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and severe infractions. Otherwise, severe penalties become
meaningless.
A client once told me, “I got whippings for little things and
for big things. So I started getting more involved in big things.
It just seemed more efficient.” Once you’ve been sentenced to
death, you don’t have much to gain by being good!
- The goal of boundaries is an internal sense of motivation,
with self-induced consequences. Successful parenting means that
our kids want to get out of bed and go to school, be responsible,
be empathic, and be caring because that’s important to them,
not because it’s important to us. It’s only when love and limits
are a genuine part of the child’s character that true maturity can
occur. Otherwise, we are raising compliant parrots who will, in
time, self-destruct.
Parents have a sober responsibility: teaching their children
to have an internal sense of boundaries and to respect the
boundaries of others. It’s sober because the Bible says it’s sober:
“Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more
strictly” (James 3:1).
There are certainly no guarantees that our training will be
heeded. Children have the responsibility to listen and learn. The
older they are, the more responsibility they have. Yet as we learn
about our own boundary issues, take responsibility for them, and
grow up ourselves, we increase our kids’ chances to learn bound-
aries in an adult world in which these abilities will be sorely
needed—every day of their lives.
Boundaries