Ep #264: The One Boundary Mistake That Creates More Meltdowns (Stop Saying “We’ll See”)

Welcome to Real World Peaceful Parenting, a podcast for parents that are tired of yelling, threatening, and punishing their kids. Join mom and master certified parent coach Lisa Smith as she gives you actionable step-by-step strategies that’ll help you transform your household from chaos to cooperation.
Let’s dive in.
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to today’s episode. I am so excited to be with you here today. As we ease into today’s episode. Let me paint a picture for you. It’s five 30 on a Tuesday. You’re starting to think about dinner. There’s a lot going on in your home, and one of your kids asks, can I have some screen time?
And you say, maybe, let’s see how homework goes first. An hour later, the homework’s done and they ask again. You say, we’ll see, it depends on how your attitude is Through dinner. They push back and you say, if you keep arguing, the answer will be no. Fast forward to bedtime, and they’re still asking. They’re still negotiating, and you’re both exhausted and frustrated.
Sound familiar? Here’s what just happened. You thought you were setting a boundary. But what you actually created was uncertainty and uncertainty for a kid’s nervous system. Well, let me tell you, that creates more testing, not less, more, not less. And today I’m gonna share with you the one boundary mistake that you’re probably making that makes everything exponentially harder in your home.
And here’s what’s really wild. Most parents don’t even realize it’s happening. In fact, you might be doing it right now and thinking you’re setting boundaries when you’re actually creating more chaos. Yeah. Well, by the end of this episode, I’m gonna give you the exact language to shift from vague boundaries, to clear boundaries.
And this shift, it’s gonna change everything, everything. So let me name the mistake clearly right up front. The biggest boundary mistake many parents make is being vague, negotiable, or mood dependent with your limits. What I know. Hang in there. Here’s what vague boundaries might sound like. That was vague, so let me say it again.
Here’s what vague boundaries sound like. They sound like maybe. We’ll see. It depends if you’re good. Not right now. If you finish your work, and here’s what’s happening. When you use these phrases, you think you’re buying yourself time. You think you’re staying flexible. You think you’re avoiding a battle by saying a hard no, but what you’re actually doing is creating a game.
Your kid has to play to be successful because when the boundary is unclear, your kid’s nervous system asks, is this a real limit? How hard do I need to push to change it? What if I ask again in a different way and that my real world, peaceful parent is why you end up in 30 minute negotiations about something that should have taken 30 seconds.
Potentially a meltdown at the end. Let me tell you why this happens. Neurologically, kids need to know where boundaries are. It’s how their nervous system learns to feel safe. Think about it like bumpers in a bowing alley. Kids need those edges so they know where they can place safely. And when boundaries are clear and consistent, a kid’s brain relaxes.
Okay, I know where the limits are. I can stop testing now. But when boundaries are vague or negotiable all the time, the testing increases because their nervous system is asking, where’s the edge? How far can I go? Is this boundary solid or is it flexible? Can I help it be more flexible by pushing? The only way they get those answers is by testing, pushing, and negotiating.
Decades of research on parenting backs this up. Parents who are both firm and kind, setting clear limits while they stay connected. So let me say that again. Parents who are both firm and kind. That means setting limits while staying connected. Raise the most confident secure kits. It’s not about being strict or controlling.
It’s not about yelling the no, it’s not about demanding cooperation. It’s about being clear and kind at the same time. But here’s what happens in most homes. So check this out. Monday, your kid says, can I have a cookie before dinner? And the answer’s no. Tuesday they ask, can I have a cookie before dinner?
You say, fine. Just one Wednesday they ask, can I have a cookie before dinner? And you say, maybe after dinner. Let’s see how much dinner you eat. Same question. Three different answers. And now your kid has learned the boundary changes based on my parents’ mood. If I push when he or she’s tired or distracted, I might get a yes.
So they keep pushing every single time. You’re not dealing with a defiant kid, you are dealing with an unclear boundary. Hopefully light bulbs are going off for you right now. Let me share a story from the hive that really illustrates this. A mom named Sarah came to coaching, completely exhausted her 8-year-old, asks for things constantly, constantly.
