Oh Boy....I'm In Trouble

[cheerfuldom]

somebody posted on another forum I visit about the whole issue of not using the word "no" for their child. you all know that we providers have serious issues with that parenting technique (if thats what you want to call it, ha ha). so i post my thoughts I am accused of being judgmental and opinionated to which I agree and do not back down on any of my post. hopefully some clueless mom out there will see this post and think twice even if the OP doesn't. Why oh why is this idea embraced? its craziness!

[wdmmom]

My own kids range from age 15 to 6 and I can't think of a day that I've NOT said No to them! ::::::

The day a prospective client tells me that "No" isn't used for their child is the day they will hear me say NO...Not working for you!

I look at it like this:

Life is one big NO...No trespassing, No littering, No right turn on red, No jaywalking. Why are laws in place??? To make us better people. Why is NO a word??? To make us learn at a young age.

[morgan24]

I interviewed a family with a 18 month old girl, who did not want her to be told no. I asked them what word they wanted to use and they said they didn't care as long as she never heard the word no. I ended the interview by telling them that wouldn't work for me and good luck in their search. I don't see anything wrong with saying no.

[Kaddidle Care]

I'm with ya sisters!

After going round and round with my youngest because every other parent can't manage to say "no", all I can say is Thank You So Much because you've made my job of PARENTING so much harder. I thought the "but everyone else is doing it" stage came much later in life.

They want to push the Easy Button. They want to be "Friends" with their children.

It's time to grow up and be the parent. If a child isn't taught there are rules early in life, they will think nothing of breaking them when they are older.

Does anyone remember the College that caught the Students cheating on the exams and one of the students interviewed stated very matter of factly that "everyone cheats". This is the start of it. I can't find the video anymore but this is the article: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wides...ry?id=11737137

"But student Konstantin Ravvin expressed a different opinion, accusing the university of "making a witch hunt out of absolutely nothing, as if they want to teach us some kind of moral lesson."

"This is college. Everyone cheats, everyone cheats in life in general," Ravvin said. "I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in this testing lab who hasn't cheated on an exam." "

Would you hire this young man? Hmmmm?

[meganlavonnesmommy]

I had an inspector tell me we should never say the word no. She said we should use the following verbage when talking to children....
Instead of "no running", say "walking feet please":
"No hitting", say "we use gentle hands"
"no screaming", say "inside voices please"
"no jumping on the couch", say "here, you can jump on the floor"

It went on and on. She was a total quack! I dont see a problem with telling children no. Its a simple word they understand quickly. No child has grown up poorly becuase they were told no!

[dEHmom]

Instead of "no running", say "walking feet please":
"No hitting", say "we use gentle hands"
"no screaming", say "inside voices please"
"no jumping on the couch", say "here, you can jump on the floor"

i have no problem with the word no, but i normally, as long as i'm not cranky, say something like the suggested verbiage above first. if i have to repeat myself, or if it's a constant thing with a particular child, i will begin just saying NO. Now that i think about it, I normally start with "please don't touch that" then " (name) please don't play with that, that is not a toy" "(name) NO touching that" then "NO!"
like i said it depends on the perpetrator and what it is. If it's something like the stove, even when not on, it's "NO! don't touch, hot" When I can I also like to teach kids about hot. Obviously i don't make them touch a hot oven, but if the oven is on, i will hold their hand far away but close enough they can feel the heat. Or show them cold (ice cube) vs hot water (water will be in a cup or bowl, and they can feel the side of it). I think many kids never truly understand HOT until they've felt HOT. If you just tell them the oven is hot, they won't understand, especially when sometimes the oven is cold, until they have touched the hot and burned themself. kwim?

[kidkair]

I often put the two together. I say "No screaming inside. You may scream outside later. Right now use inside voices." The "no" gets them to stop and gets their attention. Then I can explain why I said no. I use "stop" a lot too for the same reason/effect. The earlier children are trained to follow rules the better they will be later in life because it will be so very engrained. In my opinion saying no to a child shows you truly care about that child and want them to be safe and happy in their life.

