6/23/2023 0 Comments Dont say no![]() ![]() Is it possible to discipline without saying no? Read more from Parents with Confidence about adapting your parenting style to your child’s needs. Instead, we encourage her to use her words and express her emotions in a way that we can understand. We have also replace “don’t touch” with “please keep your hands to yourself”/”please keep your hands in your pockets” (we go to antique stores a lot).Īnd my husband is working on not using “my ears don’t hear whining” because she has shut down too many times. There are numerous examples I could give, but thought some of the best were in the image above. I want her to hear “Come here please!” or “Move away from the street!” or in a quick pinch “DANGER, MOVE!” Alternatives to saying no & using negative language with kids Likewise, if my daughter is in danger and is too close to the street I am not about to yell “Don’t go in the street!” because I don’t want her to hear the last half of it. Instead, I want her to hear “on the phone” and “in a little bit”. If she is not giving me her undivided attention, she may only hear “talk right now”. I do this because I am focusing on what she is going to hear. Instead of saying “I can’t talk right now” when I am waiting on hold on the phone and my daughter comes to ask me a question, I say “I am on the phone right now. It took me a long time and I am still not perfect. It’s really easy to say no… WAY too easy. So it’s not going to be a cake walk to retrain your mind to ditch negative words and actions like “no”, “stop”, “don’t”, “can’t”, etc. So how do I remove negative words when talking to my child? Read about and listen to my podcast episode on the power of saying MAYBE. So why would we not want to adopt a system that helps our children listen to us better? In fact, why would we not want to rewire our kids’ minds to hear us, to respond, and to feel heard? This is because there are a thousand alternatives to “not” doing something, but only one course of action that should be done when told specifically what to do. Then our kids are wired to ask “what can I do?” If we are given vague instructions, it leaves a lot of gray area. And really, what young child is giving us their undivided attention at all times? So when we add unnecessary negative language we force our children to process the syntax of what we say at least twice.īeyond just the way we hear, it’s also important for all of us to have clear directions. We sometimes hear the first part of a sentence, almost always hear the last part, but rarely hear the middle unless we have our complete attention on the person talking to us. This is called feature-deletion and, according to Stanford, is just one of many linguistic rules in how our brain processes the sentences we hear. In fact, in studying linguistics, we often don’t “listen” to what is being said, we only “hear” the intent, many times also not getting the first word. ![]() The way we are hard wired as humans is to listen to the sentence structure. And because it makes no more powerful when needed. So why would I advocate for adopting the “parenting without saying no” approach? And in cutting down, it has made use of the word more effective for us. However, I have drastically cut down on its use in our home by saying no without actually using the word. It is absolutely part of life and one I want them to hear. Sometimes it’s hard to admit that hearing no is really tough.Īnd in a very real sense, I by no means want my children to grow up without having ever been told no and my kids still hear no on a daily basis. It’s all about lessening their use to rewire our kids’ brains for positivity. Now as a mother of two, parenting without negative language like “no”,”don’t, and “stop” is an important part of my every single day. What I learned from teaching and in the first couple of years of parenthood is that taking as many opportunities to talk to children without saying “no” is so important. Sometimes this means doing things that seem counter-intuitive to make sure our kids are actually hearing what we are saying and learning from situations. From learning the difference between positive and negative language to what we feed them, there are so many things we have to pay attention to when raising well-adjusted kids. Parenting is a delicate balance of knowing how to raise your kids with integrity while also preparing them for the real world.
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