My daughter is almost 5 and I’ve made a conscious effort to stop doing whatever I’m doing if she says stop or no.
For example, tickling. If I’m tickling and she says stop, I stop immediately with no back talk.
Or if I’m copying her in a joking way (we both do it to each other from time to time) and she says stop, that’s it. We’re done.
When I’m snuggling with her after reading books before bed, she feels comfortable enough to say, “you can go now” and I that’s it. I leave with no complaints.
In non-safety situations I ask if I can hold her hand. If she says no, that’s it, I’m not holding her hand. Parking lots are a different matter.
I will continue this throughout her entire upbringing so that if (ok, when) someone continues to do something she has said stop or no to, it will be unambiguously wrong to her.
Later when I explain that “no” is a complete sentence, it should feel intuitive.
Boy is she in for a ride awakening when she goes out into the world. Kids like yours don’t fare well when their world view gets shattered the first time.
You must have missed this part:
I will continue this throughout her entire upbringing so that if (ok, when) someone continues to do something she has said stop or no to, it will be unambiguously wrong to her.
It should feel wrong to her. That’s the point. And there will be explanations later that not everyone respects the first “stop” or “no” and that she should do something about those people.
She will learn about guns and I will offer to help her get a license to carry. I’m afraid those that would not respect her “stop” or “no” will be the ones getting their world view shattered.
It’s kind of strange that you seem to believe I won’t be able to explain this…
I’ve already had to explain that she can completely ignore people, including adults, who say things like, “god will punish you” and she’s not even 5 yet.
Children are, at some point, going to learn that the world is an awful place. This is inevitable. But it will go much better for them if, like in the example you’re responding to, they’ve been equipped with the tools required to navigate that awfulness.
What would you prefer? That they teach their child never to exercise any autonomy over their own body? How is that preferable?
I mean isn’t that most kids though? First time or in the world no matter how you do it is a shock.
What OP is doing is just the first steps to what I’m guessing is going to be a continuing education about how is ok to say no and should be respected. It isn’t the end of the road for the conversation about no
Screw the haters. This is awesome. Keep it up.
My only concern with this is that she might get the impression that people will do whatever she asks, but there’s a ton of context missing which likely demonstrates those concepts to her.
My only suggestion is to make it clear that if she says no, or stop, and someone doesn’t stop, do something about that. I’m sure that will be a discussion later. She sounds young enough for it to not be very important right now.
I appreciate this.
I don’t have kids and I’m just some guy on the internet, but I appreciate you nonetheless.
This is so sweet and awesome it made my morning
Some advice my parents gave me is: Theres two answers: yes, and everything else
An example of this with me and my gf is that this being my first relationship I am wanting to take this REALLY slow and she respects this. But anyways I don’t remember what she asked it was something pretty tame but I said “maybe” and she responded with “that wasn’t a no but it wasn’t an enthusiastic yes either”
We’ve been doing this with our kids; and when they say “no” and someone doesn’t stop, you better believe they say something about it!
Similarly, we’ve been getting consent before the doctor checks any underwear space. No pushback from any doctors or nurses for that either.
I think that you probably need to make some exceptions for doctors, etc., since children will say ‘no’ to things that they actually need, like vaccines, or dental work.
The older one just had a dental appointment today, and was uncomfortable with some of the procedures. My wife talked him through things along with the hygenist, and for a few things she took a different approach he was more comfortable with.
With vaccine reluctance, we generally go straight to bribes. We treat ourselves after doing something like that anyway, so why not them?
So far, we haven’t had any issues yet!