Say No: To Always Saying No To Your Child

Photo by Alexander Dummer on Unsplash

‘Do not eat that chocolate’, ‘Do not litter around’, ‘Do not go to the movie today’, ‘Do not buy that dress’….How does it sound? Would you like to listen to the word ‘No’ multiple times in a day?

The answer is surely “NO”. Our babies too do not want to listen to this word continuously from us for every other activity that they are doing. As parents, it is our responsibility to monitor the activities that our baby is doing and make sure that he/she is safe while doing so. Somewhere, without realisation and out of impulse we constantly start using this word. It is hard to decide onto the right amount of the number of times this word should be used.  

Children have their own way of exploring things and they are too small to realise what is right and what is wrong. They want to touch, put things in their mouth and throw it around. This is how they learn about the various things in their surroundings and understand how things feel.

Touching things, for example, if they touch a cloth, will generate a nervous impulse and they will understand about how things feel when touched. If they touch mud, that will be a first time experience for them to understand how the softness of mud feels like.

Amidst all this, what we have to be careful about is that they do not put that mud in their mouth or the cloth piece isn’t tiny enough to be swallowed. It is here when we have to use the word NO. Had we, at just the sight of our baby touching the mud said no, it would have left no room for him to explore.

As a parent myself, I identified the three T’s which can give us an alternative to always denying or stopping our children from exploring new things.

1. Think – Is it really necessary to deny or do you have an alternative in hand?
2. Talk – If your child is big enough to understand, talk to him as to why he cannot do that particular thing at that time. Explain to him the risks associated, how he would have been hurt or the damage that could have been caused.
3. Teach – Children will take their time to actually understand the harms and risks associated with all that they do. As a parent, you are required to be patient and gradually help him/her learn.

Having said that, we can either change the situation for the child or take him away from that situation. If we find that a particular toy to be destructive for the child, either change the toy or shift the child’s attention by taking him to a different room.

These small changes can surely have a huge impact. Try and see positive in the activities that your child does. Be a guarding light for your child rather than a barrier with a ‘NO’ tag on it.