Family RULES!

I’ve always felt extremely blessed to be a part of the family I am. My parents are still married, I have 6 siblings, 3 of which have started their own families, and there’s never been a time in my life where I doubted whether my parents loved each other, or whether they loved my siblings and me. It wasn’t until I stepped outside of my own home and comfortable lifestyle that I realized my family was the exception.

After graduating high school, I quickly moved out of my home and into an apartment on the university campus I was attending. I lived with one person I knew from my adolescence, but the rest were strangers. A week into living there, I discovered it wasn’t exactly normal to have high standards, to work hard, or to be a diligent student. In my mind, there was no other way to live your life. My feelings were only amplified when I started serving a mission for my church. As part of this adventure, I would spend 24/7 with someone I’d never met for anywhere from 6 weeks- 6 months. Talk about culture shock! Not only was I in a new place, COMPLETELY different from where I was raised, but I was living with people I would never choose to live with.

Sometimes these new people became my absolute best friends! We agreed on almost everything and had the same goals for life and the mission. Other times, I struggled to mesh my living style with theirs. While I chose to clean my dishes every day, they cleaned theirs once a week. I liked to exercise every morning, they liked to eat breakfast and relax. It wasn’t just the little things that made it difficult though. I learned to handle those, but the real struggles came when we tried to communicate about problems or when we disagreed on something important. Sometimes, I was quite frankly shocked by the ways things were handled by my new roommates. Eventually, I decided to avoid judgement. Instead, I learned that almost everything I “disliked” or was annoyed by could be attributed to the way they were raised. It’s not that they were deciding to act a certain way, rather, they knew no different. The role they were raised to play in their family was simply different than mine.

As we spent the last week learning about the family as a system, the behavior of my roommates and companions started to make more sense. They had grown up with different rules than me and for that reason, they did things differently. Maybe some were even raised without any restrictions at all. That seemed to be the case with a particular one. She wasn’t used to having restrictions on things like schedule, phone use, etc. I’m sure it was a hard adjustment for her. This experience made me grateful to the effort my parents put into creating a safe environment with good boundaries. It also made me curious about why exactly rules were important. Why exactly did that distinguish me so strongly from others?

One thing I noticed about this companion was that she was easily irritable and her emotions always changed very quickly. Originally, I thought this was a personal choice. She just needed to stop getting annoyed, but I was in the wrong. According to psychotherapist Amy Morin, “Each limit you set is an opportunity for your child to practice managing their emotions.” Because my companion was so used to instant gratification and little consequences, she had a hard time dealing with negative emotions and things escalated beyond what they needed to. In addition, Cyprus Central Hospital adds, “Children who do not learn to follow the limits and rules will also be more mentally restless because they cannot develop healthy coping methods and their risk of developing psychiatric diseases will increase.” Clearly, rules are important. Without them, the quality of emotional health actually decreases!

This is just one of many reasons why it is important to set limits/boundaries at a young age. I am far from perfect, but because my parents didn’t hesitate to limit me and then discipline me if I chose not to listen, I have become a more stable and healthy adult. The rules that I despised when I was a teenager have easily become some of the most beneficial parts of my life. I’m grateful for my family and especially grateful for my parents and the way I was raised. Rules rule, that simple!

Resources:

https://www.verywellfamily.com/reasons-why-it-is-important-to-set-limits-with-kids-1094884

https://cypruscentralhospital.com/en/the-importance-of-setting-limits-when-raising-children/