“I LOVE YOU!”

It quickly—around age four or five—starts to earn you a groan and an “I know.” But shortly thereafter the kids start trying to beat you at your own game. “Guess what?” “You love me.” Then you get to pick your reaction:

“I mean, DUH, but also—you have a booger on your nose.”

Or: “Oh, gross. Thanks.”

OR you can choose to reply:

“HOW DID YOU KNOW?!”

This response is my favorite, because it allows me to check in on the ways my child feels the most loved. Often they’ll report that they know I love them because I tell them all the time. But sometimes they’ll say “because you cuddle me” or “because you come to my recitals” or “because you are kind to my friends.” I can take mental stock of the ways my child feels the most seen and supported, and make sure I’m continuing the behaviors that help them feel loved.

Even if we’re cycling through all these expressions of great love on a daily basis, it bears repeating that they will not replace “There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.” And that’s because the goal of the phrase is simple: to cultivate a sense of both safety and security in my children. I want them to know that while I may express negative emotions (“I’m sorry, you spilled what on my bed?”) or dole out natural consequences for choices that were ill-made (“You snuck extra computer time and made all of us late for the day because you couldn’t get out of bed, so the router is on lockdown starting at nine p.m. to help you develop a better rhythm”), the outcomes of their mistakes will never be “You are nothing to me. I don’t have a child with your name.”

That being said, the sense of safety and security that children feel is influenced far more by actions than promises. We want them to know that not only do we love them unconditionally, we also respect them as individuals. Our children are learning How to People, and they are going to make a lot of mistakes and missteps in the process. They are going to do things that, to us, are so obviously a bad idea, but to them … who knows what will happen?! And as my daughter Turkey will tell you, “Mistakes are how we learn!” How we as caregivers react when they make bad decisions, ask unexpected questions, and push boundaries will impact how safe they feel to come to us for guidance in the future.

So how do we live up to our promise that our love and positive regard for them is unconditional when our children make bad decisions? The model I use for my own children is very much based in what I experienced in my own childhood and young adulthood. Though there are a myriad of examples of this to choose from my earliest (and first) core memory happens to be a great example of both natural consequences and unconditional positive regard.

If you can, imagine a shopping mall in the early ’90s. Wait, make that a rural Midwest shopping mall in the early ’90s. Way less Day-Glo, way more burgundy and teal. There were only two anchor stores, and the biggest draws were the movie theater and the then thriving craft store. The craft store was really the only reason my mom ever went to the mall—she frequently made clothes for us, as well as quilts and wall hangings that she saw on public access television craft shows. My mom didn’t bother with the anchor stores—they were outside the budget and didn’t carry clothes that fit her incredibly tall children. No, the mall was really only for craft supplies and the occasional trip to the movie theater.

For my older siblings, however, the mall was a great place to find new music, shoes for various sports, and food. So even though my mother didn’t need to venture any farther into the mall than the craft store just inside the main entrance, on one fated trip, after buying my sister some new basketball sneakers, we found ourselves in the heart of the mall. I was roughly four years old, and I had (in my memory) held it together pretty well, given that I had just been forced to sit through my mother’s rigorous and extensive shoe selection process. I was granted a walk through a kids’ accessory store that for the purposes of this book shall remain nameless (okay, fine, it was Claire’s). Everything was fluffy pink, lavender, and baby blue. Earrings shaped like food adorned just about every surface, and there was an entire wall of hair accessories that only the chicest of chic Tiger Beat cover models could have pulled off.

I had never been allowed into this store before, or at least I don’t remember ever being brought in there until this fateful day. And I may not look it now, but I was peak Fancy Kid. I lived for my elbow-length satin gloves and my clip-on earrings. With eyes like dinner plates, I was perusing the irresistible wares with strict instructions to TOUCH. NOTHING. I was a Fancy Kid, but I was also a clumsy one, and it was no stretch of the imagination to envision me tipping over a display or accidentally ripping an entire shelf off the wall.

