Hi, this is Janet Landsfury. Welcome to Unwraffled.

Today I'm responding to a comment that was left on what of my post, the post is called

when your child seems stuck seeking negative attention.

And in this parent's comment, she brought up a really good question I thought

that was a question for me when I was raising my first daughter.

What she's asking is how to know when to give her child what she seems to want or be asking for,

versus setting a boundary.

So how do we know if something is a boundary situation?

And when we do set the boundary, how do we set that boundary?

I'm going to be discussing all those things in this episode.

First.

Okay, so here's the comment that I received on my post when your child seems stuck seeking negative attention.

This parent asks what about when the attention seeking behavior is annoying, but not necessarily wrong slash hurtful.

And she's asking for reasonable things, but just too much of them.

For example, my daughter will whine and cry for me to hold her, to take a nap, to snuggle with my breasts, get her food, for me to play with her.

But then when I give her those things, I get the feeling she didn't really need them.

She refuses the nap, changes the subject, won't eat.

If I say no, it escalates into crying hard and being truly upset.

It seems like sometimes she's looking for me to say no, so she can get the emotional release and have a boundary.

But how do I know how much of that type of attention she really needs, versus when to set a boundary?

Okay, so one thing I love about this is like so many parents that write to me, this parent nails the answer.

She says it seems like sometimes she's looking for me to say no, so she can get the emotional release and have a boundary.

...