Establishing Boundaries When You Have Young Kids

Are boundaries even possible when you have small children?

Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

Key points

• Parenting small children is an intense, selfless task.
• When you are responsible for a young child's needs, boundaries seem impossible.
• There is a way to frame boundaries so that you can care for yourself while caring for them.

If you find the experience of parenting small children stressful, you are not alone. Studies suggest that up to 50% of parents report stress about parenting, child behavior, or child development. Clinical interventions include increasing social supports, training on coping strategies, and more.

A powerful, effective coping strategy for everyday stress that gets little air-time in the parenting world is the establishment of boundaries, perhaps because establishing boundaries feels antithetical to parenting. If your child gets up in the middle of the night, they will wake you. If you are having a super hard day, they will still ask you for attention and soothing. How can you establish boundaries when your children are little?

Instead of thinking about boundaries in terms of your relationship with your kids, think about them in terms of how you set up your lifestyle. It isn’t about them—it’s about you. In the 24/7, mentally, emotionally, and physically draining work of raising small children, it is common for your nervous system to get overloaded, leading to feelings of anger, overwhelm, anxiety, and sadness. The solution is to identify lifestyle boundaries that support your nervous system. Here are the steps:

1. Identify your limits. For the next two weeks, write down the times you feel strung out and want to cry or go into a fit of rage. What did you do that day? The night before? What was going on in your house? Identify the elements that contributed to your sense of overwhelm.
2. Understand your boosts. For that same time period, notice the times when you felt really good, or when parenting seemed fun and easy (ahem, easier). What factors contributed to those moments?
3. Take the two together to define your boundaries. For example, you may feel good after doing a library story time and then want to cry from exhaustion if you go to a children’s museum afterwards. The boundary would be to only do one out-of-the-house activity a day. If going to mommy-and-me groups fills your cup, schedule more of them. If they drain you and leave you with fewer resources for your kids, select something else.

The hardest part of the process is its trial-and-error nature. Things often have to go wrong to make things right in the future. Picture the first night of vacation. I had been up a lot of the night before with the baby, then did a normal, full day with him. Just when we would normally be winding down and getting ready for bed, I drove five hours in rush-hour traffic to get us to our vacation rental, unpacked in freezing cold/slippery conditions, and heated up dinner in a kitchen with a questionable pot. When I hadn’t reassembled his baby chair well enough and he almost fell out of it, I grabbed him and immediately burst into tears. It was way too much.

My newly-discovered boundary was that if we chose to take a vacation (and I decided in that moment that I was fine with not going anywhere), then I had to be responsible for less. I don’t want to drive for long distances or cook dinner or make beds. I was exhausted enough from taking care of a baby away from home that I had no capacity to do more.

Maybe, like me, you decide you will not travel with your kids because it’s more hassle than it’s worth. Or you don’t want to organize the house for a month. Or you don’t want to do kiddie soccer because standing around with the other parents makes you uncomfortable. Or you can’t handle play dates, which bring an extra level of chaos and disruption into the house. These are all boundaries you can establish to support your own mental health and stress level.

Also consider having some in-the-moment boundary saves. For example, if you find that your list of includes sensory overload from all the physical touch, identify several activities that give you a breather. For example, giving the children a bath. You get to sit on the toilet and watch, with no one grabbing or touching you.

Or you can take them to a playground and push them on the swing. The trick is to brainstorm such hacks when your nervous system hasn't already given out. No one has productive, creative ideas when their nervous system has flared. Doing this work enables you to take the breaks you need, in the ways you need, when you need them.

As a last thought, there is a way to introduce boundaries with kids when they get slightly older, but it's not in the normal way you would with adults. Think of the boundaries in terms of what you want to teach your kids about seeing and respecting others.

For example, "no hitting Mommy," is a solid boundary. Or, "no interrupting Mommy when she's speaking to someone else." For this boundary, give your kid a hack for when they want to speak with you, such as squeezing your hand or saying "excuse me." Unlike normal boundaries, know that these boundaries will flex. If your child has poor impulse control or struggles with emotion regulation, they may scream, kick, or hit. They may be unable to honor a "no hitting" boundary during these times. As for our other example, you may explain to your kids that you want to be interrupted if there is an emergency.

We often feel that we have to do all the things we see around us, but that’s just not true. We need to structure these years with our sanity in mind and build into our lifestyle the boundaries that support us and our mental health.