It’s worth mentioning here that one of the ideas that has changed between the way I was parented and the way I parent my children is that “don’t” statements have been swapped out for alternatives that include what the child should do. The way I phrase it for my own kids, and the rule I would’ve provided four-year-old me is: “There’s lots of breakables in this store, so your hands need to be in your pockets or behind your back.” The first few trips with this approach sound like a skipping CD, but once the kids know what’s expected of them, they do it with a single reminder.

So, there I was in Claire’s, dutifully following the rules, until I saw … it. The most beautiful headband. It was blue, with two little furry puffballs on the end of springs that bobbled around when you put the headband on. I was instantly enamored, and all my impulse control went out the window. In seconds I had the headband in my hands and was preparing to put it on my head. Naturally, at age four, I knew that to put it on my head I needed to make the bottom wide enough to go over my head. I grasped either end of the sparkly blue arch and pulled them apart. With as much force as was required to break a piece of dry spaghetti, the headband snapped in my hands.

I’ve thought a lot about what makes this a core memory for me—why, when so much of my childhood is foggy in my recollection, does this moment stick out so much? And I think I’ve figured out why—this moment was the first time I consciously remember considering lying to my mom. She had her back to me—she hadn’t seen me touch the headband, and I could’ve easily put it down in a box that was to my right. But I didn’t. I felt safe enough to walk up to my mom and show her that I had broken the headband. And her reaction was exactly what I had expected: I got a brief scolding for choosing to touch the headband after being instructed not to, and I was informed that I would be using some of my “trip money” to pay for it, meaning that I could no longer buy anything from the store.

And I. Completely. Understood.

I did not cry. I did not protest. I was very embarrassed as I handed the broken merchandise to the cashier and apologized—I knew I had made a mistake. The cashier reassured me that it was all right, and even told my mom that I didn’t have to pay for it. But—and this next part is controversial for some, but I stand by it—my mom said no. “I appreciate the offer, but she needs to pay for at least part of it—she was told not to touch things because she’s not always the most careful.” She knew that it was a frustrating, embarrassing, and maybe even a little bit sad lesson for me, but I had a history. I wasn’t just clumsy—I was her “f*ck around and find out” kid. I thought of myself as the exception—things wouldn’t go wrong for me! And often they didn’t … but I refused to admit that they even could. So this instance of things going sideways needed to be something I remembered. I didn’t need to be ashamed of it, but I did need to internalize it. That’s why she responded the way she did—a reminder of my mistake, and a natural consequence for the choice. That was it. That was the end. I wasn’t constantly reminded of it, or spanked, or told I could never go back to Claire’s, or screamed at when we got out of earshot of the cashier, or—the worst possible outcome—permanently labeled as a thief or a “naughty kid.” I had made a poor choice, but it didn’t define me. And I’ve never forgotten that.

This experience was just the first in a long line of experiences that drove home for me how vital it is that we accurately and fairly respond to our children’s mistakes. These reactions will vary by age (and by incident), but they boil down to this: our boundaries and our children’s behavior. Think of boundaries like a fence in your brain that marks what you will tolerate and what you won’t tolerate. They are our values that influence how we set our rules and expectations, and how we communicate those rules and expectations. When we discuss boundaries, we often think of phrases like “You can’t talk to me like that” or “You can’t touch this.” However, neither of those statements are boundaries because they are attempting to explicitly control the behavior of someone else. And though we can somewhat control our children’s behavior while they’re in the earliest parts of their lives, that influence fades quickly and does not have the positive outcomes we hope for.

Instead, boundaries are expressions of what you will accept from another person. “I will not listen to you speak to me like that” or “I will not allow you to touch this.” These are expressions of boundaries because they are enforceable by you—you can choose to stop listening regardless of whether the other person is still talking, and you can choose to remove the object that someone is trying to touch. Framing rules and expectations in this way (even if you only do so in your head) helps clarify the real reason why you have set a rule, and may actually help you eliminate unnecessary rules and those that have become a point of unneeded conflict. Additionally, knowing why we’ve set these boundaries and being able to communicate that “why” will help our children decide whether they will choose to respect the boundary or continue to test and resist it.

