What Teens Need To Know About Healthy Boundaries

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Teens often face challenges in expressing their needs and setting boundaries with friends, romantic partners, and family members. They may struggle to explain why certain situations make them uncomfortable, even when they sense a boundary is being crossed. To help, parents should work with their teens to establish clear physical and emotional boundaries. Effective communication of these boundaries is crucial for protecting teens from harmful relationships and maintaining healthy interactions, including with adult figures like coaches or relatives.

What Are Boundaries?

Boundaries are limits that teens set to protect themselves from being hurt or manipulated. They help maintain self-worth by creating space when necessary and managing toxic relationships. Effective boundaries offer protection while maintaining connections with others. Healthy boundaries are essential for successful relationships, as they help teens understand their feelings, recognize their limits, and communicate clearly and honestly.

Why Boundaries for Teens Are Important

Learning to set physical and emotional boundaries is crucial for teens as they develop healthy and supportive friendships and dating relationships. However, many teens struggle with setting boundaries, which can lead to unhealthy relationships, bullying, and abuse. Although it can be uncomfortable and lead to conflict, mastering this skill is essential for their well-being and personal growth.

How To Set Boundaries

Teens face various relationship scenarios where setting boundaries is crucial, such as deciding whether to share homework or engage in gossip. It’s important for them to remember not to feel guilty and to remain consistent in maintaining healthy boundaries. Understanding how to set boundaries helps teens navigate challenges and stay true to their values.

Help your teen identify their feelings: Learning to recognize and label different feelings is not as easy as it sounds. It takes work for your teen to stop and think about how they are feeling in any given situation. They may recognize they’re upset, but are they angry, frustrated, or sad? Pinpointing how they feel is the first step.

Teach your teen to trust their gut: Let your teen know that they should always trust their intuition. If something feels wrong or off about a situation, it probably is. They are not being dramatic or overly sensitive, regardless of what other people say. The point is that they need to be true to who they are—not what someone else expects them to be.

Help them identify unacceptable behaviors: Sometimes, teens need help determining what a healthy relationship or friendship looks like. Regularly talk to them about what constitutes a healthy friendship or dating relationship and what respect looks like. It’s not uncommon for teens to accept unhealthy behaviors in others, but when they do they are compromising their self-worth.

Address the importance of digital boundaries: Most relationships today have a digital component. Talk to your teen about digital etiquette, sexting, and digital dating abuse. Ensure they know how to stay safe online and set boundaries with people violating their values.

Give them key phrases they can use to diffuse situations: Setting boundaries is difficult and requires a lot of practice. It also requires some thought and decision-making. For this reason, teens need some basic phrases that buy them some time. Some examples include: “Let me think about that and get back to you,” “No, thank you. I’m not comfortable with that,” or “Let me talk to my parents and let you know tomorrow.”

Allow them to practice at home: Establishing boundaries with another person isn’t easy—even for some adults. For this reason, teens need to practice in a safe environment with people they know love them unconditionally. Allow your teen to say “no” to things and set personal boundaries. Encourage your teen to develop autonomy and independence at home by allowing them to voice their opinions and make decisions.

Explain that friendships have limits: Too often, teens fall into the trap of believing they need to be all things to their friends. Stress that every friendship is different and will play a different role in their lives. Being a good friend doesn’t require agreement on every single issue. Having different opinions or beliefs is what makes relationships so interesting.

Model good boundary-setting skills: One of the best ways to teach your teen good boundary-setting skills is to model the behavior in your own life. Evaluate your relationships with others. Are you setting a good example by establishing boundaries with people who try to take advantage of you or don’t treat you well? If not, start setting boundaries in your own life as well.

Explain the risks of not setting boundaries: Sometimes, it’s much easier for a teen just to let things go or not say anything when a friend or dating partner crosses the line. But, not setting boundaries is risky. Even if nothing serious happens in the relationship, not setting boundaries can lead to resentment and damage the friendship.

Remind them to respect the boundaries of others: It’s just as important that your teen respect other people’s boundaries as it is for them to establish their own. Healthy relationships are built upon mutual respect and ongoing communication. Ensure your teen knows it’s just as important to honor someone else’s boundaries as it is to ask them to honor theirs.

Examples of Boundaries for Teens

Sometimes, boundaries are confusing for young people. While they may understand the concept and importance of establishing boundaries with other people, they may not know what those boundaries look like in real life. Therefore, it’s important to talk about what constitutes a healthy boundary and what is unhealthy. You may even want to point out where they lack boundaries.

Healthy boundaries: Healthy boundaries keep your teen safe emotionally and physically without trying to control or manipulate another person. They establish your teen’s wants and needs without infringing on another person’s rights and needs. Here are some examples:

• Communicating the desire to move slowly in a romantic relationship, ensuring consent is at the forefront of every interaction, and not being pressured to do more than they want.
• Asking someone to refrain from teasing them about a sensitive subject and having a consequence if they continue to tease, like reducing the amount of time spent together.
• Telling a friend they are not comfortable with drinking and asking that they support their decision not to drink alcohol.
• Letting a friend who asks to borrow money frequently without repaying it know they won’t be able to loan them any more money until they repay what they owe.
• Talking to a sibling about their need for time alone and requesting that they honor this need by not walking into their room when the door is shut.
• Asking a romantic partner to respect their time with others by not calling or texting repeatedly when hanging out with others.

Unhealthy boundaries or lack of boundaries

• Shutting people out of their lives completely and not trusting anyone.
• Demanding friends or dating partners be there for them whenever they request it.
• Believing that others know what they’re thinking or feeling and should respond accordingly.
• Giving in to friends or dating partners even when it goes against what they believe.
• Going against their values or beliefs to fit in, be liked, or to please others.
• Allowing a romantic partner to make decisions for them or direct their life without ever standing up for themselves or questioning this behavior.
• Spending time with friends or dating partners who treat them poorly or disrespectfully.

Read More:https://childreninfobank.com/safebank/what-teens-need-to-know-about-healthy-boundaries/

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