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Is It Ok To Say ‘No’ To Your Kids?
8.2k Plays1 month ago
In this solo episode, Jess shares her reflections on a recent conversation she had. The conversation was about whether or not children should hear the word “no” and how parents who follow “this new wave of gentle parenting” are no longer the leaders in their homes.
In the episode, Jess shares her thoughts on this view and tackles a common misconception about gentle parenting - that it's too permissive and doesn't allow for setting boundaries. She explains the crucial differences between permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative parenting styles, emphasizing that effective discipline combines warmth with firm boundaries.
Jess shares her expert knowledge and advice on:
- Why it's important and loving to say "no" to children
- How to be a calm leader for kids during challenging moments
- How setting boundaries helps kids learn to navigate disappointment
- How setting boundaries teaches kids to question authority appropriately
With relatable examples and research-backed information, this episode provides valuable guidance for parents seeking to strike the right balance between empathy and structure.
Jess mentions an episode with her friend Josh, and you can listen to that episode here.
If you want to learn more about the different parenting styles Jess talks about in the episode, check out this blog post. You’ll also find the research Jess refers to referenced at the end of the blog.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
We’d love to hear from you! Have questions you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email: [email protected].
Learn more about The Body Safety Toolkit here!
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Transcript
Introduction and Solo Hosting
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Robot Unicorn. It's just me today, just Jess. Scott is still recovering from not feeling the best as was our entire family was not feeling the best for the
Reflections on Parenting Conversations
00:00:23
Speaker
last couple of weeks. So just me today and I'm really excited to talk to you. I have something that's been on my heart, a conversation that I had with someone a couple of months ago that's been sitting with me and I've been waiting for an opportunity just to kind of share my thoughts with you.
Should Children Hear 'No'?
00:00:40
Speaker
So a person I know found out that we have a hate parenting podcast and found out that it was one of the top parenting podcasts. And they came up to me and they said, Jess, what would you say? Do you think that children should hear the word no? And the question was asked to me in such a way that they thought I was going to say no.
00:01:02
Speaker
that I didn't think that children should hear the word no. And my response was, of course, of course children should hear the word no. To me, that's not really a question. That's not the type of parenting that I teach.
Criticism of Gentle Parenting
00:01:14
Speaker
And the person said, yeah, but don't you think that this new kind of wave of gentle parenting is telling parents that they don't need to be the authority in their home and they don't ever need to tell their children no, and that children are kind of acting like they're best friends? And don't you think that it's all a bit wishy washy? And she said, I personally feel like parents are no longer the leader in their home. They don't think that they should ever say no to their children. And don't you think that's a problem?
00:01:44
Speaker
person came at me obviously having a lot of heat in their body and feeling very strongly on this topic. And as someone who is very open to always hearing feedback and as someone who talks to a lot of people who don't necessarily agree, that is the type of feedback I get the most often from people who are skeptical of this type of parenting.
Misconceptions about Gentle Parenting
00:02:07
Speaker
They often think that gentle parenting, and if you listen to this podcast, you know what's gotten, I think of that phrase. We don't love it because it insinuates to a lot of people that it's passive or it's permissive. And so today I wanted to talk to you about some of the reflections I've been having on that conversation I had with that person.
00:02:27
Speaker
because actually Scott was there for that conversation and I ended up walking away just feeling like it wasn't going to go anywhere. And I wanted to think about it more. Scott and I are very different in the fact that he is like pretty good on his toes. Like what I mean is if someone comes at him and they're really angry and upset about something, he's pretty good at handling that and thinking in the moment. Whereas you know me, I'm reflective. I like to have some time and space to think about it. And then I like to come up with my answer.
00:02:57
Speaker
I don't like to feel forced to share an answer or a thought or an opinion in the moment when I haven't quite had time to reflect on how I feel yet. So Scott and I just have two kind of differing ways of handling that. So he was there for that discussion. He ended up handling it. And if you want, once he comes back on, once he feels better, he can kind of share his perspective. But I've been reflecting a lot on my own feelings around that because that's the number one skepticism I hear from people.
Exploring Permissive Parenting
00:03:23
Speaker
So I want to talk about the difference between permissive parenting and authoritative parenting, which is the type of parenting that we teach here. So permissive parenting, there's a lot of literature on this. These parenting styles are not new.
