3 Signs Your Kid Has Poor Boundaries

Are you frustrated or even embarrassed by your child’s lack of boundaries? While learning to recognize the social cues of appropriate boundaries is something that typically comes with age and requires patience on the part of the parent, this is a developmental stage that won’t just naturally develop on its own. Just as parents help with the developmental process for things like learning to say the alphabet and count to 10, so too do parents need to guide and teach the child how to develop age-appropriate boundaries by recognizing the social rules that govern boundaries.

If you see your child showing any of these signs, it might be a good time to start thinking about ways that you can teach your child about the social cues and rules of the world that govern safe, healthy and appropriate boundaries.

Sign #1

You and your family are eating supper at a friend’s house when you hear your daughter say, “Sweet! You guys have Go-Gurt!” You turn to find your daughter standing with the refrigerator door open, tearing open a Go-Gurt to enjoy.

This lesson can be a really difficult one for kids to learn. Often times, kids spend time in a few familiar homes where raiding the refrigerator at meal and snack time is completely appropriate, or using another person’s possession has already been approved. Of course, at your house, your child is likely more than welcomed to pick out her own snack and she might even have permission to use your cell phone to play games. And even at other homes, like her grandparents’ house or the daycare provider’s house, she may have been already given permission to look in the refrigerator when she is hungry, or to play with grandma’s iPad without permission.

However, if your child hasn’t been given permission to raid the refrigerator of another person or use another person’s possession, then your child is demonstrating rude, socially inappropriate behavior.

As an adult who has learned these lessons already, you know when it is and is not appropriate to take food from others or use another person’s possession, at least I hope you do. For example, you’re probably aware that it’s more than appropriate to snack on foods that are placed on the kitchen counter at a pot luck Super Bowl party and also probably aware that when visiting that same house for a game of cards, it isn’t appropriate to open the cupboards, find a bag of Oreos and eat them, unless given permission to do so by the homeowner. As adults, we get this; however, kids don’t. They need to be taught.

To teach your child to stop violating these boundaries and develop healthier boundaries, have a simple conversation with your kid about the rules of society related to food and possessions of others. Talk about when it’s ok to take food without asking (which, for some kids, may be never) when it’s important to ask you and when it’s necessary to ask the person who the food belongs to. In your conversations, share your expectations for how your child should treat food at your house, compared to grandpa and grandma’s house, compared to another person’s house, and you can even introduce topics like the grocery store and restaurants, including sit down and carry out style restaurants.

Talk about how to act at other people’s houses in regards to asking for permission—for food or possessions—and provide guidance and redirection when you see a boundary being crossed. Discuss the rules for behavior at the homes of others, at the mall, at the movie theater and at daycare or preschool. Role-model and discuss how to be respectful in interactions with the possessions of others. The more you talk about how the world works and what your expectation is for her in that world, (usually) the more prepared she will be to handle those situations more appropriately the next time.

Sign #2

As your family enters the crowded carnival, your preschool son takes off into the crowd of people to play games. You lose sight of him in seconds and have to go in search for him.

Many children develop a natural fear of strangers, big spaces and crowds of people, so they are naturally inclined to develop the skill to have safe and healthy boundaries with strangers. However, some kids do not feel that fear and may choose to disappear in a crowded place to explore the fun, without a thought about the dangers that are present.

As adults, we know how dangerous this can be as children are vulnerable and naïve to exploitation from unsafe adults, and even older children. It’s essential that parents talk with kids—in an age-appropriate way—about how to be safe around strangers and large crowds of people, without traumatizing children by threatening the worst of the worst.

There are plenty of books that help adults to teach topics like stranger danger to kids in an age-appropriate way, like The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers and Not Everyone is Nice.

If you’re worried that you can’t teach your child about stranger danger and how to be safe in public without traumatizing them, try using a resource like a book or DVD that teaches these concepts. Otherwise, it’s appropriate to have conversations with children about stranger danger just like you teach anything else. Schedule times to talk about stranger danger and how to be safe in large, crowded places.

While almost anytime is a good time to do this, it’s essential that you have a conversation about this with kids before you head off to that carnival, baseball game or out to the mall. Remind your child of your expectations, why you have those expectations for him (to keep him safe) and what his consequences will be if he doesn’t act appropriately.

Sign #3

When you drop your five-year-old off at daycare, she walks right over to a group of girls who are playing and interrupts their conversation with her own commands about what is going to happen in the play.

Kids who haven’t had a lot of experience socializing with other kids—like only children or kids who have stayed at home with a parent and haven’t attended daycare—may be behind in learning how to read the social cues of friendship, play and teamwork. They may interrupt the play of others and barge in on their play and use their toys simply because they want to. Without help, these kids are at risk of exaggerating their boundary pushing because they are more likely to be rejected by their peers. The more boundaries they cross, the more they will be rejected; the more they are rejected, the less likely they are to learn socially appropriate skills and therefore the more likely they are to exacerbate their deficits with boundaries.

Whenever an adult witnesses a child violating the social rules of society—whether it be crossing boundaries, hurting the feeling of others, etc.—it’s incredibly important that those adults use that situation as a way to educate the child on how to act more appropriately next time. What’s important is that these adults use this opportunity to teach the child that how she acted in this situation was wrong, discuss the feelings of others—even the child’s feelings if she had hypothetically been the victim of the incident—and inform her of a more appropriate way of handling a situation like this in the future.

For young kids, boundary crossing is totally normal and nothing to be concerned about. However, as children start to reach preschool and school age, if boundary crossing is still occurring on a regular basis, there’s cause for concern. No matter what age your child is, yesterday was the right time to start talking about appropriate boundaries and guiding boundary-appropriate behaviors.