What’s Too Strict? What’s Not Strict Enough?

Parenting is a tough job and, if you’re like many of us, navigating effective discipline is the most challenging part of it. We need clarity! For this reason, many have appreciated Janet’s recent episode: “Strict is Loving”. You’ve also had questions—lots of questions—in regard to walking (what can seem to be) the fine line between too strict and too permissive. Janet addresses many of your questions in this episode, offering her perspective on issues with kids and peers, transitions, behavior during tantrums, intervening with pets, and more.

Transcript of “What’s Too Strict? What’s Not Strict Enough?”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I’m going to talk about some feedback that you’ve given me in response to a recent podcast episode I did called Strict Is Loving. I wanted to get into that a little more deeply and look at some examples of where, in my opinion, we’re being too strict and then where maybe we’re not being strict enough, where we’re being too permissive.

First I’d like to talk about being too strict. And I want to clarify that none of these points I’m making are anything to do with judging parents for making certain choices. I don’t do that and it wouldn’t be my job, in my opinion, to do that anyway. It’s not about you’re doing something wrong, you’re not a good parent, anything like that. My point is that these don’t work for us. They don’t work in the bigger picture with our child, and often even in the short term they don’t work.

One of the main reasons they don’t work is that they undermine the most invaluable lifelong discipline tool that we’ll ever have as parents, and that is the relationship we nurture with our child, a relationship of safety and trust, intimacy, that sense of closeness that kids develop when they feel seen and understood and we’re on their team. You hear me say that a lot. That we’re making choices with their best interests at heart. That’s something that they’re not going to tell us that they sense in the moment. They’re going to be mad at us and upset about the decisions that we make and the limits that we set, but they do sense this. I fully believe that and I’ve seen evidence of it, that children know when we have their best interests at heart and that we’re doing what’s harder for most of us, which is setting limits rather than just letting things go and letting things get out of hand. They sense that just as much, and maybe even more, when we’re saying no than they do when we’re saying yes. And it’s because of the way we’re saying no, that’s the key and that’s what I want to talk about. So that’s my thinking behind referring to some of the points I’m going to make as too strict and then not strict enough, or we could say too permissive.

The first point I believe is too strict and doesn’t work: punishments. Why don’t punishments work for us in the long run? They make children feel that we’re against them, that we’re working against each other. They don’t feel like we’re helping them to do the better behavior, which is what they really need. Instead, we’re shaming them for the behavior that we don’t like. And we’re teaching them to be afraid of doing those behaviors when unfortunately so many of them, most of them I would say, are impulsive behaviors that children do know better about, but they’re finding themselves doing it anyway.

When we punish children for those things, even time-out—that’s controversial, but I don’t believe in time-out because it teaches children that when you’re caught up in doing wrong things, I want you to go away and think about it and I am not going to deal with you then. I’m mad at you and I want you to go somewhere else, feel isolated—which is scary for a very young child, especially—and think about what you did. Well, studies show that children aren’t thinking about what they did and how they can do better. They’re just in that feeling, in that feeling of fight or flight and shame and fear, and feeling like we’re not there to help them, we don’t understand them, we just want them to know that they’ve done bad. I believe there are many better ways to do that, knowing that children need our help when they’re acting in these ways, not to be repeatedly told they’re wrong for doing it.

Most of the time they know they’re wrong for doing it, they know they’re not doing the right thing, but they’re caught up doing it anyway. And in a way, there’s a question in that. The question is: Can you still love me and help me and see me when I’m doing this, or does this make you turn against me? Maybe it’s just for a moment, maybe it’s just during that time-out or in that other punishment that we’re giving them. It may sound like a subtle difference, but it feels like a huge difference if you’re a child.

The second one that’s too strict: when you’re disappointed or angry or frustrated, keep it to yourself. The dynamic kids need from us that really does work and help is: I set a boundary as needed. You get to feel however you feel about that. That’s your right. It doesn’t change my boundary. It doesn’t cause me to now have to stop everything and make you feel better. It just is. And I can show you that I’m a safe person to be in conflict with. In fact, I expect it. If we think about it, none of us really want a child who is so afraid that they never do anything against our wishes or complain when we say no to them about something. That is not a healthy child, unfortunately. That kind of quiet obedience or whatever you want to call it, that’s not a child who is learning the way we want children to learn. It’s a child who feels we’re scary and they’re bad a lot of the time and they just need to try to stay out of trouble. That’s not going to encourage a child to feel that trust with us and to therefore want to be cooperative, want to do the right thing as much as they possibly can because they know we’ll love them either way.

