How do you set firmer family boundaries without becoming snappy?

[Lilypad789]

Please don’t post on Facebook as it is too specific and quite outing.

I am struggling to set boundaries within my (very close / immediate) family. I have asked for advice and I have followed a lot of what people suggested with some small successes. I am curious though as to how people would deal with the following scenarios in terms of boundary setting. For context I am a little burnt out, peri-menopausal and very much fell up. A little worried I may combust and say something I regret so I’m trying to be sensible and prevent that.

My child was visiting this weekend (pre-arranged) I knew we needed to be somewhere else 3.5hrs after they arrived (only 15 mins drive) My child gave me a rough time they would arrive so I decided to get ahead of the issue and send a message letting them know the latest time we would need to leave and stressed the importance of the event and that we were on time. I thought that would give them the chance to arrive at the beginning of their arrival estimation if they wanted to maximise their time with us. About 45 minutes before we needed to set off, I mentioned that I needed to start tidying up ready to leave. I started putting chairs away (all very obvious) I also asked my OH to go out and say to our younger children ‘you need to tidy your toys away now, we’re leaving for x,y,z in 10 minutes.’ And then eventually (because my adult child wasn’t packing anything up or getting ready to leave) I had to say that we needed to leave. We ended up being 10 minutes late to the next thing and I just don’t know how much clearer I could be.

The 2nd one I am interested in hearing advice about is how to set boundaries with my youngest child (9), I am hyper aware now that I must protect my time and my boundaries with them now so that I’m not still trying to do it in 15-20 years time like I am with my older child. I am gentle because they are young but it’s hard. For example, I have asked them to not come and ask me to help them / watch them do something / basically want my attention whilst I have my 1st coffee of the day (6-7 minute job) I don’t think that’s much to ask but they insist on still invading my space and talking to me and demanding my attention. I have said ‘remember not until I’ve finished my coffee.’ About 10,000 times! They asked me earlier to check the weather for tomorrow and I (not so gently) reminded them that I am allowed to look at my phone after a day filled with taking very good care of them and that they have a device they could check k the weather on.

Someone help me because I’m starting to not like people very much and I don’t want to be that person.

I will be doing it until I die most likely as one is severely disabled and mentally impaired. I didn’t think it mattered for the purpose of the post to be honest.

People aren't understanding why you dont just use words with your children, adult and pre-teen.

But I did! This is what I mean. I repeatedly said ‘we have to leave.’ And they just didn’t move. I know what you’re saying and that it sounds unbelievable but it doesn’t come naturally for me to say ‘how many times am I going to have to tell you we need to leave before you start the process of leaving?’ Or ‘you have to leave right now. I’ve already told you the time we need to leave and I’ve mentioned it twice since.’

No they have never lived here, been left home for over 4 years. Never given a key as we don’t live that close and we have family closed. Same the other way around, we don’t have a key to theirs and that’s fine. It’s not a big deal to us.

But you didn't say 'you need to go home soon because we're leaving in 30 minutes'. All you were saying was what you were going to do. You didn't tell them what they had to do. And then when the 30 minutes were up, you still didn't tell them it was time for them to leave as well.

Well of course it matters.
🙄

Right okay. I get that. I thought it would be obvious to them but maybe not, I can take that on board.

On a post about getting the non disabled children to respect a boundary? I’m not so sure.

I think people are deliberately misunderstanding. I did say eldest was ‘visiting’ to me that’s pretty obvious they don’t live at home.

They could still have been coming to stay though.
One of my adult dc lives away from home and when she visits, she stays for a few days.
Just because you know what the situation is, if you don't explain it clearly to everyone else, we will all probably start by thinking of our situations, or we will just try and guess what you mean or ask you to clarify.
If people are asking you to clarify then, obviously you haven't been specific enough.
No-one is "deliberately misunderstanding". Why would we do that ?

I’m not sure what to say. I thought ‘visiting’ and ‘maximising the amount of time they had with us’ was enough to make it obvious it was a visit from someone who doesn’t live with us.

Some people do misunderstand on purpose though so that they can have a little dig at you. I did try to clarify it shortly after I posted as well. Oh well, never mind it’s not the end of the world, no one died.

I agree that with the adult child, you are dropping hints that they are failing to pick up on. They might think that because you're saying "we have to leave", it doesn't affect them. They might experience time blindness so they don't realise when the 30 minutes is up. They might be so distracted with their own thoughts that they just don't realise they should be doing something.

