No

This post makes reference to a few of articles that I had been reading before K came along. It is also one of the promises that I had made to myself about how I would be as a mother. This post is all about saying “no” to the child.

A UCLA survey from a few years ago reported that the average one year old child hears the word “No!” more than 400 times a day! I was sure this was an exaggeration until I counted it myself- rather counted the times I said it and the times I almost said it. And then I also counted the number of times my mother said it, and my husband, and the maid. Sometimes its just “no”. Other times, for instance, when she wants to put her face inside the commode, it’s “No, no, NO!”  Truth is, the child really does hear NO a lot many times than it needs to, in English, and the other languages that we speak at home.

One of the alarming theories I came across was that children who are told “no” continuously, begin to doubt their abilities and eventually may respond with defiance or act ignorant of authority. One of our goals is to raise an independent child, and the last thing I wanted was a child who needed to be reassured all the time. Having said that, it certainly is an arduous task to NOT say “no” to a toddler.

I’m just sharing a couple of scenarios for brevity’s sake:

K wakes up in the morning dreaming of my brother’s badminton racket. My brother has hidden this away from her sight because she has a habit of slamming this on the floor. K wakes up, and the first word she utters after she finds my brother is “bat”. And in my brother’s words, there was nothing she could be distracted with, nothing that would pacify her for the next two hours, other than having that racket handed over to her. I am pretty sure she was told “no” to, 400 times, in just those 2 hours.

K, her play school told us, enjoys painting. So every other day, we all have a 15- 20 minute respite once she is handed her painting kit. Recently, she has taken to smearing paint on herself (“No, no, no, baby- no painting on your clothes!”- 4 times already) And this one day, decided to paint her lips and toes as well.

Two years into the job, I think its a question of my sanity versus a supposedly independent child. I think the former needs more safeguarding, thank you.