00:03:39
Speaker
Permissive parenting is when we have high levels of warmth often. We don't always have high levels of warmth, but high levels of warmth towards our kids. And so that might look like you're validating feelings, like you're really good at validating feelings. You're really good at allowing your children's emotions. You might be very good at listening to your children. And you may have a really difficult time setting boundaries with children, having rules and expectations for your children.
00:04:09
Speaker
saying no, helping your children navigate disappointment. And I will say that often in the parents that I'm supporting, a lot of people might have a tendency towards the permissive side.
00:04:21
Speaker
And I say that with so much grace because that also would be me. I really have to think about having my boundaries in place. Because of my personality, I am someone who is incredibly empathetic, often to the point where I can put myself right in my child's shoes and it can be hard for me to want to set a boundary for them.
00:04:43
Speaker
I also have some people pleasing tendencies. So it can be easy for me to slip into a people pleaser mode with my children where I don't want to be the bad guy or feel like the bad guy. I don't want to make them disappointed in me. So then it can be hard to set those boundaries. And I think a lot of people who are in that permissive parenting, like kind of stuck in that have those people pleaser tendencies. They truly want what's best for their kids.
00:05:09
Speaker
And because of all of that, and they might be very empathetic, it might be very hard to hold a boundary. I think a lot of parents also who fall into more of that permissive parenting probably come from really harsh parents themselves. And so you may have been raised with parents who were very hard on you, who spanked you, who sent you away from them, who ridiculed you and teased you, and you don't want that for your kid.
00:05:34
Speaker
And so it can be really hard to find that balance between boundaries that are loving and firm and being a leader in your home
Challenges in Setting Boundaries
00:05:43
Speaker
and being permissive and allowing the feelings and being okay with all of that side of gentle parenting or whatever you want to call it, but having a really hard time with the boundary holding side.
00:05:55
Speaker
So I just want to say that is I do see some, not all, but I do see some people kind of slip into a bit more of that permissive side. And so why don't I give you an example? You have a child who wants to watch one more TV show and you've already set the boundary. You've set the expectation. Hey, you know what?
00:06:13
Speaker
We're going to watch one episode of Paw Patrol and then we're going to turn it off. And then one episode of Paw Patrol is almost done and your child's like, but mommy, I really want more. I really want to watch more. I don't want to turn it off. And you see how, and you know how upset your child's going to be now when you turn it off. You know that a meltdown is going to come. And in order to avoid that meltdown, avoid the big feelings and keep your child happy.
00:06:39
Speaker
You go against what your expectation is that you place and you say, you know what? No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. You really, you really want more Paw Patrol. It's fine. Right? And it's one thing if that's once in a while, hey, I do it too. Once in a while, I don't feel like dealing with a meltdown and I'll just say to my kids, you know what? Fine. Go ahead. Watch one more.
00:06:57
Speaker
But if that is your consistent parenting approach, that as soon as your child might have a big feeling you give in to whatever demand that they have, that is not the type of parenting that we're talking about here. Let me give you another example of a more permissive approach. Your child is hitting another child, maybe one of your own kids, with a toy. You say to them,
00:07:19
Speaker
I know it's really hard, bud. And like you're having a hard day, but I can't let you hit with that toy. Your child hears you and then they keep hitting with the toy and you just keep saying, I can't let you hit. I can't let you hit. But you're not stepping in, taking the toy out of their hand and saying, I won't let you have this toy. You're hitting with it. You can't be safe with it. We're going to take a break. Right. So there's two different approaches there. There's being passive and almost waiting for your child to follow your instruction.
00:07:47
Speaker
And there's taking control, stepping in and being the leader. So I think it's really important that we clarify the difference between being permissive and the style of parenting effective discipline that we talk about here, because there is this picture painted and a lot of people who are very skeptical of this type of parenting who say, well, it's all passive. We let our kids run the show. We let our kids be the leader in the home.
00:08:13
Speaker
And I would argue that that is not true. That is permissive parenting when we let our kids run the show and be the leader of the home.
Authoritative Parenting Explored
00:08:22
Speaker
What our role is, is to be the leader, but to stay curious about what's going on for our kids, right? And so now let's look on the complete flip side, right? So we have permissive parenting over here where we're very high on warmth a lot of the time, and we're very low on control, rules, expectations, holding boundaries, that's very low.
