3 Common Hindrances to Effective Limit Setting — And What to Do Instead
Written by: Saumya Patel and Jaclyn Long
Discipline, at its core, is about teaching. When parents set limits and discipline their children, the goal is to teach them something and to create long term learning for them, not just to create a short-term solution of obeying in the moment. You are guiding your child in a way that helps them grow, understand boundaries, and develop the emotional regulation they need for the rest of their lives.
But as every parent knows, setting limits isn’t always easy! Even with the best of intentions and love, certain patterns can get in the way.
In this blog, you will learn three common hindrances that often get in the way of LONG-TERM effective limit setting, and tools that will help overcome them.
1. Emotional “White Noise”
One of the biggest obstacles to effective discipline is emotional “white noise” — the emotional responses that occur when you as the parent feel activated like frustration, stress, and emotional reactivity. Picture this: you ask your child to stop playing with freshly folded laundry. They continue. You repeat yourself, only to be dismissed again. Eventually, out of understandable frustration, your muscles tighten, your tone escalates, your voice gets louder, your gestures become more exaggerated — and before long, you are flipping your lid!
This emotional “white noise” includes:
Verbal cues like shaming language, blaming, and yelling
Nonverbal cues like muscle tension, large (or muted) gestures, facial expressions, and harsh tone
All this emotional white noise gets in the way of the limit you’re trying to set. When the emotional white noise is loud, your message gets lost and your teaching gets overlooked because of all the other information that is coming towards them. This is especially true for children with highly sensitive systems.
These cues don’t just distract from the message — they signal threat to the child. When you get activated and speak from YOUR emotional brain, it activates THEIR emotional brain! Their brain is signaling to them “WARNING, DANGER!” and suddenly, both you and your child have lost the connection of the helpful, regulatory centers in your brain. When you as a parent get activated, you unintentionally send alarm bells to your child's limbic system (the part of the brain responsible for emotional processing). When your child’s limbic system receives the “Warning! Danger!” signal, a cascade of events unfolds. Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline are released, their fight or flight response gets activated, and eventually they flip their lids! New studies have found that cortisol and adrenaline get in the way of learning. So when their limbic warning goes off, and the stress hormones begin to surge through their body, children are much less able to learn, listen, and take in new information effectively.
While getting loud and asserting dominance can be a short term solution in that the child might comply out of fear, it is generally not effective in the long term if this happens regularly. And even if it does seem to be effective in the longterm, it often comes at a cost to the child’s mental and emotional wellbeing, such as the development of chronic anxiety and hypervigilance in the child. So if you are finding that you are getting activated regularly, please remember that you are not alone. There are millions of parents who are struggling with this each and every day. The important thing to do is to reach out and get support. This support might be in the form of connecting with nature, calling a friend, moving your body or working with a therapist.
What’s Helpful: Calm + Confident + In Charge
So parents, when you start to feel emotional or activated, it’s helpful to recognize that this is not a teaching moment for the child, but instead, a time to take a self-time out. Regulation begins with the parent!
It is also not a time to offload your frustration onto your child. For instance, instead of saying to your child "I'm getting frustrated AT YOU!” try saying to yourself:
“I am noticing I am getting frustrated, it’s MY frustration.”
“I’m not feeling this way because of my child, even if my child is the trigger of my frustration. It’s still mine.
“I take ownership of my emotional state and my triggers.”
Taking ownership of your emotions is key. Whether it’s stepping away for a moment or simply noticing internal tension — “Ah, frustration is here, I can soften around it” — the goal is to calm the nervous system before delivering a limit.
The most effective limits are set with a warm smile, soft eyes, confident posture, and a tone that says, “I’m calm, I care about you, and I’ve got this.” This communicates safety, not threat — and creates the conditions for real learning to take place.
