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One of the best pieces of parenting advice I ever received came from my Dad who totally stole it from the Bible, but it suits all occasions and religions.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Seems pretty clear right? Well there’s more to it than that and the reasons I stuck to it were two-fold. Simply meaning, once you say “yes” or “no”, nothing will change your mind.
(One exception is if you said no in error AND your child gives a polite response. If they pitch a royal fit, now you say, “you’re right, I did promise you a cookie yesterday, but because you didn’t remind me respectfully and just screamed at me, you can’t have it.”)
Now for the why… For fun, let’s climb into the illogical and mostly subconscious brain of TWO adorable four-year-olds who have discovered the idea of monsters. Four-year-old number ONE lives with parents that never go back on their word. Simple example… “No, you can’t have a cookie.” Four-year-old throws an enormous tantrum and still does not get the cookie. ONE will believe you when you say either there are no monsters or mom/dad will protect you from them.
Versus four-year-old number TWO who throws a fit and talks you into things regularly, he/she won’t believe anything you say! Yup, on a subconscious level, kid number TWO will think, “If I can talk her into changing her mind, how is she going to stand up to a monster trying to talk his way into my room?”
I totally get how this sounds like an enormous stretch but think about it. If you can’t be trusted to stick to your convictions and boundaries, how does your child ever know where those boundaries are and what to trust or believe? Boundaries provide security. They also provide confidence.
The other reason I stuck to this with my daughter was because I remember firsthand how the wishy-washy, generous nature of my own parents taught me to NOT listen to them. Before I say more, you should know, my parents are wonderful… supportive, took great care of my sister and I, present in our lives, all the right things. However, my sister was honest and would tell on herself. Then I came along and would lie to their faces, so they had no idea how to handle such a strong willed stubborn kid. Their answer was to try to be strict but in the end, they would feel they’d been too harsh and go back on their word and punishment. (For the record, they had never been too harsh.)
I was grounded for the whole weekend on a regular basis. I would pretend to be sad as I slumped to my room with a secret smile on my face, knowing it would only last a couple hours. I would play quietly with my Legos for most of Saturday morning and wait for the inevitable door to open. Que my sad face.
“It seems like you’ve learned your lesson.” Mom and Dad took turns delivering the news.
“Yes, sir/ma’am. I’m sorry.” Fake sad face pasted on with super glue.
“Ok, you can go out and play now.”
To which I mentally replied, “Sucker!”
Total time served for my weekend punishment, 2-3 hours.
What did I learn? A lot. I thought as a six-year-old, I had out smarted my parents so they must be idiots. Why ask people I could con for advice or help? I also learned the violation was almost always worth the tiny punishment.
PLUS, and this is key, I never trusted my parents to stick to what they said, even in positive situations. I was a strong independent kid already. Their wishy-washy attitude taught me to only count on myself. This sounds positive, but in teenage years I ended up hiding most of my life from my parents when I’m sure I could have used their advice and more importantly more punishments.
Now the how…
Avoid auto-answering. Think before answering your child’s question. Sometimes we say no out of tiredness, laziness or just habit when we really don’t care all that much. When this happens, you’ve now picked a battle you didn’t care if you won, so you let them win.
Don’t threaten the big stuff.
How many times have you been guilty of threatening to take away that huge trip to Disneyland if your child didn’t pick up his socks or stop whining? Did you follow through? Of course not, you’ve already bought the tickets! Now, I’m not saying you should cancel an awesome family memory like this, but I am asking that you never threaten it in the first place. Only threaten what you can stick to so they can trust you to stick to your word.
Don’t punish yourself!
If movie night is your only time to nap, read or watch Game of Thrones, plan ahead so you have better punishments that don’t take away your alone time.
You deserve a break!
Let's face it, kids make us bat sh** crazy half the time. Knowing what your go-to punishment for each kid will be ahead of time is one less thing for your frazzled brain to think of when you'd rather just put them up for adoption. Yeah, we've all been there.
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