00:08:43
Speaker
OK, so now let's go to the other side, authoritarian parenting. OK, this is the parenting style that a lot of you might have been raised with this style of parenting. We see a very high level of control of rules of expectations and of harsh discipline often and lower levels of warmth. OK, so what we see in this style of parenting is, sure, parents might act as though they are the leader in the home, but it it comes at, you know, do as I say, not what I do. The second a child misbehaves, we're yelling at them, we're getting angry at them. We have rules in place that are unrealistic based on your child's development, right? Like, my toddler has to sit for 40 minutes at the dinner as we sit and eat dinner as a family. Okay, that's unrealistic.
00:09:31
Speaker
That's an expectation that's not fair to a toddler because they can't meet it and they will never meet it. And then an authoritarian parent might say, okay, well, you keep getting up at the dinner table. You're not listening to me. Now you have to go to your room and sit there until the family finishes dinner.
00:09:49
Speaker
Right? Very high on control, very high on rules and expectations, but we're not keeping in mind necessarily what's actually inappropriate and realistic expectation rule or boundary. We also see like on that side of things that we are often harsh with the kids, harsher punishments might take place.
00:10:10
Speaker
We see much the less of the validating feelings often. Parents who tend to lean more towards the harsher side have a very difficult time validating feelings and this again might be because you were raised that way. I think a lot of parents that are more authoritarian have never learned how to validate a feeling. We talked about that in the episode with our friend Josh. If you haven't listened to
Trust and Leadership in Parenting
00:10:34
Speaker
that one, make sure you do.
00:10:36
Speaker
But in the episode with Josh, we talk about how when he was first validating his son's feelings, he's like, it felt so weird because no one has ever validated me like that. And I've never spoke like this before in my life. Right. So we see a lot of parents on that authoritarian side who struggle to validate feelings, struggle to kind of have that empathy for their kids and have a lot of rules and structure in their home.
00:11:01
Speaker
Okay, so we have these two kind of polar opposite sides, this permissive where it's high, high, high warmth, low control and authoritarian where it's high, high, high control, low warmth. So what we're coming in at in our effective style of discipline that's been shown in the research, this is not new research, this has been around for a long time, is high warmth.
00:11:24
Speaker
and high control. And what I mean by high control is we have a parent who's willing to be a leader in their home. They're able to set rules and expectations in their home. They're able to hold boundaries and they do so with the warmth and with the understanding of what is developmentally appropriate for my child. Why is my child struggling so much?
00:11:50
Speaker
They can still do that piece where they walk in their child's shoes and and they can understand why they might be having such a hard day. Effective discipline comes when we can be a leader. I like to think about this example. So Scott and I recently went to Portugal yeah and we went there for our 10th anniversary. It was an incredible trip except for one thing that I really didn't like.
00:12:15
Speaker
We went on a boat ride on the ocean, not that big of a boat. We were on a boat and we were heading to these islands. We were gonna explore these islands for the day, beautiful islands. And we get on the boat and I realized that I haven't been on a boat in a very long time and I forgot how afraid I actually am of being on boats, okay? So we get on a boat and it's supposed to be a 20 minute ride into the ocean, no big deal.
00:12:42
Speaker
but I didn't realize is that we were going on open waters and it was a wavy windy rainy day. So we're sitting on this boat and it is just up and down, up and down and I already am a bit of an anxious person to begin with. I truly believe in my head like this is it for me and my anxious thoughts were spiraling. Like I was like this is it like What are we on? We're on some small boat in the middle of the ocean. I don't see a land anywhere. It's so wavy and people are kind of going back and forth to the whole boat. Like people are falling over if they're walking and in my head I'm like this is not good. And I can just think of my kids and I was stressing out and I felt like I was about to have a panic attack.
00:13:25
Speaker
and Scott noticed how I was feeling and he comes and he sits right next to me and he goes Jess look at the captain does he look worried and I look up and I see the captain at the very front of the boat and he goes does he look worried at all and the captain is just smiling away driving the boat like no he doesn't look worried he said okay keep your eye on the captain the whole time and so long as the captain doesn't look worried then I'm not worried about the boat either. And that's what I did. And so for the next whatever 20 minutes of the boat ride, I stared at that captain and I watched him navigate the sea, the waters going up and down, and I just watched him. And as he had the smile and that calm look on his face, I knew I was going to be okay. And I let him steer me to that Island and to safety.
00:14:19
Speaker
And that's what we want to be for our children. We want to be that captain. We don't want to join in their chaos. I didn't need the captain sitting next to me being like, yeah, it is really wavy and just leaving it there. That would have stressed me out more. I didn't need the captain joining into my anxiety attack. That would have made things way worse.