I know that is sort of an old-school approach. Well, actually, it came up in last week’s podcast episode, Character Building Lessons You Want Your Kids to Learn, where somebody brought up “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” To say you have to accept my decision without a peep is expecting too much. That’s too strict, in my opinion, and it’s not going to help us get that relationship that we want.

The third one: restraining kids. This is done very lovingly and maybe it’s something that people think that I’m saying when I say block your kids from doing this and stop them when they’re acting out physically. But there’s an important distinction. What helps kids is when we can contain their behavior. When we’re restraining them, it’s overdoing it. Unless of course some extreme situation where a child has this really unsafe weapon or something in their hand and they’re totally out of control and all over the place and they can’t stop. Maybe then that’s the only way we can contain their behavior is to put our arms around them and hold them like that. But that’s a very rare situation, most of us will not be in that situation.

And when a child is lashing out or they’re not doing as we want them to do, to stop and hold them, it’s like we’re trying to suppress something. I can imagine being that child and being held when I’m so mad or I’m so upset. It’s kind of scary. Because now I think we could build that into rage inside ourselves that you’re not even letting us be upset, you’re not letting us be mad at you. And that’s not what parents mean by it at all, but I don’t recommend that. Nor do I actually recommend that we take a child all the way to another room because they’re acting out with the baby or another child or somehow in the environment unless there’s no way that we can be there to block them.

The way I would do that, and I guess it’s a way you could do time-out to be respectful too, is say, “This doesn’t feel safe, and sorry, but I’ve got to do this and I can’t watch you and I see you’re all out of control right now, so I’ve got to have you stay in your room for a bit until I’m done or until I can give you some attention again.” So it can be done in a way that’s loving. But that thing of the bear hug when a child is upset is, I don’t believe, giving children the message that we want to give them. The message we want to give them is that you get to have your reaction to things and it is our job to keep you safe and we’re capable of that. Ideally, they feel we can do that and it’s not going to be a big deal for us, we don’t have to go through a whole big number. It doesn’t project a sense of us being confident as leaders when we could do less to keep everyone safe but we’re doing more, going to the extent of removing a child from the situation completely or holding onto them.

Another thing I think is too strict that a lot of people do, maybe this is just me, I don’t believe in it: making kids do certain extracurriculars. I know a parent who said that his kids, who are still toddlers right now, but he said when they’re older, they’re going to have to choose at least one sport and one instrument. I’ve heard that philosophy before, that they need to have these learning experiences, so therefore I’m going to insist on that.

There are so many things that we have to dictate for children, and the balance they need is those green lights, where they get to choose. And for me, extracurriculars come under the category of “play” or “what I want to learn in my free time.” Free time being when I’m not getting ready for bed, when I’m not going to school, if they go to school, or doing schoolwork, when I’m not doing chores, if a child has chores. When I’m not doing these things that are required of me, then I get to decide. I mean within reason, we’re not going to let our child do things that aren’t going to be good for their development. But within reason, I get to do as little or as much as I want to do with that time.

This also works so much better for us as parents on a practical level because when it’s totally our child’s choice, they get to lead, they get to come up with these ideas, even, to do a lesson, and we happen to be in the privileged position of being able to provide that for them somehow, the level of their commitment is much, much, much higher. It’s like when we’re watching our child play and we’re trying to show them, Oh, look at this thing. This is how this works. Isn’t that interesting? and their eyes are glazing over. And then they’re getting into some totally random type of play and they’re spending a long time trying to figure something out, or they just want to play with their cars every day for weeks or do their Legos or whatever it is.

I’ve found that it works best to trust a child’s instincts there. Because they know best what they’re ready to learn and what they need to work more on to get ready for the next level of learning, whatever it is that they want to do. Only they know what those callings in them are, and we can get in the way of that. And then we’re in the position where we’ve got to make our child do this and that and we’re frustrated because we paid money for it and we put so much time into this and now they want to quit and we’re disappointed. So it’s just not a good setup for us, in my opinion. And maybe they don’t want to do either a sport or an instrument. Is that okay with us? I believe it’s best when it is, but again, that’s my opinion. You’re welcome to disagree. For me, I want to be assured that I’m not taking their time away, their important time from pursuits that are meaningful to them. And only they know what those are moment to moment.

