Setting Limits with
Children
Setting Limits
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All children need limits set
They all need guidance and boundaries
 Limits can provide security and structure if done in a
supportive manner
The goal is to help children develop internal judgment
so they can guide themselves
 At a later age you don’t have to be setting external
restraints or external limits
Help children become thinkers so, if necessary, they
can challenge rules later in life when they disagree
Setting Limits Help Us
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Manage a child’s experimentation
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They need to explore within boundaries – whether
it’s a two-year-old or a four-year-old or a six-year-old
Deal with an immediate situation such as a
tantrum when a child does not get the snack
they wanted
Goals in Setting Limits
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Create a sense of self
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If every need is expected to be met or if all you
experience are just punitive actions with hitting and
spanking and isolation, this is going to affect your
self-image – how you view yourself – and it’s going
to affect the very definition of boundaries and of
having a clear sense of where I end and someone
else begins.
Goals in Setting Limits
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Create a sense of self - Understand other
people’s perspective (Theory of Mind)
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The child whose expectations are never confronted
with limits doesn’t develop a separation of where he
ends and the rest of the world begins. This child
expects the world to be part of him. Mom and Dad
don’t have needs; only he has needs
Goals in Setting Limits
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Create a sense of self
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Through back-and-forth interactions where the child
is constantly experimenting with the “me,” the “I,”
the “self,” doing things to the other and getting
feedback and getting reactions (including limits)
When no limits are set!
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Can lead to fears and anxieties (a lack of
security).
The lack of a response and a lack of limits may
leave a child to be scared of anger and scared
that anger can be too destructive because there’s
no feedback early in life.
Too many or harsh Limits
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If the feedback is overly punitive it can lead to a
child who’s too scared to be assertive and his
sense of an assertive sense of self is
compromised
If the feedback is overly aggressive, verbally or
physically, it will increase the child’s aggressive
behavior
Earn the right!
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Give more to Expect more!
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Discipline and setting limits are something you earn the right
to have.
You earn that right by providing enough nurturance , love,
compassion, and Floortime!
Floortime: Following your child’s lead allows them to really
feel you’re part of their universe, part of their life making
them more responsive to your limits
The child needs to feel secure and confident that
you’re there, that you’re in their corner to learn
from your limits
Earn the right!
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Children, when feeling secure, want your
respect!
This happens early as they come to understand the
difference between an admiring, approving look and
a negative look.
 Occurs between 12 and 24 months of life; it’s not
something you have to wait to have until the child is
four years old.
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Establish a Positive Relationship
 Have
Fun!
 Show interest and enthusiasm in
child’s interests
 Listen, don’t judge or lecture
 Sympathize and Empathize
Every Child is Unique
Discipline has to be tailored to the
child’s personality, to their
emotional and sensory profile
Most children are sensitive
Be the “Gentile Giant”!
Sensitive Child
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Emotional
Quick to upset, 0-60, fussy and finicky
 Small emotional situations have a big impact, both
good and bad.
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Sensory
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Oversensitive in most or all sensory systems; touch,
sight, sound, and sometimes movement
Sensitive Child
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Method needs to be very gentle, persistent, but
firm
 You don’t want to throw fuel on the fire
when the child’s already scared by being loud
and too tough.
Active/Aggressive Child
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Emotional
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Angry and aggressive feelings
Some are frustrated and highly sensitive in some areas
Others are craving lots of input
Sensory
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Underreactive to many sensory inputs, and actively seek them
out, especially proprioceptive
May get revved up by getting too much of these inputs
May have one area of overreactivity, like visual
Active Child
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You have to be providing alternative ways for
the child to be able to use all that energy, all that
need for movement
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You have to have lots of constructive ways to meet
their sensory craving needs (positive emotional
experience)
Be there as part of the child’s life and you have
to be firmer and sometimes more persistent for
longer periods of time until the child gets the
idea
Self Involved Child
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Emotional
Easy going, quiet, passive
 May be thinking about own creative fantasies
 Less social and more introverted
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Sensory
Under reactive in most or all sensory systems; touch,
sight, sound, and sometimes movement
 May crave more of these inputs if provided,
especially tactile, vestibular, and proprioceptive
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Self Involved Child
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Use affect to get the point across
Child may need some movement and sensory
input in order to regulate and understand the
limits that are being set
Defiant Child
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Emotional
Stubborn, negative, controlling
 Transitional problems
 Rigid and clever
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Sensory
Oversensitive in most or all sensory systems; touch,
sight, sound, and sometimes movement
 Relatively stronger visual, but weaker auditory
processing compared to the sensitive child
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Defiant
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Make sure you are not overwhelming child
May try using more visuals to help the child
understand their limits
Transition may further escalate the child
Non-Verbal Child
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Need to calm and regulate when upset
Does not understand logic if working at few first
milestones. Punishments are pointless!
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Think of disciplining an 8 month old
Once child can stay in continuous flow they can
understand patterns of gestures
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Respond to a frown or shaking of the head
Educate Child if Verbal
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You want to always educate the child
Reason for the discipline and make sure those
conversations are two-way conversations, where
the child gives his point of view and you can
give your point of view
What to do
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Always calm and soothe and help the child calm
down first
Don’t discipline him in the middle of a tantrum
Discuss a little bit what just happened and then
if the child has crossed the line and you feel
discipline is in order, administer the discipline
What to do
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Tough love approach is an extreme
Notion that adults are entitled to get their
children’s respect and love and admiration
The children often harbor resentment and it
affects their personalities
Avoid isolation or rejection.
A child who needs more discipline often is
already feeling rejected and resentful and angry.
What to do – Long Term
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Help the child move forward in development
(up the milestones)
Improve their motor planning and processing
Improving their language skills or improving
their interactive skills gives the child more and
more incentive to behave, and more and more
tools to use to express themselves
Always Remember
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Be Consistent and be Persistent (rather than
punitive)
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Use understanding with persistence and firmness.
Be proportionate: Always modulate punishment
to the crime
When you feel you’re losing it, because you’re
only human, take a time out to relax, take a deep
breath
Use pretend play or reality based conversations
to work through stressful situations