Go Mama Pod

Building Boundary Awareness in Young Ones

• Rachael McKenney • Episode 6

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In the latest episode of Go Mama Pod, we tackle this essential topic head-on by sharing a real-life story where a friend's one-year-old daughter was picked up against her wishes. This eye-opening incident underscores the necessity of respecting a child's autonomy and recognizing their ability to communicate their needs, no matter how young they are. We provide actionable insights on how parents can proactively teach their children that their voices are powerful and deserve to be honored, setting the groundwork for future self-advocacy.

Join us as we further explore the importance of helping children understand how to say no and advocate for their own bodies. As their first and most important advocates, parents play a crucial role in balancing kindness with firmness to prioritize their child's comfort over pleasing others. Drawing from my own experiences as a former people pleaser, I emphasize the critical need to empower our kids to set firm boundaries. Don't miss this episode if you want practical strategies to support your child in becoming a confident, assertive individual from an early age.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Go Mama Pod, a podcast for parents who are in the throes of the beautiful dumpster fire of parenting, trying and, most likely, failing to do it all. In each episode, you can expect evidence-based insights into mental health while parenting and actionable tips to manage the mayhem with littles. I'm your host, rachel McKinney, your therapist's best friend. I'm also living in the thick of the ups and downs of this parenting rollercoaster of emotional dysregulation. I'm a licensed clinical social worker with a wealth of experience supporting families and young children as we all navigate the unknowns and sometimes problematic behaviors of childhood. I firmly believe that a parent's or primary caregiver's mental health is inextricably linked to that of their children. You take better care of your child by taking care of yourself. Hello, my friends and fellow parents, today's episode was prompted by a conversation that I had with a friend, and all I kept thinking when I was having this conversation was me loudly saying to her in caring words you are the parent, words, you are the parent, you're the parent, you're the parent. And so I really want to explain this conversation and the importance of what came out of this conversation. So my friend has a daughter who is one years old and she has a friend who likes to pick her daughter up, even when her daughter protests vocally. So she's one. She doesn't have a whole lot of words, she said. My friend said that she loves this person dearly but she, but he, when he picks up her daughter, will shoo her away, shoo mom away when she tries to take her baby, to soothe her, and he'll say it's good for the baby to get used to other people. And he has even walked away with her crying baby. So my friend said am I being overprotective or overreacting in feeling like this bothered me and I said absolutely not. Full stop, stop. So let's break this down a little bit.

Speaker 1:

A crying baby who is reaching for their primary caregiver is communicating her needs by vocalizing and using her body. She's saying that she wants to be by her mother, who is biologically her safest person and her primary caregiver. And it's normal not to want to be held by a stranger. That's totally normal, even if this person thinks they're not a stranger. So yes, I have an issue with this person walking away with the baby, expecting her to cry it out with him, and I told my friend as much. She is mom, she's responsible for teaching her child that her child's voice matters, no matter if she's creating words or not. When she vocalizes that she does not want to be with someone, her mom or dad needs to step in to provide that safety for her, because she's not in control of her body and her voice to a point where other people will listen, which is so sad, and we'll get into that in a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So how do we set a limit with our loved ones, because so often we're expected to put others' needs before our own, and even before our own child's needs. So in my home this is something that we do to get at. This is we teach that if someone says stop or if someone says that they don't like something, we stop. My son was able to vocalize this when a family member picked him up and he protested by saying stop, put me down. The family member laughed but did not put him down right away. Meanwhile there's me getting up, walking over, and he eventually put him down. And later my son said to me I don't like him because I told him to put me down and he didn't. And I said you're right, buddy, people need to stop when we say stop, or stop when we say no.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now imagine you're in a public space and you observe an adult pick up or drag another adult or teenager. The adult or teenager is clearly protesting by saying stop, no, put me down, all the things. But the adult is not listening. They still continue to pick this person up or hold them or drag them. Would you intervene or call for help? Probably, like I know there's not, like we all want to intervene on other people's problems or maybe we might call the police or call someone else or, depending on if we're by ourselves or with our kids, like that all matters. But deep down, would you see a problem with this? Probably. Now imagine that there's an older adult or maybe a person with a visible or physical disability and they're picked up by another person while protesting. I bet that would also give you pause and make you feel uncomfortable and want to intervene. So, just like people with disabilities and older adults, children are a vulnerable population and are treated as less than because they are little, because of their age, their size. Adults think that we can do whatever we want with a small child just because they're little. Now we can see that the problematic trajectory here when we teach our children that their needs don't matter, that the comfort or feelings of others matter more than them, because then they become an adult who might not say no to something that they don't like and that could be benign, like a meal or an activity, but that could also be quite serious, like an assault or something that is physically harmful. Do you see where I'm going? Like it's. This has incredible impacts on our child.

