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Respecting
Personal Space
by
Claudia Goodman
Some principles
of life are so important to free agency and happiness that when
our forefathers wrote the United States Constitution, they felt
compelled to insure some of these rights by adding the first ten
amendments. One of these, the fourth amendment, is the right to
privacy—our homes and property cannot be searched or seized
without a warrant.
Even though
this right is publicly guarded and protected by the Constitution,
how often is it abused in individual families? The challenge lies
in finding a balance. Family members need supervision, but it is
equally important for each of us to have our own personal space,
where we can handle things ourselves, experiment with new ideas,
and try things on our own. If we are guarded too closely or never
given our own place, we forfeit that chance.
Privacy
Even small babies need their own personal space—in small amounts
to begin with, but nevertheless they need it. I remember trying
to hold our one-month-old baby as we looked for a crib. We had been
to several stores without success. He wasn’t hungry or hurting,
but no matter what I tried, he screamed. The salesperson suggested
that I lay him down in one of the floor model cribs for a while.
I was convinced that putting him down would only make him cry harder.
After a few more minutes of his screaming, the salesperson gently
took him from my arms and laid him in a crib, explaining that most
fussy babies in their store responded well to this treatment. He
immediately quieted down and enjoyed looking around until we were
ready to leave. All he needed was some personal space. I had been
holding him too long.
One of our
daughters and her husband stayed in a studio apartment with their
one-year old baby while her husband completed a summer internship.
It was so tiny that the only place for the baby’s crib was
right up against their bed. The baby, who had previously slept through
the night, began waking up every half hour and inevitably ended
up sleeping with his parents. After a week or two of sleepless nights,
they finally located a slightly larger apartment with one bedroom.
They put the baby in the master bedroom where they could close the
door at bedtime. They no longer had to confine themselves to the
bathroom or talk in whispers so the baby could sleep. Now the baby
had his own privacy, and the parents had theirs after he went to
bed. Left to himself, the baby chose to again sleep through the
night. Sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the living room was a minor
inconvenience for the parents, compared to the freedom and personal
space they had all acquired.
Belongings
As children grow, so does their need for personal space. One of
the best ways to meet these expanding requirements is to provide
and respect personal belongings. A child needs his own room, even
if it is shared with other siblings. He needs specific places to
keep his clothes, money, and treasures. And he needs the freedom
to know that those places will not be invaded. As our children grew
older, we found that it was very beneficial to establish a policy
of knocking and waiting for an invitation before entering a child’s
room. In shared bedrooms we also taught our children to respect
each other’s wishes to be alone occasionally. In this way our
children had a secure place where they could be alone to think,
cry, create, or pray.
It is so important
for us to teach our children to respect each other’s belongings.
Specific rules really help. Some of the ones we found to be effective
were:
Never look
in another person’s drawers without permission.
Never borrow
another person’s clothes without permission.
Never borrow
another person’s money without permission.
We discovered
that it was really important for us as parents to abide by those
rules as well as the children. Otherwise we couldn’t enforce
them. There were times when it was really hard—when someone
spilled on her shirt and didn’t have another clean one, and
her sister who did have one had already left for school.
Or when a child needed some money for a field trip and the only
person who had money wasn’t around. I also had to resist the
temptation to straighten my children’s clothes or drawers when
they weren’t looking and throw away all their junk. (I discovered
that even husbands can become very frustrated if you straighten
their things without their permission!) But we learned that as we
made ourselves stick to the rules, we eventually found other solutions
to each small crisis, and the children’s respect for each other’s
belongings increased immensely. We also eliminated a lot of conflicts
over missing clothes, broken toys, and misplaced money. Furthermore,
the children gained increased confidence that their own private
belongings and treasures would never be tampered with.
Writings
All of us need
time to think and explore our own ideas, and writing is one of the
most effective ways to refine them and record them. However, there
is a stage in the creative process when we might be embarrassed
if anyone saw what we were thinking. We’re not even sure if
we agree with it ourselves. Also, there are certain communications
that truly are confidential. One of the greatest ways we can show
respect to our children and to our spouse is to respect their private
writings.
Mail is one
of those areas. In most cases even husbands and wives feel much
better if they get to open their own mail, unless the other has
specifically delegated that privilege. And children feel great pride—and
even excitement—in opening their own letters. There is such
a feeling of importance in receiving a letter addressed just to
them. It becomes their own private treasure, which they can choose
to share or just keep to themselves.
While letters
are rather difficult to break into undetected, emails and journals
are relatively easy. You can always check “keep as new”
after you read someone else’s email, and most people can’t
detect the fingerprints you might leave on journal pages. It takes
a great deal of integrity not to go those places without permission.
But invariably a person habitually invading another’s privacy
will eventually be found out, and then the trust is broken.
As a parent
you may be objecting, “Yes, but I thought I was supposed to
know what my child is doing. How can I be a caring parent if I leave
my child (or spouse) to his own devices?” Please keep reading.
