How Setting — and Enforcing — Boundaries Actually Help Your Kids
By Movieguide® Contributor
Great American Family actress Candace Cameron Bure dove into setting boundaries for children in a recent podcast episode with Dr. Josh and Christ Straub.
Dr. Josh asked Bure if it was “hard setting boundaries with your kids.”
“I don’t know if this is surprising, but no, it wasn’t hard for me to set boundaries or for Val,” she responded.
“I’m also married to one of the most disciplined people I have ever known in my entire life,” she laughed. “His consistency and willingness to be a disciplined person is exceeding. So, it it wasn’t hard for me because also in the same way, again, going to go back to being a kid actor, those were things I had to be as a child. So that set an expectation for what I thought my children should be able to do.”
Bure knew that when those boundaries were broken, though, she and her husband had to respond.
“I feel like we responded reasonably,” Bure said. “These are going to be great questions for my kids when…they’re on the show… I’m sure I did freak out some days, but I feel like for the most part, you know, it’s disappointing as a parent. You’re thinking of, okay, what do I have to do? What type of consequence do I want to give them?”
“And what is the type of consequence that fits the the bill or fits the crime? Like I don’t want to have like a random consequence that really has nothing to do with what they’ve done,” she continued.
Josh explained that there eventually has to come a point “in which we have to explain the ‘why’ to our kids and help them experience the natural consequences of when they don’t follow the rules and or meet the expectations or hit the boundary.”
Parents want to help their children become successful adults in the real world, so helping them understand natural consequences in the safety of the home is key.
“If I can get them to experience as close as possible to the natural consequence…of what they disobeyed in, where they sinned, and then, number two, if they feel remorse for what they did, I think those are two of the most beautiful outcomes that we want to see when it comes to setting boundaries because that’s where discipline comes into play,” Josh added.
In a 2022 Instagram post, he explained that the heart of parenting is setting an example for who your kids want to be when they’re adults.
“Sure, we can guide, discipline, and encourage, but if we’re not living guided, disciplined, and encouraged lives ourselves, our kids pick that up more than what we tell them,” he wrote. “They do as we do, not as we say.”
The Straubs lead Famous at Home, “a company equipping leaders and corporations in emotional intelligence and healthy family systems, and they host the Famous at Home podcast.”
Movieguide® previously reported on how parents can foster a peaceful atmosphere in their home:
Candace Cameron Bure recently hosted Dr. Josh and Christi Straub on her podcast to learn how parents can build a good atmosphere for their home.
“I always talk about fighting for peace in your home,” Dr. Josh began. “You have to war for peace; you have to pray into it, have to fight for it, because the world is trying to create, it’s just chaos, right, and so we have to pay attention to the atmosphere of our home to identify how we can make sure that our homes are that place of [peace].”
For homes that could use some more peace, Dr. Josh encourages parents to determine the area that needs improvement and devise a plan to work on it.
“Maybe it’s exhaustion, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s complaining, maybe it’s fear. What is the spirit in your home that you just feel like this is bringing us all down as a family and identifying that and being able to say, ‘Okay, what is one small shift we can make to be able to start shifting the atmosphere?’”
