As parents we develop family rules that we want our children to abide by. We think they are reasonable and put in place in the best interest of our children, whether it is for their well-being, health or safety. It amazes me though, that even though this sounds so cut and dried, how hard it is to stick to your guns and enforce THE RULES.

No matter the rule, no matter the age of the child, every rule you make will be challenged at some point. Some will be easy to enforce and others will crumble underneath you so fast, you'll wonder what they were based on in the first place. The challenge is to differentiate which rules are really important to us. I recently had one of our family rules put to the test at a neighborhood party. We arrived at the party and many children were jumping on a trampoline. Now this is not my attempt to start a conversation on whether trampolines are safe or not, but rather to illustrate how my children along with peer pressure can challenge a family rule we had made. So back to the party...

Many children were already enjoying the trampoline when we arrived. I reminded my children about our rule and gave them suggestions of other activities they could participate in. I received the usual moans but soon they were off to play in the water and join in other games. My son came up to me soon after because his friends were all wrestling on the trampoline and he felt left out. Now there is hardly anything more difficult for a mother than to know that her child feels left out, but this was not because of exclusion, but because of our own personal choice. So I took my son aside, because I did not want to sound as if I was being judgemental to other parents, and just told him that it was a decision that his mom and dad made because we wanted him to be safe. He accepted this, although not happily. Not more than five minutes had gone by and my daughter came pleading the same request of trampoline freedom, but she is much shrewder and brought a friend along to help her case. Children learn quickly that they are stronger when they confront you in a group. It is much harder to say no to more children especially if any of them are not your own. Again, I had to hold my ground and say no. I kept it short and to the point. "No and we have discussed the reasons why and we can discuss them again later at home after the party."

Now some of you reading this are probably thinking, "what's the big deal just let them join in and jump on the dang trampoline". You may be right about the trampoline part, but once a rule has been made, it needs to be upheld or all credibility you have as a parent goes out the window and it takes a lot of effort to get that respect from your children back. If you go soft on one rule, you can expect the next rule even harder to enforce and so on and so forth. This is not to say that some of your rules or mine do not need to be revised. Of course they do. Just do not do it when the child is begging for you to do so. So taking my trampoline example, after this particular party, should my husband and I decide that trampoline jumping should be allowable for our children, we would call them all together and tell them of the rule change and why it is being changed. This may seem like a process, but for those parents who share parenting responsilbilities, it is important for the children to see that you are a team and are united behind the family rules.

Upholding the rules we make as parents is very challenging. From my experience, the best advice I can give is not to make too many rules. Try to pick only rules you truly believe in and will be able to stand firmly behind. The old adage, "Choose your battles wisely" comes into play here. Children respond to a few firm family rules than many rules that are sometimes enforced and sometimes not. This will also make it easier to implement new rules as the children grow older. You will have already set precedent that you mean business when you set a new rule and this will hopefully carry over to other areas of their lives. After all, today it may be just jumping on the trampoline because their friends are able to, tomorrow it may be just drinking a few beers because their friends are able to.

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