Speaker 1:

So back to my friend's story. What could she do? She could approach it a couple of different ways so she could. I think she could be proactively. Or she could proactively talk to her friend about his behavior and say something like baby girl does not want to be picked up by anyone other than mom or dad. I know you want to have a special relationship with her so you can meet her on the floor and play together. So you're saying my child does not like this mom or dad do not like this. Here's something that you can do. Or she could say along with her husband we're really trying to teach baby girl that her voice has meaning and power from an early age. So we're asking everyone in our family and friend group to acknowledge her vocalizations.

Speaker 1:

If she does not like something, she could go even further and say this might look like her saying no, her reaching for mom or dad, her crawling or walking away, her reaching for mom or dad, her crawling or walking away. We honor that and we don't repeat what we are doing to stress her out. So if it happens like he picks her up and she's protesting, I fully support mom going up to him and saying I will take her now like kind but firm, and if he disagrees, use a firmer voice and say my child is saying no with her voice and she does not want you to hold her or pick her up. She is scared. Give me the baby now. You don't need to like, enunciate like that, but be very clear and there's no room for nuance on this. Here's what's happening, here's what you need to do. So this person knows you're still. You're not being rude, you're not being mean. You are putting your child first.

Speaker 1:

Now, if he dismisses this, he probably sucks, but it's appropriate to explain the importance of consent and how a child as young as one does have agency and consent over what happens to their body, which is, unfortunately, very important for a young girl to know and understand. Okay, so I got a little deep in this, but it got me really fired up, because this is something that I try and teach parents every single day, as well as young children. Because with my own kids, if they tell me something that they don't like, I say, okay, thanks for letting me know. Not, mom, I don't like this food. And I say, oh, try it anyway. Or oh, have three bites. Or oh, I don't know some arbitrary thing. I say, okay, then don't eat it. Is there something else that you want? Because my child knows what they like. They know when they're full, and then it gets even bigger when it involves other people. So my kid says I don't want to be around so-and-so. Okay, thanks for telling me. If they ever come over or you're around them, you can come to me or you can say to them no, I don't like that.

Speaker 1:

So we're teaching our children the skills to say no, so that they are not more vulnerable than they actually are because they're little when they're around other adults. It's keeping them safe and teaching them that they can be an advocate for themselves and their own bodies. So you are your child's first advocate, because they cannot advocate for themselves when they are teeny, tiny little potatoes. So work on teaching your child that their voice matters in those small moments during your day and that other people's feelings are not more important than their own.

Speaker 1:

This is something that I continue to unlearn, being a former people pleaser. It's okay to set those firm boundaries and be kind in them. You can explain them, or you don't have to, because it's your child, your family, your decisions. So I wonder do you have a tricky situation with a family member or a friend that involves your kids that you might want help talking through? Just send me a DM on Instagram, go underscore mama, underscore hub, and I will work through that with you because this is important. My friends, that's all for today. Take care of yourself and know that you are the best and the most important parent to your child. Thank you.