Unconditional Love Doesn’t Mean That You Have To Unconditionally Accept Bad Behaviors.

Reinforce Rules and Respect...

Now, we can show our kids fierce love without allowing them to run right over us...  We should  all take the following words to heart, ” Unconditional Love Doesn’t Mean That You Have To Unconditionally Accept Bad Behaviors.”...  Giving grace becomes an important tool in these tween and teens years, but so does setting limits... They are still children and they not only need, but often want boundaries... 

It helps them to know what to expect from you and what you expect of them...They can have bad moods and they can be angry with us... We need to give them the space for all those emotions... However, they need us to guide them on how to properly express those emotions and what the rules are when it comes to their behavior...

Although TV, social media and many other influences our older children are exposed to may provide poor examples,

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We have to be the balancing voice reinforcing that speaking to others disrespectfully is not acceptable... Respond to children when they are talking to you or even to each other in a rude way that “we are a family and we talk to each other using kind words.”... It’s also totally okay for us let our tweens and teens know when they’ve hurt our feelings...

Challenging them to think about how the things they say and do impact others is vital when it comes to developing empathy... If they want to be treated like adults, they have to act like adults... We show them how by defining what being disrespectful and hurtful looks like and by consistently enforcing the consequences when they cross the line...