build the trust that the kids understand that. He can express himself logically and you will hear and listen to him and respond accordingly. So basically, you help them to sort of negotiate, I would say, and I think it's another great skill. Okay, moving on. Screen time. Screen time is the topic that, wow, we always like this generation is just addicted to screen and we struggle with this so much So why do you want to limit screen times? You know, there are many reasons you can do that. Maybe because you know that once a kid's spending many hours in front of a screen, he's not doing other activities such as going out, running, so he wouldn't exercise and again, it's not aligned with healthy lifestyle to just sit in front of the screen the whole day also without screen. Kids sometimes get bored and boredom brings creativity cuz they have to come up with their own stuff of what to do. What are they curious about? Also, when the kids are just watching screens, they're not practicing and developing their social skills, so this is just, you know, a bit of point of why do you want to limit screen time? And so once you answer that question, the next question to ask yourself will be, how much time will you allow your kids to watch screen ? And not only how much time, but what does it actually mean? Like, does it include video chat with friends or grandparents? Does this include educational content or screen time is only for educational content, so that's something that you need to think with yourself. And once you came up with sort of the plan of what do they see for how long do they see that, then you can come up and talk to your child when they're four, five, and six. You can explain. The why to the kids and then set the expectation around how much time. And then once you explain that you are gonna not only set the boundary, but also hold the boundary and make sure they turn off the devices on time. there's a whole episode around screen struggle.. There are many great ideas of how to deal with it. So go ahead listened to that, to up the main idea of distinguishing between power struggle and setting boundaries, is that if you know the why behind, why did you set the specific boundary, and again, showing some flexibility is totally fine. Using some common sense is totally fine as long as you're not accommodating things because you are afraid of conflict. That's it. I hope that was helpful. Once again, in the show note, you can find the link to the new newsletter, which will be short and sweet. You'll find some additional resources around establishing healthy routines. and as usual, treat yourself with compassion and curiosity. Bye.