I would have a standard phrase and say something like, "we're leaving in 5 minutes so I'll have to ask you to leave now." No need to be snappy or irritable. The key is to be clear, direct and specific in telling them what they need to do.

With your younger children, things that will help them learn to leave you alone are:

• giving them focused attention beforehand to fill their "attention cup" (helping them with the morning routine is unlikely to be enough attention to do this).
• find something for them to occupy themselves with.
• use a visual eg an egg timer. have a standard phrase about "when...then". "When the egg timer finishes, then I'll help you." "When the egg timer finishes, then I'm available to talk." It's important to keep the when...then structure because this is the same as the order in which things happen. It will be more confusing if you say "I'll help you when the egg timer finishes" because the helping comes after *the egg timer, not before.
• keep repeating the standard phrase. It usually takes 6-8 weeks to train a new habit.

When the habit is established, you should be able to ease up on the first two points. But doing them is likely to make the whole thing more successful to start up.

Well, if it's your non-disabled child they should be able to dress themself and brush their teeth without you standing over them. If necessary help them sort clothes out the night before. Have your coffee while they're getting ready and if you discover they haven't put on clean underwear then they have to take half their clothes off and change.
With your older DC, the 30 minute warning was obviously disregarded because she didn't need to do anything then. At 10 minutes was the time to get snappy. Or simply leave when you needed to and give them your key to pop through the letter box when they've locked up.

Thank you, this is very helpful. I realised when someone said that I didn’t tell them what they needed to do that I need to do that going forward. I’ll be honest, I will find that hard. It seems like it should be so obvious to someone but clearly now. I’m so used to trying to make sure I’m not an inconvenience to anyone that I’m really attuned to people needing to get off or not overtaking my welcome that it never occurred to me that some people don’t do that. I like the idea of giving them something to fill their cup / occupy them before I need my time. I will try that thanks.

If you're not finding it easy to be assertive with your adult child, then it is much easier to say, "we've got to do X so I'll have to ask you to do Y" than it is to just say, "Please can you do Y?" An even less direct version would be, "We've got to do X now, so I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to do Y." That added apology can help your brain feel like you're acting in character, rather than being bolshy or stroppy.

You really can train yourself to do things differently. I had the opposite problem from you - my eldest was classically autistic and needed very direct, precise instructions. However, his next sibling could not handle that at all and would get hugely stressed with us talking to either of them like that, so we had to retrain the eldest - and ourselves - to use indirect language. It took a while but was ultimately very successful.

Good luck!

What I say with overstaying visitors including family is ‘I’m sorry to have to kick you out now but we have to leave in 10 minutes’. It’s direct but a little jokey, and it gets them moving.

I recognise a lot of what you are describing, and can see just how uncomfortable you are about making direct statements, especially when it’s your own needs that you are trying to meet. I’m from a culture that isn’t great at being direct (Scottish) because it’s often seen as being selfish to state your own needs clearly - especially if it puts someone else out in any way. My DHs family take it to an extreme - both he and his sister have suffered anxiety/ depression / burnout as a result. They find it hard to ‘be rude’ by defending their own boundaries or stating their own needs clearly. They expect other people to ‘take the hint’ and somehow act on what’s not being said 🙄 then if the other person doesn’t do this, they resent the other person for ‘taking advantage’ of them.

DH at work, for example, said yes for years when he wanted to say no. He expected his manager to recognise that he shouldn’t have been saying yes 🤷‍♀️ in fact he deeply resented his manager for putting him in a position where he would have to say no - because he’d never been taught how to say no politely or assertively 🤦‍♀️

I was going somewhere with my mother this weekend and she was getting ready and saying we were leaving soon, then she had a cup of coffee then more preparations for leaving and then she made a phone call and then some more crashing about getting ready and so on. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. So maybe your long run up to leaving isn’t working.

I don’t think you see at all unreasonable for wanting ten minutes to drink a coffee. I’ve said this before on MN but when mine were little I had an egg timer called the ‘no questions egg timer’ and when it was set, usually for those first ten minutes when you get home and there is unpacking of shopping or school bags and the like, they could talk to me and tell me things but not ask me a question. It worked really well as it gave me some time but also made them solve their own problems!

Well, if this is the case, could it be that your adult child was reluctant to go because they hadn’t had enough of you? Maybe 3.5hrs wasn’t long enough, they were trying to prolong their time, don’t have the words to say they want more of you? If you’ve been clear to the extent of “I’m getting ready to leave at 3.45pm, can you start getting your stuff together too please so I can lock up” and they didn’t do it, is it possible there’s something else going on? Or are they just arrogant and feel rules don’t apply to them?