00:14:40
Speaker
What I needed to do is to look up at him and know that he's got this covered and that I am okay. And that's what our children need from us. When they're having a tantrum or they're having a really difficult time, even with their behavior, they need to look to us to be the one to steer them back to safety. And I think that's truly what this authoritative or effective discipline does for our kids.
00:15:08
Speaker
We need to be the leader. And part of that is yes, we do need to say no to our kids. When our children are asking for things, they don't have the ability yet to know that it's too much, or that it's not gonna be safe for them, or that no, they can't have more screens right now, or they can't have more candy right now, or they can't go to their friend's house every single night of the week, or they can't stay up past nine o'clock because they're not gonna feel good tomorrow.
00:15:36
Speaker
It's their job to ask us for the world because they don't yet know the consequences for these things. It's our job to be the captain of their ship and to help them know when something is a no and when something is a yes, and then to help them deal with the feelings that come up after that.
00:15:56
Speaker
For example, your child wants to stay up late. Every night. They always want to stay up late. You know that leads to meltdowns. That leads to them having a bad day tomorrow. They don't know that. They're controlled by their impulses. They know that it maybe it would be fun and they can watch another movie if they stay up late.
00:16:13
Speaker
They need you to act as that calm and caring captain, you know, of their boat and say, you know
Importance of Boundaries for Safety
00:16:20
Speaker
what? No, hon. You got to go to bed on time tonight because I know you're going to feel better tomorrow if you have a good night of sleep. I'm going to help you do that. And your child cries and they protest and the seas inside of their body feel so stormy and everything feels wild. But they look to you and you're calm and you're confident in your expectation.
00:16:40
Speaker
and you help them navigate those stormy seas. That's what effective discipline does. So we're not telling our children just to do something because we said so, or because they have to, or because we're the boss. We can explain to them why we have a rule in place. And something that I've always said is, if you don't have a reason why you have the rule in place, then does that rule really need to be in place, right? We have some parents. um I can also be this parent who just have a lot of rules and they don't always make sense.
00:17:13
Speaker
So it's okay for your child to question your rules and it's okay for you to ask yourself, do I really need to have this rule or am I just putting this in place because I feel like it? you know So ask yourself that, but it's okay for you to say no to your kids sometimes. It's okay for you to have boundaries in place.
00:17:29
Speaker
And your child actually feels safer for it. I remember talking to someone recently and they were supporting a little guy and he was in foster care and he just had had this really tough day. And she said she could see the little boy at school and he was, he was testing her. He was doing something he wasn't supposed to do. And she was like, it was like he was pleading with me. Like someone please set a boundary for me.
00:17:54
Speaker
You know, please help me feel safe. Please set this boundary for me. And our children really do need it, even if they protest and they cry. And so our job is to set those boundaries, to help them understand and navigate the world by setting realistic boundaries with them and then helping them feel the feelings that come up. That's the difference between also being a parent who just sets boundaries and just has rules. We also help our child navigate the feelings that come up once you set those boundaries. So I can say no to my child to no screens. And I know that they're not gonna learn how to deal with disappointment or navigate that feeling unless I also coach them on how to deal with the feeling that you don't get more screens right now. And that's really tough, right? So then that validation piece comes in and we say, yeah, I know, it's really hard. You really wanted to watch more screens, I get it.
00:18:49
Speaker
Sometimes being disappointed feels really tough. And we can help our children learn how to be disappointed, which is a skill that's going to help them through the rest of their lives. And back to the original point I was making when the person was coming at me basically saying, you know, you're being permissive and kids don't know rules and expectations, I disagree.
Ineffectiveness of Harsh Discipline
00:19:10
Speaker
I think that those of us who are raising our children in this way with effective discipline that's high on warmth and high on boundaries,
00:19:19
Speaker
We are teaching our children so many skills that are going to help them in the long term. I think about this family that I worked with. So the child was 16 and they came to me and they said, Jess, our discipline's not working. And I said, okay, tell me about it. What have you been doing to discipline your child? And then they said, well, when she was younger, we would give her spankings when she didn't listen, like only on rare occasions, but we would give her spankings We would send her to timeout and we would take away her iPad. I said, okay, so what's going on now? Well, she's a teenager. She's still having challenging behavior, but we can't spank her anymore. If we tell her to go to her room for a timeout, she won't go. And we took away the iPad and she just found it.
