Never say 'NO'?

Disclaimer: I am not criticizing any parent (unless they are from the group of NON-parents that I have written about in some posts) But please remember - these are my personal views and I don't mean to impose them on anyone.

Updated to add: Tania left me a thought provoking comment for this post. I enjoyed replying to her comment and then I also decided to include her comment and my reply to it in this post. Why? Because I had completely forgotten to include these points, that Tania raised, in my post. And they are very relevant to the subject matter being discussed. Please scroll to the end of this post to see the added comments.

Sometime back I had an argument with a friend. She said one SHOULD say "NO" to kids whenever needed. How else will they learn that life doesn't always give you what you want? How else will you know that you have to deal with disappointments every once in a while? She said hearing "NO" often makes a child realize that that he/she is not the center of the universe and that it prepares them to face real life when they grow up.

I agreed with most of what she said. But I said one should cloak that "NO" in a "YES". I feel that if a child hears "NO" often, he/she learns to tune it out. And that hearing "NO" endlessly through the day is bound to frustrate a child. Agreed that children do things they are not supposed to do one after the other in quick succession. What is a parent to do? We can't just let them do what they want just so they won't have to hear the word "NO" over and over. (Though I have seen many NON-parents do exactly that) But I also believe that instead of saying "NO" over and over like a stuck record, it is better to physically remove the child from the location or distract him/her or take the main temptation away. And it is OK to let them cry for a few minutes if the distraction strategy fails. (Yup! I am heartless)

My friend and I disagreed so much on this issue that we simply agreed to disagree on it and left it at that. I have been thinking of writing on this matter for quite some time and finally today I think the time has come to put down my thoughts on this blog and have the last say in the matter against my friend :D

I absolutley do not mean that one should not say 'no'. I am just saying that sometimes while saying 'no' we should make the child believe we just said 'yes'. How? When S was little, I used to do this all the time. I really feel that how a sentence is interpreted very much depends on how positively (or not) the sentence is said. Take a look at these examples -

Yes, we'll buy that toy some other time.

No, we can't buy that toy right now.

Yes, you can have potato chips as soon as you finish this cucumber.

No you cannot have potato chips. you have to finish this cucumber first.

Yes, we will go to the park as soon as you finish your dinner.

No, we aren't going to the park until you finish your dinner.

Yes, I'll give you candy after you finish your lunch.

No, you cannot have candy. Finish your lunch first!

And more recently -

Yes, we will think about getting you a laptop when you are a little older.

No, you cannot get a laptop until you are a little older.

And,

Yes, an iPod sounds fun, but we'll think about it.

You can't have an iPod for Christmas. We'll have to think about it first.

I don't know about you, but if these sentences were spoken to me, I would defintiely be more receptive to the first sentence each time. In the last two examples, there might be follow-up questions as to what the exact timing for the "think" will be. In that case I wouldn't be vague or untruthful. I would just say I don't know the exact age when that would be allowed but we will definitely revisit the issue in future.

Now there are certain occasions when you just cannot cloak a 'no' in any way, shape or form. A 'no' has to be said and there is no other way around it. I say, go ahead and say it. I never said one should NEVER say 'no'. A child should understand 'no'. But they don't have to hear that frickin' word 138 times a day!

With S, I reserved "NO" for special occasions. When it was absolutley necessary that my "NO" be heard and paid attention to. For I believe that overuse of a thing may make it seem unimportant.

S has always been a manageable child. It is not that I never had to say 'no' to her, but whenever I said it she did listen. Or I made her listen. I remember this incident and I just recounted it to S a few days ago. She was about a year old. We had baby-proofed our apartment adequately but I still kept a watchful eye on her at all times because really, you haven't seen "overactive imagination" until you have seen mine in play, running through thousands of what-if worst case scenarios at any given moment. One day, S managed to pull out the cover of an electrical outlet. She then called me over, gave me a naughty smile and proceeded to insert her finger in one of the holes. I yelled "NO!", gave her a slap and yanked her away from there in a matter of seconds. She never did that again.

I have a few friends who yell 'no' so many times at their kids that frankly, if I were their kid, I would have stopped listening to them a long time ago too. And one funny thing is - the parents who yell "NO" the loudest (barring those who are yelling in panic or in an emergency situation) are the ones who just sit on their asses and yell 'no' to stop a kid who is running wild around the room. It is hard work, but walking (or running - as the case may be) up to your kid, holding his/her hand and firmly, but quietly saying 'no' works better than yelling it from across the room. And it helps if you can back up your 'no' with a valid reason or explanation. Though you have to understand that this approach isn't going to work wonders within minutes. It takes time. And effort.

We were just recently visited by a friend who has a 20 month old son who is used to getting what he wants and when he wants it. We spent the whole day listening to a whiny, crying, screaming toddler. This was the pattern that repeated itself the whole day -

Toddler sees laptop.

Toddler wants to play with laptop.

Toddler hears 'no'.

Toddler starts whining.

Toddler then starts clawing at the said laptop.

The laptop is put away high on the dining table.

Toddler goes up to the dining table and starts crying for the laptop.

Mom goes up to the toddler and says 'no'.

Toddlre starts screaming and stomping his foot.