2. The Content Trap
Another common hindrance is the “content trap.” This occurs when children push back on a limit and ask, “But why? That’s not fair!” In an effort to remain calm, loving, and emotionally regulated, parents can get hooked and pulled into long explanations, justifications, and debates with their children.
This turns into a game of lawyering– suddenly hour-long debates on the limit happen and you feel like you’re raising and negotiating with a tiny lawyer! When the debates go on, parents end up saying too much, getting caught up in the content, using too many words, and going into long rationalizations.
While the intent is to stay emotionally regulated, calm, and connected, the result ends up being that your child learns that rules can be stepped over and avoided with long winded content. Instead of learning the limit, they end up learning how to avoid the limit. They may begin to apply the same tactics with teachers, other adults, and peers, believing that if they argue long enough, the rules might bend.
What’s Helpful: Three Words + Wait
To break this pattern, parents can use the “Three Words + Wait” technique:
Instead of getting caught in the content trap, parents can simplify. Set the limit using just three words:
“I said no.”
“Not today, sweetie.”
“It’s time to stop.”
Then pause and wait a minute: Allow your child to convey all their feelings, emotions, and messages. During that time, listen openly and warmly. By doing this, you are enacting positive discipline where you are saying YES to their feelings and NO to their behavior.
Limit Listen Limit: Set the limit, listen to their big feelings, then set the limit again. This teaches children that while their feelings are valid, and they can express their emotions to get all of their pain out, there are still rules that need to be followed. And you are there to help uphold clear boundaries and loving limits. Limits set calmly contribute to love.
Think of a speed limit sign — it doesn’t explain why the speed is set that way, it just clearly states the rule. There’s no room to argue or debate this room, it’s just something we simply listen to. The same applies here. Children need simple, calm, and consistent boundaries to learn, feel safe, and respect the rules.
3. Setting the Limit… but Not Enforcing It
The third hindrance is a pattern many loving, well-meaning parents fall into: setting the limit… but not following through.
Picture this: You tell your child, “Jimmy, stop throwing the ball over the house.” Jimmy keeps doing it. You repeat yourself. Again. And again. Your frustration is amping up, and eventually you come to a tipping point where your frustration gets so intense, you shut down and give up but the behavior continues.
This usually comes from a loving place! You may be trying to regulate your emotions, stay calm, and not flip your lids so instead of getting angry, you do the opposite and accept defeat. Unfortunately, this sends a message to your child that limits don’t have to be listened, are not real, and they can step all over them.
What’s Helpful: Enforcement: Come Close + Connect + Bring the Limit to Them
You can send all the messages they want but it’s not going to get communicated unless you establish a connection with your child!
Instead of shouting from across the room, walk over to them, get on your child’s level, make gentle eye contact, and restate the limit in a calm, kind tone. “Hey Jimmy, no throwing the ball over the house.”
Limits are most powerful when delivered through connection, not control. This small moment of connection — calm presence, proximity, and soft voice —not only is key in effective long term limit setting but also in effective long term relationship building. When you have strong relationships, kids naturally cooperate more and WANT to cooperate more. By refraining from creating emotional “white noise”, you are able to nourish your relationship with your child as you set the limit, listen to their feelings, go close, make a connection, and eventually enforce the limit by bringing the limit to them.
Final Thoughts
Effective limit setting isn’t about short term compliance where children react to fear, threats, or control. Instead, it’s a way for your children to learn and understand discipline in a way where they feel safe, loved, and heard.
Limit setting is also a time of self-reflection as a parent. Notice what your triggers are, how you react, and how that accuses a chain reaction for your child’s reaction.
These three hindrances are common and are bound to happen again! Remember, the same way your child is learning and growing, so are you. Be patient with yourself as you navigate through this process, reflecting on the hindrance you resonate with most, whether that be one or all, and using the tools and strategies provided to take another step in supporting your child.
Want more? Enjoy this video of Jaclyn Long, Director of Mindful Child & Family Therapy, as she shares some of the tips outlined above.