Setting and Respecting Boundaries

Along with keeping in touch with your family, you must balance this with respecting and setting healthy boundaries. This may never be an issue for you personally, but some of us have family members that can only be taken in low doses and for some of us that person may even be us. Either way that is okay, but it is important to respect people’s spaces and understand when people are feeling smothered or inconvenienced. If someone is getting slower to reply to your texts or call you back you may want to give them a bit more space.

On the other side of things if you feel you are being taken advantage of by a family member, manipulated or just bothered then do not be afraid to tell them how you feel politely. I have a father who was never around when we were younger but is now perfectly fine with asking us kids for money to gamble with. At first I felt bad and I lent him some money, but afterwards I noticed that it did not sit right with me and that I didn’t feel comfortable when I thought about the situation. At that point I decided to make the right decision to call him and tell him how I felt. He ended up sending back the money and because I took the time to explain how I felt about the situation it didn’t ruin the relationship we have. Please remember your family members have feelings of course so no matter how irrational they may be, show respect and speak in terms of I rather than you. People have a much easier time hearing how something makes you feel rather than how bad they are.