Snacks, screen times, sleepovers, soda, go to the park, something at Target, you name it. And Sarah’s go-to response was, we’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see. Sarah thought she was avoiding conflict and helping her kid, but what was actually happening, her son asked 50 times because we’ll see meant maybe, and maybe signaled to him to keep trying.
Yeah, so inside the hive we worked on getting crystal clear with her boundaries, what was a yes, what was a no, and what actually occasionally, small percentage of the time was, ask me again. Later, I need to think about it, which is different than we’ll see. So instead of, we’ll see, Sarah started saying, screen time is from four to five on school days after homework’s done.
This is the boundary in our family. Snacks are at three and seven, and if you’re hungry between those times, you can have some veggies. Sleepovers happen on Friday or Saturday nights, and we decide one week in advance. Within two weeks, the constant asking dropped by 80%, not because their sun suddenly became cooperative, but because the rules and boundaries suddenly became clear to both of them.
And when our kids know the answer. They can stop asking. They can rest in the boundary and the consistency even when they don’t like the answer. Let me show you what vague boundaries look like at different ages and what clear boundaries look like instead. So in the toddler range of two to four, vague might sound like maybe you can have a snack if you stop whining.
A clear boundary would be at three o’clock we’ll have a snack. Right now we’re playing and you can have water if you’re thirsty. A vague boundary might sound like we’ll leave the park soon. A clear boundary. We’re leaving in five minutes and you have time for two more trips down the slide. Toddlers can’t read clocks and understand.
Soon they need concrete information. Two more slides is clear. Soon is a mystery. See that? Let’s talk about elementary kids. Vague is if you behave at the store, maybe you can get a treat clear. We’re going to the grocery store and we’re not buying treats today. If you can stay with me, we can pick out a fruit you’d like for snacks this week, vague.
Get your homework done now and we’ll see about screen time. Clear homework needs to be finished by five o’clock and if we can accomplish that. Then you can have 30 minutes of screen time before dinner. Elementary kids can handle conditional boundaries If this, then that, but we’ll see isn’t conditional.
It’s uncertain. And then my brain gets stuck on the, we’ll see at that age range tweens vague is your phone privileges depend on your attitude. Clear. Your phone is available from four to eight on school nights. If you speak disrespectfully to me or your father, your phone goes away for the rest of the evening.
The next day starts fresh, and you might even need to define what disrespectful is be. Maybe you can go to the mall. If you get your chores done and you behave clear, you can go to the mall on Saturday afternoons. If all your chores are completed by noon to my satisfaction, tweens are testing for consistency.
If the boundary depends on your mood, they’ll wait for the right mood or they’ll try to cajole and compliment you into the right mood. And finally, let’s talk about teens vague. We’ll talk about getting you a car if your grades improve. Clear. When you maintain a B average or higher for a full semester and have a thousand dollars saved from your job, we’ll discuss getting you a car.
These are the two requirements, vague. Your curfew depends on where you’re going and who you’re with. Clear. Your curfew is 11:00 PM on weekends. If you choose to stay out later for a specific event, we can discuss that, but you need to ask me by Friday afternoon. With details about where you’ll be and who’s driving, and I’ll let you know.
Teens need to know the rubric. What are the actual requirements to teenagers? Vague boundaries feel like moving targets and nobody likes a moving target. Okay, so if vague boundaries create more problems, why do we keep using them? Let me tell you four reasons. Parents default to vague boundaries. You can sort of check in to which 1, 2, 3 are all four categories you fall into.
Reason number one, we’re trying to avoid the meltdown, which I totally understand. However, when you say maybe instead of no, you’re most likely hoping to delay the disappointment. You’re hoping maybe they’ll forget. Maybe circumstances will change. Maybe you’re tired of being the bad guy, but here’s what actually happens.
You trade one small meltdown Now for a bigger meltdown, when maybe becomes no, because you get their hopes up. They believe they have the capacity to change your mind. Reason number two, we wanna seem flexible and not too strict sometimes. This is because we grew up in a very strict household and we know as a kid how it felt to have that.
