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No-prep interactive lessons on social, emotional, and mental health for teachers & parents
Healthy Friendships & Relationships Part 2:
How to Set Boundaries & Manage Unhealthy Friendships
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INTRO
The first lesson explains the difference between healthy and unhealthy friendship and relationships. But what do you do when you determine a relationship isn't healthy? What is the next step? Should you try to fix it? Should you end it?
Many kids and teens can recognize when friendship isn't quite right, but even once they have words for it they still aren't sure what to do about it. Some relationships can be improved by introducing appropriate boundaries. Other relationships are very unlikely to improve and distancing yourself, either physically or emotionally, may be a better option. But how do you tell the difference?
This lesson gives ideas for teaching the next step. It talks about:
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Setting boundaries
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How to recognize when to distance yourself from someone
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Common reactions someone might have when you set a boundary, such as invalidation, distraction, blaming, and threats
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Why excusing or allowing a friend's behavior to continue without consequences hurts you and them
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How to distance yourself from someone you still need to interact with often
HOW TO TEACH
1) Setting Boundaries
When there are no boundaries in a friendship, it's unclear who is in control of what. Setting boundaries is about redefining what's in your control and what is in someone else's control.
There are two parts to setting a boundary: stating an expectation and a consequence. A consequence to someone breaking a boundary usually means distancing yourself or limiting how you interact with them. There is sometimes a misunderstanding that setting boundaries is trying to control the other person, but this isn't accurate. A boundary is setting out guidelines for what you are okay with and then defining how you will respond to it.
Let's say someone has broken down your privacy boundary by sharing something with others that you told them in private. In this case setting a boundary might involve changing how you interact with them. Here's what setting a boundary might look like:
Another example might be someone breaking down your standards boundary by trying to pressure you to do something you aren't comfortable with. In this case, setting a boundary might involve distancing yourself from someone. Here's what it might look like:
Setting boundaries isn’t about punishing or controlling someone. It’s about respecting yourself by choosing what you are okay with and deciding how you will respond. If the other person can respect new healthy boundaries, then a relationship can improve.
2) How to determine if a relationship can't improve
No relationship is perfect, but some unhealthy relationships have no way improving. There's a simple way to test if a relationship can improve or not. In order to improve, a relationship must have two things: A road to conflict resolution, and a way for each person to accept responsibility.
This path is especially important when a boundary or trust has been broken. If the path is clear, one person can bring up a problem to the other. If the other person accepts responsibility for breaking a boundary or trust, the relationship can improve. Accepting responsibility must include: acknowledging what they did, apologizing, and committing to changing.
If the road is blocked in some way, then there is no way to bring up problems and therefore no way to improve. If someone doesn't have place where they can accept responsibility, the relationship also cannot improve. An unhealthy relationship will stay unhealthy.
3) Common Unhealthy Reactions to Setting Boundaries
Here are some common reactions when you try to set a boundary in an unhealthy relationship. All of these unhealthy reactions prevent someone from accepting responsibility by acknowledging, apologizing, and changing, and ensure the relationship will stay unhealthy.
Invalidation
Any kind of reaction where someone invalidates what you are saying prevents them from taking responsibility. This is a form of manipulation and often presents itself in the form of gaslighting. When you bring up a problem, the person may confuse you and make you question whether your perception is wrong. They may make you think you can't trust your own thoughts, concerns and feelings.
Perhaps you bring up an instance where they said something mean you, but they reframe it to make it seem like you misunderstood them and they were trying to just be helpful.
"I told you not to tell him I liked him. I don't want you to do that again"
"I was just trying to be helpful! I knew you were too shy to tell him yourself and I knew it would make you happy."
Or they may invalidate your concern by saying you are just remembering wrong and retell their version of how they remember something happening. Or they might invalidate by flat out denying they said or did something to the point you begin to question whether it happened or not, even though you saw it with your own eyes.
"I want you to return things after borrowing them. You often keep them until I forget about them."
"What are you talking about? I always return things."
They might invalidate your feelings by saying you are just too sensitive, or emotional, or you take things too seriously, you just need to learn to take a joke- all to make you question your feelings and perspective.
"It really hurt me when you said that."
"Oh my gosh, you freak out about everything! This is not a big deal."
If after bringing up a legitimate concern, you come away feeling confused and like you can't trust your own thoughts and feelings, this is a good sign someone is using invalidation to keep from having to take responsibility.
