Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Boundaries

Helping children establish healthy boundaries is mentioned often on the forums. Possibly the topic of boundaries deserves a thread or post of its own. Healthy boundaries undergird daily life and interactions. Because gifted kids may encounter a wider range of situations earlier in life, development of healthy psychological and interpersonal boundaries (a clearly defined concept of one's self and one's own personal responsibilities, as distinct from the larger community and/or others in relationships) may be especially crucial.

To a degree, some features of gifted programs/services may tend to violate a child's healthy personal boundaries. For example, detrimental practices may include:
- Having gifted children routinely tutor peers, working to meet others' needs rather than working to meet their own need to learn something new.
- Having gifted children regularly spend significant time waiting for other children rather than learning at a pace which meets their need for challenge.

Books such as A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children and The Manipulative Child discuss helping children develop healthy boundaries.

Having healthy boundaries is helpful for parental advocacy efforts and for instilling self-advocacy in children. Healthy boundaries can be seen in living up to one's responsibilities, negotiating, and holding others accountable to their agreements and policies.

By contrast, a lack of boundaries may be revealed by taking on the extra work or problems of others while neglecting one's own responsibilities, blame-shifting and victimhood, co-dependent neediness, and other self-defeating behaviors which may limit personal growth.

Establishing healthy boundaries may help avoid or side-step bullying and relational aggression, discussed in this recent post.*

Healthy boundaries can help a person stay on course despite issues which may crop up and cause temporary detours.

There are many books on boundaries, and web articles which help outline the basic concepts of defining a clear sense of self and distinct boundaries. This article, and Guide to Strong Boundaries are two.


*Edited to link to recent post rather than providing excerpt here.

I would add to these classics, Little Girls Can be Mean, which is particularly targeted at parents (and girls) ages 5-12 or so. In this age group, bullying is less likely to be done with an intent to wound, and more likely to be due to not understanding (or at least not thinking about) the perspective of the other person. There is an interesting scenario where they describe how one girl is bullying another and talk about how to support her. Then in the next chapter, they talk about the same scenario, as seen by the other girl - and now it looks like she is the victim of a bully!

The article, "What are personal Boundaries? How do I get some?" by Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT provides a good introduction to the concept of establishing healthy boundaries.

This Guide To Psychology article provides more information.

As a humorous illustration of these concepts, on the TV show blackish, the character Bow Johnson accurately observes and shares with her husband Dre, that his co-worker Charlie is lacking boundaries.