No introductions — let's jump into the middle:
...and another reason we must set boundaries for our child: we don't want him to meet the monster inside himself too early.
I know this opener sounds strange, bordering on creepy. And I know "boundaries" is one of the most chewed-over (and least understood) words in the parenting conversation. But for a human mind to grow, to be glad, and to flourish, we must help it manage the monster within.
(This is true of relationships too, by the way.)
Now let's explain.
Starting point: every human being is born with destructive urges two or three sizes too big for him.
There has never risen the normal child who, mid-delight, interrupts a delicious or thrilling activity on his own initiative, approaches his parents, and announces:
"Listen, dearest parents. I've noticed I've been inhaling candy uninterrupted for five minutes now, hurling toys across the room without restraint, and decorating the process with frequent shrieks of impressive imagination. I believe continuing will leave me with a sour and growing sense of failure, and I am fully aware that my braking systems collapsed three minutes ago. For the sake of my psychological integrity, I would be grateful if one of you saw fit to stop this catastrophe. Please."
Not in this lifetime.
Usually you'll ask the child to stop, and he'll answer: "Don't want to."
Now, a strong spotlight on your child: what does he actually feel when he sees the destruction? When his room slides from reasonably messy into total chaos? What happens to him when his vocal cords go hoarse and start to hurt? What happens to his sense of security when he watches us — mom, dad — flip from our usual restraint into a high-decibel meltdown?
He gets scared. That's what happens.
He gets scared because he's just been given a serious look into the chaos of the mind. He grasps, in his childish way, that human functioning can come apart — that the safe base he runs his life on is really, truly not a given.
And that's not even the worst part. Not only is he exposed to the chaos — he hasn't the faintest idea how to stop it.
Now take that situation and multiply it by twenty, by a hundred; replay it again and again — and you've produced a child who develops three lethal stances toward himself:
a. He thinks he is bad.
b. He thinks he is broken.
c. He becomes a pessimist.
A warning note: I'm presenting all this over-dramatically, to provoke thought. There is no intention here to lecture parents and wag fingers. I believe most parents are good parents who know what they're doing.
Back to it.
So the child from the previous paragraph grows up, grows stubble, dates, wants to build things and become someone — and deep down he is convinced he's a monster. Unworthy of anyone. He doesn't really believe things will be good.
And you can understand him. He watched his bad sides come out again and again — and nobody stopped him. He became an antagonistic adolescent who cursed his parents and openly scorned them — and nobody stopped him.
He carries himself with a counterfeit confidence — "I do whatever I want" — but all he actually wants is to chase pleasures and thrills out in the world, because he really, truly does not want to meet himself in depth inside a relationship.
Not the best way to spend an afternoon, ten years from now.
Boundaries are not about control for its own sake, and they're not about your convenience. A boundary is you, stepping in as the braking system your child doesn't have yet — until the day he builds his own.
Stop the catastrophe. He's begging you to, in the only language he has.