Boundaries part 4: Setting Boundaries with Well-meaning Family Members
Elisabeth Kraus, MA
All of us who raise anxious eaters have heard the well-meaning Aunt or Grandmother when they say, “Oh just leave her with me for the weekend, and I’ll have her eating!” Sometimes, it seems that everyone has a comment to make about our child’s eating habits, as if we weren’t already doing everything that we can think of to help our children learn to eat happily, healthily, and independently.
Even the most well-intentioned people can make comments that are, at best unhelpful and at worst, harmful to our mental and emotional well-being. And often, loving parents feel as if they are stuck under a barrage of unwarranted feedback/criticism because they know it “comes from the right place” or because they simply feel like they can’t do anything about it.
But caregivers whose every moment is spent tending to the needs of others often forget that their well-being matters to, and setting boundaries helps you to protect yourself from feedback that isn’t helpful.
When it comes to navigating unhelpful comments from friends or family, I think it’s important to remember that setting a boundary is not about trying to convince the other person to change their behavior. That is a losing battle! Because at the end of the day, the only person’s behavior that you can control is your own.
And so a boundary’s language focuses on just that! A boundary explains to the other person, not what you expect them to do or stop doing, but how you will respond to their choices.
In other words, boundaries might sound like:
“These conversations are really discouraging for me, so I’m not going to participate in them for a while. I’d love to talk about ____ instead!”
“When you say ___, it leaves me feeling like a failure, so if you make that kind of comment again, I’m going to go ahead and hang up the phone.”
“I know you love your grandbaby! And she’s so lucky to have you! I’d love to focus our conversations on things other than her eating, so if you bring it up, I’m going to redirect us to a different topic.”
“I know that you’ve raised children of your own – and you did such a great job! I’ve just decided to offer meals in a different way, which doesn’t mean that your way was bad. It just means that mine is different, and since I know you love us, I hope we can count on you to follow the guidelines we’ve laid out. If that’s not possible for you, I’m just not going to have you participate in mealtimes for a little while.”
I hear your concerns about ____, and I appreciate how much you love us. This is the course of treatment we’ve chosen, and I’m not going to talk about it anymore.”
All of the above examples show empathy for the person’s perspective, but the action of the statement focuses on yourself – because that’s what a boundary is! It’s the choice to behave and not to behave in the behaviors or conversations that are harmful to your well-being. Of course, the trickiest part about laying boundaries with friends and family is following through on them: once you explain what you are or are not going to do, you must follow-through.
Statements lay boundaries.
Follow-through holds them.
So if you’re navigating conversations or comments from the people you love, and your mental or emotional health just needs them to stop, it might be time for a conversation revolving around boundaries. Boundaries are not punishment for bad behavior or an attempt to control others. Quite the opposite! Boundaries are loving – to yourself and to the person with whom you’re laying the boundary.