Almost always, the challenges parents are seeking to solve when they come to see me—meltdowns, inflexibility, defiance, or power struggles—are rooted in the absence of an important limit. That is what is causing so much stress for the entire family.⁠

When the limit isn’t clear, and there is a lot of discussion or negotiation about something (more books at bedtime, more things the child says they need to do before they are willing to go to sleep, more treats, more screen time...), it opens up a big, black hole that the child fills with endless attempts to keep parents engaged or to get them to do what they want. This is not just exhausting and maddening for parents; it is exhausting for kids who expend a lot of mental energy making their case and pursuing all angles, getting themselves increasingly wound up and dysregulated. The entire situation escalates, and everyone involved ends up miserable.
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One big culprit is that because kids don’t like limits, their reactions—meltdowns, protests, and the like—are often triggering for parents, which makes it hard to stick to them.

Another obstacle to parents being the loving limit-setters their children need them to be is due to a more recent phenomenon: Parents have gotten the message that “gentle,” loving, respectful parenting entails collaboration with kids—making them part of the decision-making process—not telling them what to do, which has become characterized as being harsh and dictatorial. This has translated into parents trying to get kids to agree to limits.

For most of the moms and dads I work with—who have kids who are clever, fierce, feisty, persistent, and have a very........

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