Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

by Henry Cloud

Up until now, we’ve dealt with characteristics of family relating. Withdrawal, hostility, and setting inappropriate limits are ways parents act toward their children. Over time these become ingrained in the soul of the child. In addition, specific traumas can injure boundary development. A trauma is an intensely painful emotional experience rather than a character pattern. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse are traumatic. Accidents and debilitating illnesses are traumatic. Severe losses such as the death of a parent, divorce, or extreme financial hardship are also traumatic. A good way to look at the difference between character-relating patterns, such as withdrawal and hostility, and trauma, is to look at how a tree in a forest can be hurt. It can be fed inappropriately, through bad ingredients in the soil, or it can be given too much or too little sun or water. That’s an illustration of character-pattern problems. Trauma is like lightning hitting the tree. A trauma can affect boundary development because it shakes up two necessary foundations to children’s growth: 1. The world is reasonably safe. 2. They have control over their lives. Children who undergo trauma feel these foundations shaken up. They become unsure that they are safe and protected in the world, and they become frightened that they have no say-so in any danger that approaches them.