A Word about Boundaries and Hard Work

Me, my parents and 10 of my siblings at my sister's wedding in 2009

My brothers and sisters have commented before, and I have been asked; with so many children (twelve, 1 who died at age 18), how did my parents manage to keep us all close and faithful to the values we were raised with? On top of that, how is it that so many of us have been successful in our lives? Although we are all different and unique individuals, we hold true to what we were taught at home and strive to live up to the expectations set for us. This is not to say we haven’t had our share of disappointment and adversity or rebellion. Nor have we always seen eye to eye on everything. The values we were taught have stuck though, and any rebellion we had was minimal in comparison to the world’s standards. Why is that? 

My parents are quick to deny credit for the way their children have turned out. My mom generally points out that this is just the way we were sent to them. I beg to differ. I would like to point out a few things my parents did with us to teach us and keep us from rebelling in a major way and what we try to emulate in our own home as we teach and raise our children.

Determine your family values and stick by them. You can find our family values here. My parents always had boundaries for everything. For example, in our home, “shut up” was a swear word and not tolerated. In our home the word “hate” is similarly not tolerated. If the boundaries are set close enough in, when children rebel, they won’t go as far as they would if they were left to the end of the border.

Come down swift and terrible when family values are violated. This does not mean being mean. Have a consequence for when a child violates those family values and then follow through. Try to distance yourself from the emotion. I remember reading an article once that said when your child is resistant and you need to stand your ground, look at them steadily and think of something completely benign like kumquats. (I’m not exactly sure what kumquats are, but think they are some sort of fruit) I find when I do this, I remove myself emotionally from the situation and am able to follow through without the fights. One more example about swift and terrible: when my brother was 16 or 17, he decided to dye his hair. It was a bit of a disaster. His hair turned bright orange. My dad laid into him about representing our family and setting an example for his siblings. He was confined to his bedroom until the hair dresser could be arranged to change his hair back to a more suitable color. It wasn’t the hair color that was necessarily the problem. In fact, my dad admits now that it was actually sort of funny, but it was the principle of rebellion that my dad was coming down hard on. I guess what it comes down to is that strict works. We had strict parents, but they weren’t mean. That is why I love them, respect them and thank them. Because of the strictness of the way, we were directed in the right path and as we grew older, we didn’t depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6) 

Parenting is hard work. Anything that is worth doing well will be hard work. You can’t expect to send your child to school each day and expect them to learn without providing them a teacher. You are their teacher for their values and you have to work hard and help them to stay on the pay. We value families. We spend a lot of time together as a family. We take vacations together. We have family dinner nearly every night. We take outings together and have a family home evening once every week where we teach a lesson about anything from budgeting and finances to temples and being a good friend. We play a game, sing a song or two and have a refreshment. We also have family prayer every morning and most evenings as well as study the scriptures together most evenings. This is all hard work. It means a lot of planning and preparation. No work you do in training your children is ever wasted though. If it doesn’t strengthen them, it certainly strengthens you.

Praise effort in the right direction. Most children desire approval from their parents above all. This is not an area to manipulate or exploit, but is a tool to encourage and motivate a child to make choices in their life that will lead them to success and happiness. When I was a teenager, my dad would often come into the room where I would be practicing the piano. He would lie down on the ground and just listen to me. This was enough motivation for me to not only continue playing the piano, but to begin practicing for many hours at a time, eventually being able to give a senior recital when I was 18 and teach piano lessons to my children and others. It doesn’t often take much encouragement for a child to want to succeed.

Putting in the time and effort to teach your children doesn’t always make you popular. My oldest two were complaining the other day about something they had to do that their friends didn’t need to do. We explained our reasoning including helping them to see down the road several years to where their friends might be compared to where they might be if they followed our counsel and rules. 

My parents taught us all how to be obedient and kept us there until we were old enough to see the wisdom of the path. I do not feel that I was restrained. Quite the contrary; I feel I was able to avoid many of the trials that beset many of my associates. Because of the strictness, I now enjoy much more freedom. I am not afraid of anything coming out of my past (except maybe that embarrassing 6th grade photo). I am not bound by addictions (except perhaps chocolate). I don’t feel like I’ve missed some great opportunity to figure things out on my own by making mistakes because I have made mistakes, heaps of them. I continue to make mistakes, but because of my upbringing, I know how to correct those mistakes and learn from them. This gives me more freedom to learn and go about where I would like. Don’t be afraid of the task and don’t double guess when you have to come down hard when those around you would let it slide. Keep the end goal in mind and follow through. If you’re having a tough time being tough, give yourself a pep talk. I often disappear into the bathroom during a difficult confrontation of wills to look myself in the mirror and say, “Come on Becky. You totally have this. Get out there and do what you’ve been trained to do.” And off I go to tame the ruthless savages once again!