In a way, it’s kind of a delicate thing, even when we say, “Hey, do you want to do this? Do you want to do that?” They get that sense, Oh, my parent’s kind of excited about this, or They think I should do this. And some children will want to say yes, if they don’t say yes. And then maybe they do end up doing things for us, and I don’t believe that’s our role, or a helpful one to them.

And then the last one that I think is too strict that I’m going to talk about: expecting them to do things totally on their own, like getting dressed, because we know that they’re able to do those things. The problem is, especially when it’s about a transitional activity like getting dressed or into their car seat or getting ready for bed, they may be able to do those things physically and mentally, but at that moment, the feelings that are coming up for them around transitions, which are a tricky time, are getting in the way and they’re getting stuck.

So if we’re standing there saying, “Do this, do this!”, again, we’re getting ourselves frustrated and mad at our child. We’re just going to, right? If we ask them a bunch of times and they’re not doing it. It works much better if we don’t try to make boundaries in those situations. If we say, “I’m going to help you do this.” And we’re willing to, we see it as a time to respond to a child’s wish for a helping hand and that little bit of care and attention from us. Ideally focused care and attention, where we’re just with them for those minutes. And that helps them through the transitions, that helps them be able to leave us again, when they have those times where we’re there with them having this intimacy and care. And we want to do it, we’re not doing it because we’ve asked them so many times and they’re not going to do it so now we have to. That doesn’t feel good to them.

Now I’m going to talk about what seems not strict enough or too permissive. But first I just want to explain, what do I mean by “strict”? Because I have gotten a couple of comments from people who said that the term strict has this really negative connotation for them, this authoritarian, punitive, unkind connotation, and they just can’t get beyond that. And I understand that.

It reminds me of when, several years ago, there were people, including some of the parenting coaches online, who were saying that we shouldn’t use the term “discipline” because the common connotation is that discipline means punishment, maybe even physical punishment, from the parent. It means this harshness, this force. And there were several of us who said that discipline, the Latin form is disciplina, that means to teach, to help kids develop character and self-discipline. So let’s work on changing the connotation rather than trying to come up with a whole different term. Parents recognize discipline as something that kids need and that maybe they as parents need help with—how to do this respectfully, how to give kids this. And so to serve those parents, if we’re coming up with some other term, maybe we’re not going to be able to serve them as well.

And that’s kind of how I feel about strict, in a sense. I mean, not that I’m going to be using this word a lot, I’m not, but my connotation is different. I was thinking about this a lot actually since that other episode that I did, Strict Is Loving. It’s being on it, just being on top of it a little bit. Being able to anticipate where a problem might be. And parents have said to me, “How can I be preventative and on top of it? It sounds exhausting to me. I’m not always going to be able to do that.” And that’s true, we’re not always going to be able to do it. But the more we can practice this mindset of setting limits as early as possible and, even better, being preventative, thinking ahead about what could possibly go wrong and trying to set our child and us up for success, then the more energy we’re going to have. Because we won’t be expending it on all the stressing when things go wrong, getting aggravated when we’ve asked our kids umpteen times to do something and been coaxing and cajoling them and playing games and it’s still not working. Those are the major frazzlers and energy-wasters in our day, and we can eliminate that. Setting our child up for success sets us up for success, making our lives easier as well.

Okay, not strict enough. A parent wrote to me about a recent situation where— I’m going to paraphrase—the toddler was being aggressive with one of their dogs. They have two, and they both have different personalities. Two dogs, that is, not two toddlers. And the smaller one is very protective and very sweet, very gentle, and he’s patient with their daughter. The other dog is the greyhound, also very sweet, but likes her own space and minds her own business. And she said for some reason her daughter has been going up to her and hitting her, sometimes pinching or throwing one of her toys at her. They say this has really caught them off guard because her daughter’s so sweet and they know she doesn’t want to hurt the dog. They’re not sure what’s setting this off. They’re saying it typically happens when they’re not giving their full attention, so they quickly respond and they tell her not to do that.

They’re alarmed and they feel it’s bad for their dog, so it’s hard not to be reactive. But she says, “Recently I told my husband I think we need to try to keep the reaction boring and not say much and just remove her from the dog for a period of time. This is just difficult at times, especially when I’m home alone with her and trying to get something done. Do you think this would be the right approach?”

