The Quiet Life with Susan Cain

The Quiet Life with Susan Cain

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The Quiet Life with Susan Cain
The Quiet Life with Susan Cain
5 ways to set boundaries - lovingly
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5 ways to set boundaries - lovingly

Plus: the biggest mistake that most of us make in relationships, and how to fix it

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Susan Cain
Dec 20, 2024
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The Quiet Life with Susan Cain
The Quiet Life with Susan Cain
5 ways to set boundaries - lovingly
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Art by Jungsuk Lee

“If you don’t let me go to the movies today, I’m not gonna love you anymore.”

So said our then-5-year-old son, who’s a very open-hearted guy. (He's a teenager now.) But that day, he was figuring out power dynamics. And he really wanted to go to the movies.

Because he was five, this power play didn’t bother me at all. It’s easy for most of us to react calmly to children’s emotional outbursts. We know they love us; we know they don’t really mean it, or at least they only mean it in the moment; we know they’re just hungry or tired or upset about something that happened at school that day.

So why is it so hard when beloved adults pull a grown-up version of the same maneuver: the silent treatment, the passive-aggressive jab, the aggressive-aggressive interrogation?

And might it be possible to respond to such events by setting boundaries, while treating our fellow grown-ups -- friends, partners, family members, colleagues -- with the same loving constancy we show children?

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