As a parent, there are many lessons that I want to teach my children. Some are very important; don’t go with strangers, don’t run in the middle of the street, etc. Others are not life threatening but still important; brush your teeth, don’t pick your nose. Some, like what to do with someone who is TOO friendly, just pop up.
While going on a family walk, we ran across a raccoon who had clearly been fed by people before. I don’t know if he had been someone’s pet or was just cute enough that people had fed him in the past. Besides the conversation about the problems with feeding wildlife like this raccoon and approaching strange animals (even if they are super cute), we also had a discussion about what we should do if anyone was too friendly.
We talked about how we want to be friendly and honest with people. Yet, we want to set boundaries with people who make us feel uncomfortable, or just seem to demand more of our time or energy than we are willing to offer. It is often difficult to navigate the line between hurting someone’s feelings and setting up healthy boundaries. My daughter in particular has the tendency to play with people, even if she doesn’t really want to, just because they feel bad for that person. Because she is known to be very kind, teachers and other adults will often push her into relationships with kids who need friends because they have social issues.
On the one hand this is very nice. As someone who has made a living working with people on the margins, I am happy to see that she is doing the same thing in her own way. On the other hand, she often misses out on relationships with people she enjoys, because the person she is playing with drives others away. As her father, I do want to fight for her to have good, solid relationships with people who she likes and will look out for her.
I took the experience with the raccoon to talk to her and her brother about the need to set good boundaries. We want to be open to people and their needs. It feels good to feed the raccoon. Yet sometimes we need to say no for the long term safety of the person (or raccoon) and for ourselves. It is ok to walk away when we need to.