Level of too strict applied to us. Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the message that good parents are flexible. That saying no makes us rigid or worse even mean. So we say, we’ll see, or it depends because we wanna seem reasonable. But here’s the truth, clear boundaries are flexible. We can have limits and adapt to circumstances, but the baseline needs to be clear.
Reason number three, we genuinely don’t know what the answer should be yet. Sometimes we say, I don’t know, or we stall because we legitimately need time to decide. Well listen. That’s okay. I do that all the time, but instead of being vague, I want you to say, I need to think about it. Come back and ask me again later, or I’ll give you my answer by 6:00 PM tonight, or let me sleep on it overnight and I’ll get back to you in the morning.
Or, this is too much to discuss right now. Let’s put it on the in the parking lot and discuss it this weekend, because now your kid has a clear timeline, the uncertainty has an end point and they can deal with that. Reason number four, maybe it’s because you were parented with vague boundaries yourself.
If your parents said, we’ll see, or it depends on your behavior constantly. This is how your brain is hardwired. This is your default. You may not even realize you’re doing it because honestly it feels normal. But I want you to think back. How did it feel as a kid when the answer was always maybe. It probably felt like an awful combination of confusing and hope, and it led to feelings of deep frustration like you never quite knew where you stood.
Right? Okay. Your kids feel that way too. Let me tell you about my own journey with this. When Malcolm was around eight or nine, I caught myself saying, we’ll see about everything. I noticed this as I was going through my parent coach training. Can I have a friend over? We’ll see. Can we go to the park? I don’t know.
Can we stay up late on Friday and watch a movie? It depends. And you know what I noticed? He asked me the same questions over and over and over again. I mean, this kid was not gonna take we’ll see for an answer sometimes five times in one day. One day I got really frustrated. I said, Malcolm, I already answered you.
Why do you keep asking me this? And he said something that stalk me in my tracks. Because you never really answer mom. You just say, we’ll see. And I don’t know if that means yes or no. Oh my goodness. He was right. What I learned is that we’ll see isn’t an answer. It’s avoidance. You’re avoiding deciding.
You’re avoiding committing to the answer and side note that causes a lot of decision fatigue because you’re revisiting something as the parent over and over and over again, and that moment taught me something crucial. Kids aren’t asking repeatedly to manipulate you or to wear you down. They’re asking repeatedly because we’ll see.
Literally means keep drawing there’s hope. Hang in there. Keep going. I realized I wasn’t setting a boundary. I was creating a guessing game. Malcolm had to play over and over and over every day. So I started getting clear, really clear. Well, before he asked, I sat down and I figured out what the answers were to the critical questions he was gonna ask me.
I started saying things like. You can have a friend over on Saturday in the afternoon between two and five. No, we’re not able to go to the park today, but we can go Wednesday after school. Yes, you can stay up till 10:00 PM on Friday. Yes, you can have a half an hour of gaming between five and five 30 if your homework is completely done, and you know what happened?
Everything got easier. He stopped asking multiple times because he had a real answer that was firm and kind, and he knew what the limits were. He knew what the edges were to the questions that he was asking. Okay, so how do you actually make this shift? Well, here’s your framework for clear boundaries.
Step one, I’ve alluded to it already. You decide the boundary before you’re asked. Please do not make decisions on the fly when your kid is standing in front of you with big, hopeful eyes, and on the verge of a meltdown, decide your family’s boundaries about common issues ahead of time, screen time rules, snack, timing, bedtime exceptions, homework routine, weekly activities.
Do you do sleepovers or not? Can they go outside and play in the neighborhood and during what hours? When you’ve already decided ahead of time, while you’re calm and regulated, and the question gets asked by your kid, you can answer clearly and calmly. You’re not making up curfew on the fly. You’re not deciding whether they can drive the car based on how you feel that day.
So step one, decide the boundaries before you’re asked. Step two, state it clearly, specifically, and confidently. Not, maybe you can have screen time if you’re good. Instead, screen time is from four to five on school days after homework is completed to my satisfaction that my friend is a boundary not we’ll see about a sleepover instead, sleepovers happen on Friday or Saturday nights when we’ve confirmed plans with the other parent by Thursday.
