Toddlers: Why It's Hard to Say NO

Excerpted from
How to Say No to Your Toddler: Creating a Safe, Rational, and Effective Discipline Program for Your 9-Month to 3-Year Old
By William G. Wilkoff, M.D.

It just is. Most of us don't like confrontations and would rather avoid them at almost any cost. Maybe that's why we are so quick to hire lawyers to settle our disagreements. Faced with an argument, our blood pressure goes up and our palms begin to sweat. Confrontations simply aren't fun.

Everyone enjoys watching other people enjoying themselves, and if the happy person is our own child the pleasure is more than doubled. But we have seen enough to understand that having a good time can be dangerous. For example, we remember how much fun it was to use our bed as a trampoline, but we know that if our toddler keeps bouncing, sooner or later he's going to land head-first on the floor. We also realize that telling him to stop will trigger a tantrum, or at least a pout that could last for fifteen or twenty minutes, or that we might need to wrestle him to the floor before he will stop.

Watching someone weep makes us uncomfortable, and we naturally avoid doing things that might make our child cry. Tantrums can be even more difficult to ignore, particularly if they occur in public, although that is the strategy that most behavior specialists suggest. It's not surprising that most of us will bend the rules and forget our threats to avoid a tearful, foot-stomping, head-banging meltdown.

We all want our children to be safe, but we also want them to be happy. Herein lies the dilemma.

you don't have a rational plan of safe consequences. You may find it difficult to say "No" because you aren't sure what to do when your child ignores your warnings. If you haven't found a consequence that is both safe and effective, it doesn't make sense to confront your child's misbehavior. For example, the last time your toddler took off toward the street you may have tapped him on the bottom with the flat of your hand. He probably laughed it off, and you felt foolish. Are you prepared to hit him harder the next time to make him understand? I bet you won't. On the other hand, if you had struck him so hard that it raised a red welt and he cried, I'm sure you'd think twice before you spanked him again.

You have also been challenged by less dangerous behaviors such as dropping toys into the toilet or the dog's feeding bowl. These are merely annoying infractions of the rules of civility, but you feel they demand some response.

Long ago you realized that yelling louder and repeating yourself a dozen times doesn't work. More recently you may have tried your toddler in a time-out chair that didn't work either, because he wouldn't stay put unless you stood behind him. The bottom line is that you don't have an "or else" to follow up your "No." The result is that you are much less likely to say "Stop" if you don't feel comfortable finishing the sentence with "or I'm going to ..."

You don't want to sound like your parents. Your parents may have resorted to spanking and abusive language when you misbehaved. It was wasn't fun growing up under their system, and you don't want to run the risk of repeating their mistakes with your own toddler. You have promised yourself that you won't strike your child or run your house like a penal colony, but you haven't discovered a workable alternative. You know what you don't want to do, but for the moment you are left without a way of saying "No" that your toddler understands . . . and obeys.

You are too tired. Like most children your toddler's behavior degenerates as the day progresses and he becomes more fatigued. To compound the problem you are also getting tired and cranky by late afternoon. Without the stamina to confront your child's misbehaviors or follow through with the necessary consequences, you are simply too tired to say "No" effectively. This important fact of life is one that most behavioral specialists overlook in their advice to parents. As you read this book, I will continue to remind you that sleep, both yours and your child's, is critical to your parental success and satisfaction. Many chapters will contain practical tips that will help your family develop healthy sleep habits. When you are all well rested, there will be fewer confrontations and you will be better prepared to respond to them when they occur.

You feel guilty. Guilt is one of the most important issues that parents must grapple with as they try to shepherd their children toward adulthood. There are occasions when we all feel that we aren't giving our children enough time or attention, but for some of us who work outside the home, a cloud of guilt hangs over us all day long.

When you finally return home at the end of a long day at the office, the last thing you want to say is "No," even when you know the situation demands it. Guilt is one of the dark sides of being a parent, whether you stay at home or are a partner in a two-income family, but it is a fact of life in twenty-first-century North America that we must accept. Maybe if we talked about it more, and were more open about sharing our feelings, it would be easier to manage.

I can't claim to make parenting a guilt-free experience, and I will continue to remind you that you must be honest about your own emotions if you are going to be successful. When I look back at my own experience as a parent it was I and not my three children who suffered most from my frequent absences. They have grown up to be fine adults and they tell me I have nothing to feel guilty about. But I still regret that I missed out on some wonderful opportunities.

The bottom line is that even though you wish you could apologize to your child for being away all day or sounding cranky, you must say "No" when your child's health and safety are at stake. Learning to say the word so that your child will understand is about communicating honestly. Don't give yourself one more thing to feel guilty about by talking to your child in parental double-talk.

You want to feel in control. Successful parenting means that by the time he is an adult you will have given your child control over his own life. Many of the steps in the process will be difficult, particularly if like me you are a bit of a control freak. You may have taken the first step when you realized that you can't stop your child from throwing toys on the floor simply because you don't want them there. While you must accept the inevitability of your child's eventual independence, you can have some control over the pace at which it occurs.

You are depressed. You may have had periods of depression in high school or college, and now that you are faced with the stress of parenting a toddler, the dark cloud has returned. You may have had postpartum depression that has been slow to resolve. The blue moments you have diagnosed as sleep deprivation may actually be a combination of fatigue and depression.

Pediatricians and child psychologists have observed that depressed parents have more trouble managing their children's behavior. It may be time to talk to your doctor about getting some help with your bouts of sadness.