Whatever you shrug off, you’re teaching. People learn your limits from what you let slide.

Limits get communicated by pattern rather than by announcement. Every time something lands and nothing follows, it registers as permitted, and the next version arrives slightly larger. Nobody is running an experiment on you; they are reading the available evidence.

Think of a behavior you have been absorbing and say something the first time it happens again, while it is still small. Plain, brief, no speech attached. An early correction is easier for both of you than the one that comes after months of silence.