Dave Kashen explains the difference between making requests and setting boundaries in parenting. Asking your kid to get off screens by 9 PM is a request. Taking the screens away at 9 PM is a boundary. Real boundaries don't depend on whether anyone listens.
One thing that I'll just say since we're on the topic that I found super useful and was a big reframe for me as a parent is the idea that boundaries don't require the other person to do anything, right? So just with the parenting analogy, it's like the difference between being like, guys, you need to get off your screens by 9:00 PM. That's actually not a boundary. That's a request. And I thought that was a boundary. And I'm like, I thought I'm doing boundaries and what's going on? And I'm so mad at them because they're like, they didn't honor the boundary. And I got mad, right? Because, but I was, but instead I'd be like, now I've learned, hey guys, I'm going to come upstairs and take your screen away at 9 PM. That's a boundary. Just like an actual boundary. You hit a wall, the wall's there. What, you know, nothing you have to do. The wall's there.
