Imagine yourself in a Dark Room, Unable to See...

I have a dear friend whose mother died when she was just tiny. Now she is a mother and has expressed her wish that her mother were near by to talk to when she has discipline questions. I shared the following with her and thought that perhaps others would benefit too. So here is what I told her:

Picture yourself in the middle of dark, windowless, doorless room. You are sitting on a chair--confused and alone and you're wondering what the room is like. You crawl on the floor very slowly, feeling with your hands--hoping there are no sudden drops or hard things that you might bump into. Afterall you do not want to be hurt. You crawl until you reach the wall. Then you stand and feel around the walls and you go around the square of the walls. You become confident that you are safe with the boundary of the walls--there are no drops or bumps, but because it is dark, you are never sure you have covered all of the area between the walls and your chair. So, you keep testing to make sure the boundaries are safe. This applies to a young child's life. They will crawl and feel their way until they know their boundaries (the walls). Then they will will keep testing to make sure the boundaries haven't changed. As long as the boundaries do not change, they feel very secure and will behave better. If consistency changes, however, they will test to see if their boundaries have broadened. Once the child is older and can be reasoned with, of course the boundaries are made larger--but only after the child has proven to himself and you that they can handle the smaller boundaries. I hope this makes sense to you. It really helped me to make sure I stayed consistent at all costs. My child's future well-being depended upon it.