Gary B. and Joy Lundberg teamed up Aug. 21 to encourage BYU Education Week attendees to set clear, delineated boundaries during a class titled "Setting Personal and Family Boundaries: How to be Loving and Firm."

When Brother and Sister Lundberg went on their first date several decades ago, they both shared high moral standards. However, she told him about some of the personal-preference boundaries her family had instilled in her while growing up and said that he would need to respect those boundaries if he wanted to continue seeing her. Her boundaries initially gave Brother Lundberg pause, but after returning home and reflecting on Joy's transparency he recognized significant benefit could come from courting a woman unashamed to express her boundaries on a first date.

"As I began to think about her, I could see that here was a woman that I would never have to guess where she stood," he said. "I would always know, and she wouldn't be bashful about telling me. I would know what her standards were, and her standards would be very straightforward. And if we ever got married, guess what? I wouldn't have to worry about her boundaries and standards. If we got married and had children, she would be very straightforward in teaching them principles."

According to the Lundbergs, boundaries define what there is to love about a person. Conversely, someone without boundaries is like a hologram — looking like a real person to the casual observer while proving to be hollow upon closer examination.

"A person without boundaries has the appearance of reality, but has no substance to anybody looking," Brother Lundberg said. "So what happens [is] life goes on right over you, through you and on top of you because you have no substance. Boundaries give you substance."

In order to be most effective, boundaries should embody the following four characteristics:

Kind

Gentle

Respectful

Firm

The main job of children, regardless of age, is to get their needs met. Consequently, they're given to testing and pushing the boundaries set forth for them by their parents. In order to avoid contention while still keeping family boundaries intact, the Lundbergs counseled parents to remember the words of Proverbs 15:1: "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger."

Brother and Sister Lundberg gave an example of effective boundary setting from their own lives. One of their adult children wanted them to pay for her $400 insurance premium, but they set a boundary of what they were willing to do by calmly and softly responding "that's not an option."

Brother Lundberg is a marriage and family therapist. Sister Lundberg is a poet, author and songwriter.

jaskar@desnews.com