[daycare]

I had an inspector tell me we should never say the word no. She said we should use the following verbage when talking to children....
Instead of "no running", say "walking feet please":
"No hitting", say "we use gentle hands"
"no screaming", say "inside voices please"
"no jumping on the couch", say "here, you can jump on the floor"

It went on and on. She was a total quack! I dont see a problem with telling children no. Its a simple word they understand quickly. No child has grown up poorly becuase they were told no!

I will use these terms first asking nicely. If the child persist you will hear a firm no directly after.
I'm not sure what crazy doctor came up with this new found research that it's wrong to tell a child NO.

So if they want to play with knives what do we say?
Stick their hand in a fire?

Gee how about NO.

My sister is one of these no parents, she does not like to use the word. She told me that just because they are little people does not mean we should not respect them????
Ok explain to me now why saying NO is not respectful??
Ugh.

[Unregistered]

Look at todays kids they are horrible. Horrible meaning they lack discipline, they talk back, they run their house holds and society by saying we should not say such and such or we should not spank our kids is making society weaker. I will not be a parent or provider that feeds into such garbage.

[Zoe]

I don't think I say "No" a lot, but that's because I have such great kids right now . But when needed, I say things like, "B we don't hit" or "you need to stop now. we don't throw things." I'm sure No comes in there somewhere! Haha! Here, kids are responsible for their behavior and if I have to say a common 2 letter word to them to get them to understand, then I will!

[daycare]

Another thing that a lot of kids deal with these days as well is split homes. Speaking from experience, my own daughter to this day is a victim of the no punishment.
What would happen when she was younger she would go week on and off to her dads. Some how she would manage to get into trouble right before going to dads house. As soon ad daddy came she was no longer in trouble.
Therefore she often got away without punishment. Now that mr ex husband went back to Europe and does not live in the states anymore, my daughter has had no choice but to suffer the consequences. She will try to run to her room to call daddy to complain, but once I caught onto that, I started taking the phone away.

I think that these days so many kids come from split Homes to two extremely different parenting. I see this a lot in my daycare too, even with some that are married.

Bottom line it seems like a lack of parenting plans. Especially from split homes.

[sharlan]

I used to try saying "we don't jump on the sofa", "Johnny, I said not to jump on the sofa", "STOP", until I realized that it took 3 tries before they starting listening to me.

Now it's the "one time rule". First I'll say something like "please stop jumping on the sofa", then I'll say "let's go". They know that they're leaving the room then.

[SandeeAR]

Ummm, and to all these parents that won't let their little darlings hear the word no..........Jump forward 15- 18 years or so.....They are in the back seat of a car, parked on a lonely road, doing what teenagers do.......She won't know "how" to say NO and even if she does figure it out, He won't know what "NO" means.


Just think about the future.

[Unregistered]

If "no" isn't an option...

then what are a provider's options? I've had interviews with families who said that they didn't want me to tell their child "no" for any reason. My solution? I told the parents "no" in regard to signing up with me.

I think that the concept of "no" is important. The notion of bringing up children and never having the children be told "no" is a huge disservice to the children. Children need to learn to accept that sometimes the answer is "no". It's the way of the world. I'm not trying to be a pessimist and in a perfect world, nobody would ever have to deal with the dissappointment of hearing "no" as an answer. I think about long term ramifications of always giving a child their way and never saying "no" and to be honest, it's a scary scene. If a kid grows up always getting what they want and having parents that enable that attitude, how can that kid become an adult who can accept "no" as an answer. It's not exactly a mindset that can be changed overnight.

I have no problem buffering the "no" if I feel like it's a situation that warrants it. There are some situations that require an absolutely firm "no". For me, I don't buffer the "no" for things like hitting or if a child does something that could result in an injury to themselves or others. If it's a situation like running indoors, I might say something like "No, thank you. We run outside, not inside. Do you know why we don't run in the house?" I know that doesn't work for all kids, but by using that approach out of habit whenever a kid runs in the house, it seems to work out well in the end.

[daycare]

The word NO is understood in almost every single language in the world! No joke!

I guess except here..................that is if your parents are crazy.