Saying "No"

I’ve been reading several posts on parenting written by Lindsay Ferrier, the Suburban Turmoil blogger. I love her posts by the way, she has opinions and is not afraid to voice them or use colorful language doing so. ANYWAY, after reading about five of them this morning, I was inspired to write another parenting post myself. Afterall, it’s something I not only deal with on a daily basis in my own life, but it’s something I have very passionate opinions and ideas about.

When Toddlers Say “No”

My daughter Olivia, who just turned three, seemed to breeze through her “terrible twos” with a minimal amount of damage. There was the jumping off of furniture, occasional fit throwing, hitting her sister, and of course, my all time favorite …saying “no” to any and all requests made by most any adult she encountered. However, some of our family members seemed to have a problem with this. My grandmother, one of my aunts (who is around us most often), my parents, my sister (you know, the “cool” aunt who has no children of her own), and even my dear husband (who’s supposed to be on my side) would tell Olivia she was “not allowed to tell us no”. Here’s my problem with that. Why on earth would you teach someone, anyone at any age, that they are not allowed to tell someone “no”. Are we trying to raise a people pleasing, peer-pressure bending, doormat of a person? Hell no! Not only that, but she’s TWO. She’s supposed to tell us “no”. It shows that she’s on the right track developmentally and right on schedule. She’s seeking autonomy; she’s learning that there just might be another option when someone is trying to get her to do something she doesn’t want to do. And guess what? This is totally okay with me. If she didn’t tell me no and completely complied with my every request I would……..well, probably be a little afraid, because that’s just not normal. Seriously, what child does that? I want her to have opinions, I want her to have her own idea of how things should go, and I want her to be comfortable with telling someone “no”.

That being said, I totally understand that even though I’m okay with her testing my authority, it does not mean that she is allowed to do whatever she wants, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I back off when she says “no”. I refuse to argue, I refuse to battle it out. I reaffirm what is okay behavior and what is not. For example-- Me: “Olivia get off of the coffee table please, because you could fall and hurt yourself”, Olivia: “no”, Me: walk over, get her down and say “you may not stand on the coffee table because it is dangerous and I don’t want you to get hurt”. Now usually I have to repeat this a few more times before she complies, and we do go through this fairly often (what can I say? she’s an active child and loves to climb and jump), but that’s just parenting. I think there are many ways to assert one’s authority…when necessary. But telling someone else they have no power to make a choice (i.e. telling them they can’t say “no”) is not an okay tactic in my book. Now if I could just get everyone else to see things my way…….oh, what a perfect world. LOL ;)