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This weekend, I had the chance to attend a Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby competition. Attending the event almost instantly triggered the question, “How many parents completely took over this project, completing the derby car for the kid instead of with the kid?” The number of people who answer yes to this question is likely—and unfortunately—a lot higher than I’d like it to be.

Lately, I’ve been hearing or reading a lot about that classic daycare and preschool rule “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” Adults argue that by telling kids this sing-song phrase, we are teaching them that life isn’t fair and people can’t always have the things that they want.

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.

Recently, I had the opportunity to play Sorry with a five-year-old. As we played the game, the child picked her card at each turn and pouted, whined, and threatened to quit the game each time she picked a card that didn’t allow one of her pawns to escape from the START point.

New research has suggested that parents use natural consequences–in place of punishments like spanking–as a way to guide children’s behaviors. Basically, what this research suggests is that historical discipline techniques, like spanking, teach a child to fear the parent and do what is asked of him out of fear.

I’m often inspired to write articles based on scenes from TV and movies. I have a difficult time shutting off my therapist brain and I ask myself, “Hmm…that was an interesting parenting lesson. I wonder if the parent viewers got that message?” When I ask myself that question, I just have to write about it, just in case the parent viewers in fact did not get the message.

As an in-home therapist for young kids and their parents, one of the most common skills I taught to parents was how to run an effective time-out. Often times I did this because parents were attempting to begin a discipline regimine, as they hadn’t had one to begin with or the one they had chosen wasn’t working to eliminate the problem.

Before I opened my play therapy practice, I worked as an in-home child and family therapist who helped parents to improve parenting skills so that their children could develop optimally. One of the most common complaints I received from parents was that the child “just won’t listen.” Even more, these parents were certain that there were no solutions to their child’s behaviors and that they were stuck for life just dealing with these negative behaviors.

After almost 4 years of being a child counselor in Sioux Falls and surrounding areas, I get frustrated when I hear stories like this.