When a child—regardless of age—tests a boundary, our reaction to their choices can have a long-lasting effect. When your five-year-old tests her newfound ability to write her name … on her white bedroom furniture, you might be tempted to yell at her and pair that yelling with a punishment like taking away her bedroom furniture. When we were kids, that would have been presented as a completely acceptable end result—“You can’t handle having furniture, so you can’t have furniture.” While she might not draw on her furniture again, I wager she’s also not likely to come to you when she makes a mistake in the future.

If you’re trying instead to raise a child who feels comfortable admitting to you when they’ve messed up, you may want to consider embracing natural consequences. Rather than taking away the furniture, for example, you may require that she spend time scrubbing the marker or pen off the furniture. If this is not the first time she’s colored on something not intended for Pint-Size Picasso-ing, you may let her know that the markers and pens have to “live up high” so they can only be retrieved by a caregiver, and must be used under supervision. While she may not be happy with either of these outcomes, they are proportionate reactions that, especially when explained, leave a child feeling secure and knowledgeable about the boundaries and rules that shape her world.

In the situation of me at the store, the boundary my mom expressed—“You can’t touch anything”—may seem controlling. But upon reflection, the boundary she was setting was “It’s my job to raise you to be a functional adult, so I cannot allow you to be reckless with other people’s property.” Her boundary was there to keep me safe. I have, on more than one occasion, had to haul a child around in a shopping cart because they were overtired and refuse to stay within my eyesight. I’ve also had to lock down devices and screens because my kids figured out how to get around the parental controls and stayed up way too late. I’ve also had to inform my children that the answer to a question asked by their older sibling is not something they themselves are ready to hear—another way of keeping them safe that we will address in chapter 4. In these situations, I remind my children that my whole job as their parent is to love them, keep them safe, and raise them to be functional adults: “I love you too much to let you do this unsafe thing.” It’s simple, it’s to the point, and, again—it’s finite. I will very likely have to explain why the activity or information they’re being denied is unsafe, but this is where that self-reflection of my own boundaries comes into play. Most of the time, I have thought about the situation ahead of time and know exactly why my answer is no.

That’s not to say I can stop them from attempting all stupid things—sometimes the “f*ck around and find out” approach is the best way to learn. I try to think ahead about the different ways my children will make mistakes and push boundaries as they grow in part because I want to keep my promise to myself to (generally) react with their futures in mind and only prevent them from making mistakes that are truly harmful. As I look back on each of my children’s formative years, some mistake patterns seem almost universal. In early childhood, all of my kids proved that small children are egocentric and tethered strongly to “the now.” They had no concept of future consequences, and anything they did to hurt me in anger and retaliation was almost invariably rooted in what would hurt them. I’ve seen more than one art project torn up in a fit of “I’ll show YOU to tell me to stop coloring!” and I’ve consoled all three kids as they learned the very hard lesson that ripping up your art really only impacts … you.

I’ve watched my children test the waters of lying—sneaking treats, extra screen time, or a few more minutes of playing instead of doing what they were asked. And I’ve talked with those same children about trust and how it’s both buildable and fragile. That’s not to say I call out every lie—I don’t! There is a certain sense of autonomy and independence that comes from “pulling one over” on your mom, and if my kids can get that sense of satisfaction from a small lie that doesn’t hurt them or me, I feel like that’s a win. If I catch them out in Every. Single. Tiny. infraction or fib, why would they ever trust that I might treat them with grace and kindness when they make a big bad choice?

Because those big bad choices can and will happen. I remember naively thinking that the bond I had with my eldest child would be much more powerful than all those tropes of the tough teen years … and then he turned thirteen. Along with thirteen came pushing curfew. And Incognito Mode. And whispers with friends. And eye rolls. I didn’t know how it had happened, but suddenly, when my kid looked at me, it was with a certain level of disdain.

Okay, I say I didn’t know how it happened, but I did—like every teenager, his amygdala had outgrown the rest of his brain, as it does in early puberty. The amygdala, one of the parts of his brain responsible for his emotions, was often in the driver’s seat. He was living almost entirely out of his emotional brain, and he was reacting with whatever emotion was strongest long before his cognitive brain could catch up and help him regulate. Once I realized that this was happening, things got … I’m not going to say a lot easier, but they did get easier. When either of us felt ourselves getting heated, we could say “AMYGDALA” and acknowledge that we were being controlled by emotions, not thoughts. Our bond was still strong, and the Foundation of Unconditional Positive Regard that we had built meant that even after slammed doors and yelling fights, we both knew nothing could shake how this mom felt about her child. I also knew that I had a lot of internal work that needed doing—I was reacting (and sometimes overreacting) to him doing things that were completely reasonable for an early teenager to be doing.