This issue will be addressed at the end of the article.
Conversations
Another area
where we can insure personal space is in conversations. Obviously
there are certain conversations between parents that they would
prefer not to have others hear. Sometimes husbands need to discuss
confidential business matters with an associate. Occasionally mothers
need to discuss circumstances involving their children that would
be better for the children not to be aware of. There are many callings
in the church that by their very nature require confidentiality.
If a wife is in the Relief Society presidency or the husband is
in the bishopric, for example, there will be items that they are
not free to discuss even with their spouse. Having a companion who
does not pry to find out those things can be a real blessing. It’s
usually better not to know about problems you can’t solve anyway.
In the same
way, children need to be allowed private conversations with their
friends occasionally. They talk about different things when parents
aren’t listening in. They need enough freedom to be themselves
without feeling like every word will be weighed by their parents.
The same guidelines
apply to phone conversations. In addition to allowing people the
freedom to walk in the other room to complete their talking, we
can also teach our children not to interrupt phone calls by asking
questions unless it is an emergency. Likewise, parents need to respect
their children and not interrupt their phone conversations unless
absolutely necessary. If children chronically interrupt phone calls
or get into trouble or cause other distractions in order to get
attention, they can be calmly placed in a childproof room (such
as their bedroom) away from you until you are off the phone. If
you consistently refuse to be interrupted and try to limit your
phone calls during children’s high demand times (such as dinner
time, right after school, bedtime, etc.), they will soon learn to
respect your personal needs.
Sometimes parents
need private one-on-one talking time either with each other or with
a child. Over the years our bedroom served as a quiet place for
such conversations. If the door was closed, children had to knock
before they entered. If we were in the middle of a private conversation,
we would explain to the children that we needed to talk to their
brother or sister alone for a few more minutes and asked if they
would mind waiting until we were finished. They soon learned to
respect that time, knowing that they, too, would have their turns.
Creating
unsupervised space in the midst of closely supervised space
Most of us
agree that it is important to respect the personal space of others.
The challenge is to find the balance between allowing them their
freedom and still keeping control of the situation. A great deal
depends on the age of the child and his temperament. Young children
need very close supervision most of the time they are awake and
monitoring even when they are sleeping. But as a child grows, letting
go more and more is part of the process.
Children need
to earn their right to more personal space by their behavior. Some
firm guidelines also help. For example, one day our fourteen-year-old
daughter called me on my cell phone in tears. I had dropped the
unsorted mail on the table before I left, and she discovered one
letter that was addressed to her. She eagerly opened it and began
to read. She had finished a couple of paragraphs and looked at the
picture before she realized that it was pornographic. She was very
upset for hours afterward, even though she didn’t finish the
letter. As we assessed the situation—one we had not anticipated
nor encountered before—we formulated some new guidelines together.
In addition to our rule to never open another person’s mail,
we now added two more: Never open a letter without a return address,
and never open a letter from someone you don’t know. We all
try to anticipate problems before they arise, but sometimes we have
to make adjustments as we go.
Phone calls
can also present some challenges as children enter their teenage
years and friends become more important to them. We had not had
much need to regulate phone calls until a certain junior high school
boy began calling our thirteen-year-old daughter. Within a week
they were spending a great deal of time on the phone every afternoon.
My husband had a visit with our daughter, which helped her to see
that homework, practicing, family responsibilities, and church activities
didn’t really allow her to spend that much time talking to
him on a daily basis. We also pointed out to her that spending so
much time one-on-one with a boy at this age might lead to the dating
stage sooner than she wanted to get there. With our encouragement
she chose to set some new guidelines that limited their conversations
to a few minutes a couple of times a week. Soon he quit calling.
While it was a little uncomfortable for her to make the change initially
(we let her handle things in her own way), that daughter has expressed
her gratitude to us several times since, for helping her see where
she was headed. That same boy ended up doing some things he regretted
with someone else, and our daughter was so grateful for some strict
guidelines that actually increased her freedom and kept her on course.
Computers and
TVs offer a huge challenge in supervision. Our leaders have suggested
that they be placed in common areas where children are not so likely
to be left alone with them. It helps if people are coming and going,
even if they aren’t actively monitoring. The rules for mail
can also apply to email, with possible additional rules that children
never open forwards or attachments without a parent’s approval.
Individual situations vary so much that families must establish
their own guidelines. The key is to prayerfully work together to
establish guidelines that allow parents to be fully aware of what
children are doing without interfering with their personal space
any more than necessary.
Joseph Smith
said, “We teach them correct principles and then let them govern
themselves.” Basically, the more time we spend setting those
limits up front, the less supervision will be required later on.
All family members need their own personal space. The challenge
is to respect it while teaching them to use it to full advantage.
In doing so, we will help them expand their free agency and their
happiness.
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