00:20:04
Speaker
And again, that was an example to me of the harsh discipline that we have on the side of just being really high on rules and harsh discipline, but not actually giving children, this daughter, this child, this teenager now, never learned any skills to cope with her feelings. She only learned that her parents had a lot of rules. And that strategy backfired when she was big enough to be like, no.
00:20:29
Speaker
You can't take my iPad away. I know where you hit it. You're at work. I'm going to go find it and use it. You want to send me the time out? That's not going to work. You can't force me. I'm 16. I'm not going to time out. So we want to use discipline that's going to work not only when our children are young, but this style of discipline that's high on warmth and high on boundaries.
Building Trust Through Discipline
00:20:50
Speaker
is also going to help you when your child's a teenager. And they can learn to trust your leadership, right? Just like I trusted that captain because I knew he was skilled and I knew he's done this many times before.
00:21:02
Speaker
And I knew that he had the best intentions for the boat in mind and he wasn't going to try and topple us over. We want our children to be able to trust us in that same way and look to us for leadership as they become teens and even into their adult years. So again, to answer the question, do you believe it's okay to say no to your children? Of course. Of course, it's important. Our children require us to be the ones to set the boundaries in the home and to say no sometimes and to help them then navigate the disappointment that comes with it. And the other question the person had said is like, don't you think it's annoying though to always have to explain to your children and help them with their feelings? She told me she kind of thinks it's annoying and sometimes kids should just listen to their parents.
00:21:50
Speaker
I would say that's one perspective to have that it's annoying to have to have long conversations with our children and actually explain to them why rules and boundaries are in place. But I personally think what a gift that we have to teach our children that it's okay to ask a question about a boundary. I want that for my kids. I don't want my kids to just see any person in a position of authority and think to themselves, Oh, because they're older than me, I have to listen to them.
00:22:19
Speaker
I don't want that for them.
Teaching Kids to Question Authority
00:22:21
Speaker
I personally, when I was a teenager, had people that were my bosses or in a position of authority that abused that position of authority and were not to be trusted. And I would never want my children to think that just because someone is older than them in a position of authority, it means that they have to listen to everything they say. So what I do as a parent models that I don't want my children just listening to what everyone in authority has to say, right? I want my children to say, well, why?
00:22:50
Speaker
Why can't I watch more screens? Why can't I go to my friend's house every night of the week? Why can't I do X, Y, or Z? And I want to be able to explain to them why and let them know that they can trust my leadership because I'm not here just to make rules to make their life suck. I want to help them.
00:23:10
Speaker
and guide them and keep them safe. And through that, they'll be able to learn to trust my leadership. And they'll also be able to learn that when someone has a rule in place or someone tells them to do something and they're in a position of authority and it doesn't feel right to them, that it's okay for them to question that as well. Anyway, I feel like that's a whole other episode, maybe a whole other rant. Once again, I didn't have Scott here to question me and throw on the skeptic question. So if you have any of them,
00:23:36
Speaker
I would love to hear them. And also, I apologize for the lack of humor in this episode, because once again, I don't have Scott here adding in the little quips, you know, that we've grown to know and love from him. But I hope that if you have been skeptical or you wonder to yourself, is the style of parenting permissive, that this will help you know that it's not, that strict can be loving, boundaries are loving, saying no is loving.
00:24:05
Speaker
And that has to be done in a way that models a child's development and what's appropriate for them and always, always, always, always has your child's best interest at
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:24:17
Speaker
heart. If you're setting a boundary and it doesn't have your child's best interest at heart and it's not there to keep them safe,
00:24:23
Speaker
I want you to question that for yourself too. Why is this boundary here? Is it to make me feel safe? Is it to make me feel comfortable? Is it so that I don't feel my own triggers? Cause then that's stuff that we have to work through. That's our own stuff, right? Our boundaries are put in place to protect our children, to help love them, to help them thrive and grow up to be the best versions of themselves. So thank you. Thank you for listening to my Ted talk. No, I'm just kidding.
00:24:49
Speaker
but Thank you for listening and I hope that you found this valuable. If you did, please send me a message or an email. I would love to chit chat with you more and I just really appreciate you. What an honor to be here with you. Thank you so much.
00:25:09
Speaker
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We are glad that you are here. If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review. Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all. A five star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there. Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.