The 9yo definitely can wait for your attention for the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. That just needs plain talking and repetition and explanation.

Maybe it is that. I feel like even if they want to stay they need to accept that they cant though and I don’t think that makes me a bad person. I don’t have umlimited time and they need to understand that. I
I think there may be a slight arrogance / expectation / entitlement that has come from me not protecting my time - hence me trying to enforce small amounts of time for myself with the younger ones so that it’s normal for them when they’re older.

Adult children often revert to childhood patterns when at "home". I know I had to work hard to consciously stop doing it myself. If you have consistently expected children to be considerate without actually specifying, or providing conseuences for poor behaviour, this might be even worse as your adult child has grown up expecting to be accommodated. I speak as someone who saw this exact scenario with her younger brother who was treated as the baby until he was well into his 30s (and loved it).

I also think being "gentle" with your children is all very well and good, but there are times when a firm, sharp, "No - I'm busy for 10 minutes, I'll help you after" is totally fine.

How old is this adult child? I’m sympathetic to parents having their own needs and not always putting their children first, especially as children grow up. But it’s a balancing act: children are allowed to need their parents, and that need doesn’t stop at 18 or 21 or whatever. It’s not a question of the parent setting boundaries to ensure everyone gets what they need. It’s about the parents being the adults in the room and reading who needs what most urgently, when. You’re not definitively “a bad person” for wanting to leave the house on time when you’ve told the adult child with days and hours and minutes of warning that that is what will happen. But it sounds like your oldest child might need more from you than you’re giving - and that’s kind of your job as the parent. You can’t just put a fence up around yourself and your younger children and put the older child away in a box. It doesn’t work like that, and that’s not about disrespecting boundaries.

With the older one, natural consequences, if they aren’t ready to leave on time, you leave without them and they can make their own way there, or they suffer the consequences of being late, whatever those may be (not being able to join in because they missed the start time).

With your younger child, they are too little at 9 to grasp this, you keep repeating it. It would be hard for Dh to remember not to speak to me first thing in the morning. I would expect a 9 year old to give me some space if asked (a couple times), but I would expect to have to ask every time. They don’t have the capacity to self-regulate to that extent at such a young age. Or better yet, I’d remove the opportunity. Don’t set them up for failure every morning. Get up before they do for coffee or go out in the garden. It’s an approach called making the right thing easy. Basically, make it easy for them to do what you want by making it hard to do what you don’t want.

Yes I think they maybe do need more of me. There’s not much left to give between ensuring all the children have a part of me, work, making sure I stay physically healthy, cooking, cleaning, being a daughter and a granddaughter etc.

I think that’s the life you’ve chosen, really, with this many children and this kind of age gap. You were a daughter and granddaughter, then added more and more people to your life. Work and health and food and shelter are given whether you have no children or 5. Now you have to choose between your children and your parents and grandparents. Everyone has the same 24 hours in the day. It’s not your children’s fault that you’ve chosen this life for yourself, and they can’t be expected to stay in the boxes and time slots you assign to them. They are people too. They need their mother and you owe them time seeing as it was your choice to have them. Just like your parents chose to have you and owe you their time and attention - which at this stage looks like freedom to put your own children first. This doesn’t mean your 9yo can’t be told to wait 10 mins while you have coffee, or your adult child unilaterally decides by their actions to make you late for something. But something is going wrong somewhere. Give different time to your 9yo, more time to your adult child and less to parents and grandparents, I’d say.

No I won’t actually. My Grandmother will be dead before I know it and deserves some of my time. I disagree with you entirely. Almost 4 hours of my undivided attention on a weekend for my adult child is okay with me because that’s the amount of time I have before other parts of my life become neglected. If they are adults that hate me because of that then so be it but I won’t stop also making people that raised me and need me now a priority. I don’t need advice on whether it’s enough time, it is what I have and that’s that.

🤷‍♀️. Well, that’s that then. You’ve made your choice: 4 hours is what you’re prepared to give your adult child, you’re okay with that (regardless of whether they are) and you won’t change that. (Nobody is in any position to judge you for it btw, this is entirely for you and your conscience - and of course for your children to bear the consequences of.)

So when you ask how to make your children respect your boundaries, what you’re really asking is how to make them accept what you’re prepared to give and not ask for more. I have no clue how to answer that (because that’s not how life works imo, they’re humans with needs, not machines tailor-made to fit around your life choices/vision) so I’ll leave you to it.