Dear Kid Whisperer,

We have a community water park that we go to multiple times per week. We usually bring at least one of my 10-year-old daughter’s friends from the neighborhood. The place is pretty big, so we ask that every hour, my daughter and her friend(s) check back with us so they can get a drink of water and some shade. This helps us to also know that they are safe. My daughter doesn’t respect the limit. She pretty much laughs at us and only comes to us when she wants to. There is no excuse for this, because the lifeguards blow the whistle every hour. What do we do?

Answer: Limits that are not enforced are not limits.

They are suggestions.

Kids who don’t have actual (enforced) limits often tend to learn some destructive lessons during their childhoods:

–When people set limits,

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