It was an enthusiasm I hadn’t seen from an adult in a while: an animated grandmother, purposefully bounding toward me with a huge smile on her face and a contrasting furrow in her brow.
“Why doesn’t anyone say ‘no’ to children anymore?” she queried. “Everyone is wondering what’s happening with kids these days and no one seems to make any connection between how we treat them and how they behave.”
She has a point. Even I, in the throes of raising children myself, am amazed at how kids have become master negotiators and we continually respond as though it is our job to keep the conversation going. Are we afraid of stunting some potential growth? Have we lost all value of allowing kids to work through frustration? Or are we just strangely set on raising an entire generation of litigators?
You hear it everywhere, and I’m as guilty as the next parent in serious consultation with wee ones, never mind their teenage counterparts, who simply refuse to accept our no. So we give in.
Our constant desire for distraction – typically found in the palm of our hands – is leaving our children emotionally and energetically malnourished, and we are not doing them any favours by allowing them to call the shots in the absence of real parenting.
We need to get somewhere, pay a bill or be on time for preschool. There’s a text from your best friend… and a really interesting study posted on Facebook about how your birth order affects the way you parent your own children and… “What? You don’t want to wear a jacket? Put on your jacket. Come on... Fine. You can wear your tutu, let’s just go.”
Sound familiar?
My girls are older now, but I distinctly remember the day we were off to the pool and my then-two-year-old wanted only to wear her swimsuit and life jacket. But it was January.
She howled for several minutes crying big, angry tears, working every angle that came to her mind. But my answer was a firm “no.” There was no question in my mind that it would ever be permitted, no matter how hard she tried to convince me. And as quickly as it started, it was over. She abruptly stopped, stood up and put her clothes on without so much as a peep, and we were out the door.
I often go back to that incident when my current “no” isn’t working. But there can be a waffle over whether her room really has to be cleaned up before she goes to bed (not really), compared with whether I will allow my youngest to play with newly sharped pruning shears (not a chance).
Sometimes we mean it, and other times we could go either way. Trouble is, kids have an innate ability to read us. Their radar could be used to solve the mystery of all the missing ships in the Bermuda triangle.
So, when we say no, we need to mean no. Which may require a bit of forethought – and we might have to put down our phone long enough to give the answer we truly mean to give. And then we need to stick to it.