As long as invalidation is used, someone cannot acknowledge, apologize, or change, and the relationship will not improve. It also makes you question your own ability to judge what’s best for you. If you can’t trust your own judgment then you won’t have the confidence to build self-respect, protect boundaries, and break away from unhealthy friendships.
Distraction
Another way to avoid taking responsibility is by distracting from the issue or concern brought up. After you bring up them violating a boundary, they might suddenly be very sweet and kind and helpful. While they might be sugary sweet on the outside, it actually just distracts from the problem. They are still avoiding acknowledging, apologizing, or changing. Simply acting sweet doesn't make the boundary violation disappear.
"I don't like that you showed up at my house unannounced with some friends. You need to ask first."
"You look so cute today! I was just dying to see you. I miss you! You're the best."
They can also distract by bringing up something traumatic in their lives or in the world so you feel bad for bringing up a smaller issues, and they can avoid dealing with it. At first you might feel bad for bringing something up when they are dealing with something that seems bigger, but you may find a pattern after a while. Anytime you try to bring something up, you may find they have a sudden tragedy in their life, or some big issue in the world that they are more concerned about (an earthquake, etc), and you fin you are never actually able to address real issues.
"I don't like how you volunteered me to help you with something without asking me first. I don't want you to do that anymore."
"Look, I really can't talk about this right now. My grandma is in the hospital and that is just way more important."
Blame & Threats
Another reaction is to make you believe that no matter what problem you bring up, somehow you are at fault. They might do this by blaming you for their bad behavior. Or they may shift focus to some past mistake you have made. Or they might make you feel guilty for even bringing something up, thus keeping the problem focused on you. By shifting blame to you, they avoid acknowledging, apologizing, or changing. And an unhealthy relationship will stay unhealthy.
They may also make threats, such as saying they will hurt themselves if you set a boundary like distancing themselves. This can be especially confusing and convincing, and can make it hard for people to set boundaries and get a healthy distance from someone. Making threats is another way to avoid responsibility. In the end, all blame is pointed toward you.
4) Why can some people not maintain healthy relationships?
There are many reasons people don’t have good relationship skills. It might have to do with poor examples growing up, deep insecurities, or past trauma in their life. In most cases, people with bad relationship skills who hurt others have also been hurt themselves.
Sometimes when a relationship is unhealthy, you may not want to leave because you feel bad for the other person. It’s good to have empathy and understanding for someone who is hurting. But that doesn’t mean you have to let them hurt you. In fact, excusing their behavior and allowing it to continue without consequences isn’t kind or helpful. It hurts you AND them.
If you actually want to help them, you can do this by showing them an example of what healthy boundaries look like. This might include ending a friendship to preserve your self-respect. This example of self-respect will help them more than allowing them to continue treating you poorly with no consequences.
5) How do you protect yourself?
If you determine a friendship is unhealthy and can't improve, what do you do next?
You can distance yourself physically, or emotionally. Physical distance is easier to understand, but if you are going to have to continue to interact with someone often, it's helpful to learn how to emotionally distance yourself from someone for protection.
The way to emotionally distance yourself from an unhealthy relationship is to limit the kind of information you share with them. For people to really get in your head or have power and fuel to hurt or control you, they need personal information about you. If you keep conversations light, short, and impersonal, you can still protect yourself from someone you see often.
In general, stick to facts, not feelings. At least not any kind of vulnerable feelings. Here's a good vs. bad example:
REVIEW:
Setting boundaries can help unhealthy relationships improve. You can set boundaries by explaining what you’re okay with, and what will happen if someone breaks that boundary. If a friend isn’t able to respect boundaries or accept responsibilities, you may need to distance yourself from them to protect your self-respect. When you set boundaries, unhelpful reactions like invalidation, distraction, and blame keep people from acknowledging, apologizing, and changing. This means an unhealthy relationship will stay unhealthy. Excusing someone’s bad behavior hurts both of you. Setting an example of what healthy boundaries and self-respect look like will help both of you. Emotional distance can protect you from people you see often. To do this, limit information you share with them to things that are light and impersonal. Avoid discussing emotional or personal things.
If you want to teach this lesson now, try out my no-prep interactive PowerPoint. It includes lots of interactive portions and animations.
Thanks!
Eve
Short on time? Need to teach this now?