Now replace the word "laptop" with phone, remote (3 different ones), cellphone (3 different ones), hot tea, car keys (2 sets) and a heavy glass candle holder. (I think I have forgotten a couple more items but that's OK - you get the picture). Repeat the scene for each item with the volume one note higher each time and you can imagine our frayed, insane selves clawing at our ears to make the noise stop. I mean, this kid just does not know the meaning of 'no'. And I don't blame him. It is his parents' job to make him understand. His father proudly proclaimed that at home he gets what he wants ( जो चाहिऐ वो लेकर ही दम लेता है - he stops only after he gets what he wants) We were informed that he created a similar scene for his uncle's phone and his uncle HAD to give up the phone to make him stop crying. I don't know if I'd be proud of something like this but I have seen plenty of parents (even in our own family) who are.

On the other hand, we were visited by a 2 year old and his parents when I was almost full-term pregnant. He wanted to play with the shiny rocks that I had in a candle holder on a table. His parents let him take out 2 rocks, helped him play with them to make sure he didn't break the glass-top table and made him put them back in the candle holder before they left. Now THAT is the kind of parenting that teaches kids their limits, I believe.

I don't care if kids break something while visiting us. I always say - things are meant to be broken and I don't fret about something that I can easily replace. If I own something that I know I can't easily replace, I keep it out of reach of children when they visit us. But I don't believe phones, cellphones, keys and laptops are to be used as toys. S didn't get to play with them. M doesn't get to play with them either. The TV remotes attract her so I am thinking of cleaning up an old remote, that we don't use any more, and giving it to her so she can play with it. But she is NOT getting her grubby little hands on the real remote! She loves to claw on my laptop but I don't let her touch it. The day she throws a tantrum for it, I will keep it firmly out of her reach and demostrate that this is something she is NOT getting.

As a parent it is my job to make my kid understand that a 'no' means no. At the same time, I should also be mindful of the fact that if I were to hear 'no' every time I tried to do something fun (in my opinion) it would irritate me no end. So, I have to find ways of keeping 'no' to a minimum. Or be really good at distracting my kid. And be firm. I can't say enough about the importance of firmness. In peaches and in parenting.

Tania said...

CK

The scenarios that you mention in your YEs context are all "Yes we will do this IF you finish the other" And the big thing here is IF that you are rewarding the child for the regular tasks that he/she needs to do. About getting toys or electronics(it depends on if it is really needed or is it a big no no for his/her age).My daughter talks about getting for us a bigger car since all her friends come in bigger cars.What do you say then?I explain that we are replacing the biggercar with something like a IVY league tuition. And then how do you handle other scenarios where "I need that becuase someone else has it".We get her new things every year and we also make it a point that if she has not played with something for a year/ we donate it.

When she was an infant,I was told to let her explore until situations that are dangerous(the plug point for example)But what do you do with a child that puts a sandwich inside a VCR? And someone who wants a cellphone at 6?

We had a debate about this in a forum that I visit and IMHO saying No is OK if you have explained the reason and not because you are the parent.

My reply...

Tania: Thanks for airing this POV! I totally had forgotten to cover this in the post. As I said, it has been so long since I needed to apply all these strategies (now they are firmly in place and a way of life with us) that I have forgotten most of what I did.

First of all - I DON'T believe in rewarding a child for something they should be doing anyway like eating their food or helping around the house. I don't believe in "paying" kids to get them to help around the house. Maybe a little motivation but NO material rewards. I have a coupon book and I hand out some coupons (e.g. coupons for a BIG BEAR HUG, DINNER OF YOUR CHOICE, PICK THE MOVIE FOR MOVIE NIGHT, AN HOUR PAST BEDTIME etc.) to S every now and then for random reasons.

Yes, all the scenarios came out as if I reward good behavior with material rewards. I should have taken my time to think of other examples too. My idea was to show how I helped my daughter develop patience and how I didn't cater to the "right-now" urge that every child has.

Toys/electronics/"things" - We usually buy her big ticket items only twice a year. Once on her birthday, and on Christmas. At all other times, she has to "earn" them. E.g. she can buy a book or a board game when she clears a level in KUMON. And when we do buy her new toys/items (even on birthdays and Christmas), we donate a random number (3,5,8,10 - whatever mommy dearest thinks is an appropriate number for that time) of toys to charity. Or we at least put them away for the baby.

We never catered to "I need that because someone else has it" argument from S and she knows she cannot use it with us. And we lead by example on this one - there are a lot of things many of our friends have that we would love to have - including a bigger, fancier car - but don't buy because we don't need them. Almost all of S' friends have been to Disney world, while we haven't. She has brought it up a few times and we have told her we will go when we can afford to spend the time and money. Same goes for rules - she understands from an early age that her friends may have different rules at their homes and while she may not be allowed to do certain things, her friends may be, and vice versa.

In regards with exploring, I agree with you. Allow them to explore as long as they are not doing something dangerous. As for the sandwich example, I would say make the child sit in one place and eat her meal? S was ALWAYS put in a high chair at meal times - and later always sat at the dining table - and was not allowed to roam around while eating. I always treated mealtime as a time when she needs to focus on eating and not as something she could do while playing. But that is material for another post that deals with developing good eating habits because, in my mind, I would have said No long before my child put the sandwich in the VCR. I would have said No when she tried to walk around with her food. (I did - S has tried doing all those things that any normal, boisterous child would do)

She did ask us for a laptop and an iPod this year (similar to a 6 year old wanting a cell phone, I think) and I said no. Explained my reasons to her too. I never said parents should never say no. Distracting, cloaking No with a Yes, saying No with explanations for the reason behind it and sometimes just saying No (yes there ARE a few such times in every parent's life, I believe) all go together as a SET of strategies. None of them is sufficient by its lonesome self. You have to use different strategies at different times for different kids.

Whew!! What a long comment! Please do let me know if you manage to get through it without falling asleep :D And thanks for bringing these points up.