This is an important situation. This is a safety concern for the dog and for the child’s safety and for respect for that animal. This is where I would be totally preventative. I would not let my child have access to that dog, keep the dog out or in a separate room or have gates so that the child does not have access to this dog. And I know that sounds inconvenient and hard and all that, but it’s important because somebody could get hurt and it’s not fair to do that to a dog. This parent’s reactions are understandable, but those reactions, unfortunately, she’s right that the alarm and the child feeling like she’s pushing a button in us does tend to make her keep going. Because she wants to have that safe reaction, she wants us to not get triggered like that. It makes her uneasy. So she has to unconsciously keep trying until she can see if this is safe for her with us, to see if we feel safe around it, and we can’t let it go that far.

What I would do is not give her access to the dog unless you have full attention. And then having your hand there way ahead of time, don’t let her anywhere near, make sure that you are blocking her from doing anything. Taking her all the way out of the room, that goes under the “too strict” category to me, because it makes even more of a big reaction out of this. Wow, they had to take me into a whole different room. It’s better to prevent their access. And then when you do have time, to be very adeptly there, blocking, not letting her come anywhere near where she could bother that dog, and just saying, “Looks like you want to touch the dog. I can’t let you do that unless you go in very gently.” And then if she wants to try going in very gently, you are right there with your hand near hers, ensuring that she’s doing that. And responding to her in a way that’s gentle but strong, so that you’re modeling that.

That’s an example of not strict enough. It’s actually one that I get asked about a lot, what to do about the pets. And I wish there was an easier answer, but unfortunately I don’t have one. Okay, so the first one: not being on it, setting ourselves up for success with prevention and anticipating.

The second thing that’s not strict enough is when we feel responsible to make better our kids’ feelings of frustration and disappointment when life doesn’t go their way. This is about this mindset of staying in our lane. So in a way we’re being strict with ourselves, that we’re going to stay in our lane. Like what I was saying with the “too strict” points about how some people think that kids shouldn’t feel upset when we say no, that they should just accept it and be quiet about it. Well, another way that we give them the impression that they are not allowed to have feelings of disagreement with us is when we’re trying to make them agree with us. We’re trying to calm them down because they’re mad that we said they couldn’t go up to the dog. And now I’ve got to sit with her and make sure she’s okay with that and that she knows we love her and trust her and that she shouldn’t feel discouraged about animals or anything about that. She won’t feel those things if we give her the reasonable boundaries. In fact, children will be relieved. It doesn’t discourage them from those situations, unless we do it harshly or abruptly or with a big reaction.

So those feelings are the natural consequences, if we want to talk about consequences, in life that children need to learn. Sometimes you get to do what you want and sometimes you don’t. And sometimes if you can’t do it safely or gently, like with the dog, then we can’t let you do it. And you get to be sad about that and disappointed, that’s your right. I’m not going to try to take that away from you or change it in any way. Because when we do feel responsible, kids get stuck there. They feel like, My parent is too uncomfortable to let me feel uncomfortable. It’s not okay for me to have any disappointments in life. And obviously we don’t want them to learn that.

Another one that parents commonly ask about is letting kids get hurt with other children or on the playground or anywhere. Because we think we should be hands-off and we want them to be able to stick up for themselves, we’re kind of leaving them to possibly get hurt there. Absolutely not. I’d be watching all the children. If it’s a new child that I don’t know or if it’s a stranger, I would check out that child’s energy. If they seem kind of out of control, I’m just going to come up and be close, just very relaxed, casually nearby. And now I see that child is approaching mine and they’re starting to push a little bit, maybe they get one push in. “You know what? I’m not going to let you push her.” So I’m not going off on that child or trying to be harsh with them or anything. That won’t work, it won’t help them anyway. I mean, all children are like this, they just need help. I’m just going to make sure that both children are safe. So I have my hand there. I’m just not going to let you do it. Doesn’t mean I need to take my child away or do a big thing, unless something gets extremely out of hand. I’m going to do the minimal thing that shows that I feel capable to be the leader here and keep everybody safe. Because this other child that’s with my child may not be getting boundaries and they may be needing them from me. I mean, that’s the thing that happens sometimes, unfortunately. So I’m going to give it to them, just the way I would with my child.

