Setting Limits With A Child in Public

0:00 hello I'm Anna and I am gonna read my anecdote from the book listen it's on setting loving limits so we were all excited that runners would be carrying the Olympic torch past our house the day of the run my six-year-old son was all keyed up and eager to get out onto the road we found a good spot atop a wall finally the torch bearer ran by as we clapped and waved my children wanted to run along after the torch for a bit so I

0:31 followed them then my son asked me repeatedly for some Olympic merchandise that other children were waving and wearing green ribbons on sticks and fake gold medals I had bought the children each a flag to wave and didn't have the money or the inclination to buy more so I set a limit I got down to his eye level and kindly said no we're not buying anymore Olympic things now at this point we were in a mall and my son had jammed himself

1:03 against the doorway of a sports shop filled with Olympic items he got angry he got really angry and he said he would bite me if I didn't buy something for him I was surprised by his vermont's but said I wouldn't let him hurt me he tried to kick out at me so I gently held his leg and repeated that I wouldn't let him hurt me he said I had to buy him something I gently said I wasn't gonna

1:30 buy any other Olympic things today his anger turned into tears he said I want something I can keep forever I really heard him on this I could empathize with his feelings of excitement and then his disappointment it was all over so quickly I was consciously practicing bringing a loving limit trusting that it would be useful to him longer-term more useful than a piece of Olympic junk he cried and I

2:01 stayed with him listening in time he was ready to go and his mood turned cheerful that evening I had to go to a class and say goodbye to him with a warm hug and a kiss he followed me downstairs and he wanted to give me another hug blew me lots of kisses and waved as I left in my son's warm affectionate goodbye I felt the connection between us built by setting the limit and holding it lovingly so at that point my son was

2:32 six and my daughter was eight and why did I decide what prompted me to tackle that particular issue it was really necessity because I really didn't have any more money on me and I really knew that it was an emotional project for max at the time that every time you went to a store like to a supermarket or something he was wanting to buy something so it was necessity and it was also that I knew it was a really important thing

2:57 to set a limit around and how does the challenge unfolded it was incredible because at the time when he he was so angry and he said he was gonna bite me and I was really surprised at just how angry he got so quickly at the limit it was a time when we just moved to a new town and we moved to a new school and we had experienced quite a few losses so as soon as he said that and it won't always

3:29 be that they will say the thing that's driving the really harsh the off-track behavior but the moment that he said that I could really really empathize with why he was so attached to this like he'd got really attached to the little Olympic thing as a stand-in for all these other things that he wanted to keep so I was really touched by that and I was so grateful that I had learned how to set and love it or that I was

3:57 learning how to set a loving limit because it's a gift it's a gift it's really a gift when you set a limit for for someone because the thing that he said he wanted to keep forever was the little piece of Olympic trash but the thing that I would hope he would keep forever is a sense that when he's really really upset and angry that that that his mom could keep him safe that she could keep herself safe and that I was

4:24 really willing to hear that all of it to hear all of it to hear just how hard it was for him and I think that's a bigger gift than the piece of Olympic medal that he wanted to buy so my son is now eight my son is now 12 I think point that she's about to run out it was like getting a bit distracted but my son is 12 and my daughter is 14 and one good thing that's happening in my

4:53 parenting right now is it was really amazing to watch my son he was transitioning to secondary school to high school and it was hard it was a really tough transition from a little small human centered school to a really big comprehensive school and he really it wasn't easy but he really rose to the challenges and I would I'm really touched to see how he's done that and how he became really self-motivated

5:24 around his homework and I've been and I'm almost excited now for his next year at schools which is a huge turnaround it's it's been a it's been wonderful so and any message I want to say about this book is it is absolutely crammed with with just top-notch information it's absolutely chock-a-block so when I'm responding to parents in classes or when people are asking me questions on social media if I really if I know that they need that the detail and the richness

5:57 that this book can offer I will always recommend this book every chapter in it it covers each of the tools that we teach it has an anecdote attached to each of the tools so you can get a sense of how other parents have had them work in their lives it's real as human and yeah it's just full of incredible information I could read it and reread it thank you the lesson