So yes, we can check with them as mom. That’s a boundary, that’s a guideline for the family, not bedtime. Depends on how tired you seem. Instead, bedtime is eight o’clock on school nights, that’s when you need to be in bed with lights out. Notice the pattern. No qualifiers, no mood dependent clauses. No if you’re good, blah, blah, blah.
Just the clear boundary set ahead of time. Delivered in a clear, calm, confident way. Step three, this one is difficult, but uber important. Answer once and then stop talking. See what I did there. Here’s where most parents sabotage their own clarity. You give a clear answer and then your kid pushes back.
Then you start explaining, like the teacher on the peanuts,
they ask, can I stay up late tonight? And you say, bedtime’s eight o’clock, and you see the frustration on their face and then you go, well, the reason bedtime is 8:00 PM is because you need eight hours of sleep and research shows the kids your aide, blah, blah, blah. And when you don’t get enough sleep, you’re cranky in the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No, just stop. You’re the peaceful leader of the household. You already gave the answer. Their pushback doesn’t require a defense. You can say, I know you don’t wanna go to bed right now. I get it, and bedtime is 8:00 PM And then you pause and you give them a hot minute to process what you’ve just said, and they get to feel their feelings.
Of anger and frustration and disappointment while you hold the boundary. And last step four, which is the most important, is that you follow through every time. And this is where the rubber meets the road completely. If you say screen time is at 5:00 PM and then you let it slide to five 30 because you feel really connected with them, or you guys have had an amazing day or something difficult happened at school.
You let it slide to five 30, then you’ve just made the boundary vague again. If you say sleepovers happen on Fridays and Saturdays only, and then you cave to a Wednesday sleepover, you’ve taught your kid the boundary is negotiable. Consistency is what makes clear boundaries actually work. It’s the implementation of the boundary.
Here’s my favorite phrase for this. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Not harshly, not with anger. Just calmly and consistently, firm and kind. Here’s your homework this week. Assignment number one, the vague boundary audit. I want you to track how many times you use these phrases this week. Maybe we’ll see.
It depends. If you’re good, just track it. Notice where you default to vague. No judgment, not by me or you just creating an awareness. And then assignment number two, choose one boundary to clarify. Pick the one boundary that’s causing the most chaos in your house right now. Maybe it’s screen time, maybe it’s bedtime, maybe it’s asking for snacks constantly when you’re calm and by yourself, and have a moment during the day maybe when you’re at work or you’ve just gotten the kids off to school and you’re sitting having a cup of coffee.
Maybe you’re driving in the car. I want you to think and write down what is the boundary, be specific, when does it apply, when doesn’t it apply? What happens if it’s not followed? Then communicate it clearly to your kid before the next time it comes up. Hey, I’ve had time to think about it, and this is what we’re gonna do with electronics each school night or school day, or, here’s how we’re gonna proceed with curfew from here on out.
Communicate it clearly to your kid before the next time it comes up. This is a total game changer. And then homework number three, I want you to practice the phrase I’ve given you my answer. When your kid pushes back on a clear boundary practice saying, I’ve given you my answer, or I’ve told you the boundary, it’s not changing, then stop talking.
Don’t defend, don’t explain. Again, just hold the boundary that you’ve set. Okay? You know what I want you to take away from today? Vague boundaries aren’t kinder. They’re harder on everyone. You, your kid, the co-parent. Your child isn’t being difficult when they ask 47 times. What they’re doing is they’re trying desperately to figure out where the edge is.
Your kid isn’t testing you because they don’t respect you. They’re testing because the boundary keeps moving, and here’s what I know with a hundred percent certainty. When you get really clear, really truly clear, the testing decreases because kids don’t need flexible boundaries. They need solid boundaries delivered firmly and kindly.
They need to know this is the limit. It’s not changing. You can be upset about it. And I’m still here with compassion and empathy while holding the limit. That is peaceful parenting, that’s secure attachment, and that’s the steady leadership that your kids crave, and that creates emotional intelligence downstream.
So get clear, stay clear, and be consistent. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the work, and I’m with you every step of the way. Until next time, I’m wishing you peaceful parenting. Thanks for listening to Real World Peaceful Parenting. If you want more info on how you can transform your parenting, visit the peaceful parent.com.
See you soon.