When I hit that phase of life with my eldest, I knew I needed to step back and take stock in my values, boundaries, and communication skills. I needed to reflect on why I had the rules I did, what I was expecting from my children, and how I was relaying that information to them. I knew that without understanding why I felt the way I did, I wouldn’t be able to continue guiding my kids as effectively as I wanted to. So I thought about it—what really mattered to me? What was my guiding mission? And that line of thinking led me to the wish I make in every tunnel, at every wishing well, and on every falling star: that my children grow up to be healthy, happy, and successful adults. And part of that happiness means freeing them (and, by extension, myself) of shame when it comes to making mistakes.

This pre-reflection is very helpful, particularly when it comes to situations that may bring up strong emotions from us; situations that remind us of our own childhoods or traumas. If we have not reflected on our boundaries regarding the birds and the bees, we may find ourselves reacting in a way that undermines our goal of raising children who feel comfortable enough to talk to us about their mistakes and ask us the hard questions.

Take, for example, finding out that your six-year-old has played “doctor” with a same-age friend. The conversation could go a couple different ways:

Scene: At the Playground

“Amanda! What are you and Brian doing up in the castle? You’ve been up there a long time!”

“We’re playing doctor!”

“You’re doing WHAT?! Absolutely not! That’s gross and naughty and you’re NEVER going to play with him again! We’re going HOME!”

Amanda has no space to clarify that “playing doctor” means she has wrapped leaves around Brian’s “broken arm” and is listening to his heart with her ear on his chest. She doesn’t understand in the slightest why her parent has reacted this way, because she lacks the context that when her parent was a child, they were spanked after being caught playing a different kind of doctor.

Now imagine that this same parent has reflected on her boundaries and considered what her goals are for raising a child who feels safe asking questions and revealing mistakes:

Scene: Any Home Anywhere

“Amanda? What are you two doing in there? Why are Heather’s pants on the ground?!”

“We are playing doctor! I wanted to see her vulva and she wanted to see mine, so we took turns.”

“Oh goodness. Well, I know you’re curious about other people’s bodies, and it’s normal to be curious. But remember—your brain is only ready to explore your own body right now, not anyone else’s. So everyone needs to put their pants back on and we’re going to play in the living room until Heather’s mom comes back.”

In this scenario, Amanda’s developmentally appropriate curiosity is acknowledged rather than shamed; she is allowed a voice; and she has been redirected into an activity that is more suitable for her brain and her friend’s brain. This scenario has also established a boundary that will hopefully help keep her safe in the future—a knowledge that her body is for her, especially at this age, and not for anyone else. There is also security in knowing that if anyone ever does explore her body, she can tell her safe adult with no negative repercussions.

The situations we’re most afraid of our children getting themselves into are going to be the greatest tests of our love and respect. We don’t want to think about our children making the really big mistakes, but let’s face it—it could happen. I encourage you to challenge yourself with the difficult task of reflecting on what will test you the most.

Maybe it’s finding out your child holds different political views than you do.

Maybe they have changed their spiritual beliefs.

Maybe they love someone you don’t approve of.

Maybe they have hurt themselves … or are hurting someone else.

Maybe they are actively hurting you.

And then figure out how you can unconditionally love and unconditionally respect your child in those scenarios, while asking yourself what the boundaries are within that love and respect. How can you show up and support your child while also maintaining your own mental and physical well-being? Even though it is likely to be one of the most painful exercises you ever do, I encourage you to think about this, and genuinely know that there is nothing your child can do to make you stop loving them. Because that love—and that unconditional positive regard—is tied to trust.

I trust you, my child, to not do something so bad that I ever have to reconsider my love and respect for you, and to come to me when you mess up.

And you can trust me to show up for you, full stop.