And then also, this is kind of a playground thing, letting kids jump the line or hold up the line if there’s a line for a slide or something. And people talk about letting your child go up the slide—yeah, that’s great when there’s nobody waiting to go on the slide, but if there’s somebody who wants to go down, I wouldn’t let my child go up the slide and block it. If my child is pausing at the top of the slide and they’re not sure they want to go down, I’m going to give them a moment and then say, “Okay, you’ve got to go down and I’ll spot you to make sure you don’t fall off, but I can’t let you just sit here” or “Do you need help getting down?” And then that’s probably the only way I would help a child get down off equipment, because I believe in letting them experience getting down themselves and just spotting.

Also on that note, I wouldn’t let my child go up to hug a stranger, whether it’s an adult or a child or even other kids they’re in a playgroup with if those children don’t seem receptive. I would be there, again, as what I call the “buddy guard”: this relaxed, calm person who’s not right next to them and on top of them, but I’m right nearby so I can put my hand in and stop them from hugging, say. “Let’s find out if he wants to hug. Hmm, looks like maybe he doesn’t, so I’m not going to let you.”

And then in regard to transitions, so in the “too strict” list I was talking about not expecting that kids can always do it themselves even if they know how, especially in transitions. Well, when it comes to not being on it enough, not being strict enough, I wouldn’t let kids decide when they’re going to get dressed or go to bed or get in the car and what the pace is going to be. I would help move them forward through that for the same reason as the other point I made, that they just get stuck. It’s hard for them to move from one thing to another. I’m not exactly sure why, I have a lot of theories, but I know that it’s true.

Anytime there’s something that we need our kids to do, I wouldn’t wait for them to do it for more than a moment or two. That becomes a recipe for us to be saying things again and again, coaxing and pleading, getting more and more aggravated, and that’s never going to be helpful. It’s better for our child if we don’t go there, it’s much better for us if we don’t have to go there, it’s a drain. So be ready: Oh, it’s a transition. My child very well may need help. Especially because they’re going through a lot of other things in life right now or they’re tired or they’re showing a sign that they’re stalling or they’re being uncooperative in a situation like leaving the party, leaving the play date, they don’t want to go, coming indoors. Those are all signals. Ooh, alright, I’m going to help them out. Right there, be on it with what I call confident momentum. Helping them through, not leaving them hanging trying to take charge of these situations that they’re showing us they can’t.

And the last one: doing things with them that we don’t want to do, like playing. There’s a lot about parenting that we have to do that we may not want to do, like be awake with them when we’re exhausted and we have to push through. And that’s laudable, that’s even heroic. But when we take on responsibilities to do other things our child asks of us just because they want it—which goes back to feeling responsible for their feelings again—and I don’t want my child to be upset with me, that’s going to be unhelpful to both of us. For obvious reasons, it’s going to be unhelpful to us because now we have to do things we don’t want to do and that can make us feel resentful. And it’s not helpful to our child because they’re not learning that we’re a three-dimensional human being with our own boundaries and likes and wants. And that other people have that too: other children have it, other adults have it. Everybody’s not centered around them. And that’s a really good thing for them to learn. They’ll keep pushing until they learn where our boundaries are, so the more we can be brave about the feelings we’re going to get in response, knowing it’s far from neglectful to be honest. Give them the gift of our honesty and our clarity and our conviction in standing up for ourselves.

In short, be preventative, be on top of it if you can. Be honest with yourself and with your child. Set limits early, early, early, at the very outset of problematic behavior. Learn about your child so you can be ready. Hold limits with conviction as a confident leader because we have no reason to feel otherwise. We’ve got this job, this is ours. And we can do this. We’re the grown-ups, they’re just little kids. And contain behavior rather than restraining children. Welcome them to share their feelings. Which means we’re not trying to fix their feelings or calm them down, because that’s the opposite of welcoming feelings. Let feelings be, but notice and allow them so kids don’t need to keep expressing them through their behavior.

I hope some of this helps. And to understand all of this much more completely, if you haven’t already checked out my course, if you want a comprehensive, nuanced take on all of this, it’s at nobadkidscourse.com. And by the way, I’m celebrating 15 years of sharing online through my website. All my blogs are still available to you for free, so please take advantage of them. They’re all there for you. And also my book No Bad Kids has been helpful to many parents apparently, and you might want to check that out as well.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.