A friend of mine was at the neighbors’ the other day. The neighbors’ kids were berserk and their mother’s response was to sit limply in her chair, cocooned in chaos, while junior and juniette ran roughshod over the place.
Mark Shea is Senior Content Editor for Catholic Exchange and a weekly columnist for the National Catholic Register. You may visit his website at www.mark-shea.com check out his blog, Catholic and Enjoying It!, or purchase his books and tapes here.
Little Berserkers
Periodically she would attempt to restore order by issuing decrees as terrifying to the children as the mighty roar of a gummy bear.
“No, you cannot have ice cream, junior.” (Junior responds by getting ice cream out of the freezer.)
“Well, OK. You can have ice cream. But you can't eat it in the living room.” (Here comes the kid with a bowl of ice cream, edging toward the TV.)
“Well, all right. You can eat in the living room, but don't get up on the couch.” (Guess where junior parks his carcass.)
Fortunately, most of us do not have a discipline problem this severe. But on the other hand, who has not felt as though speaking the word “no” was a feat only slightly less difficult than getting our kidlets to hear it? How do you say “no” effectively, lovingly and justly?
My wife and I have four boys ranging in age from 10 years to 4 months. Ten years of multiple kids has offered us a wealth of opportunities to learn to say “no.” Here are some things we have found to be useful.
Divert Nos into Yeses and Eliminate Temptation
“Time for bed, Peter,” we told our two-year-old as he was happily playing with dinosaurs. Peter, a straightforward little tot, responded with refreshing directness: “No.” (At least you know where he stands.) This “no” was initially confronted by an equally direct thump on the bottom by us (through two layers of diapers it constitutes more of a rebuke to pride than any remotely noticeable form of physical pain) and the words, “OK, Dad” or “OK, Mom.” This was only necessary a few times. Now, if we say, “OK, Dad” he forgets all about his “No”, parrots our “OK, Dad” and marches off to bed.
The curious thing is that the words seem actually to divert all the energy of his “no” into an equally enthusiastic “yes,” as though all that energy is not especially particular about how it gets expressed as long as it has somewhere to go.
Another aspect of saying “no” is eliminating, where possible, the need ever to say it in the first place. Parents can go a long way to reducing headaches by simply controlling the environment their child is in. The fragile Ming vase knick-knack you think would look peachy near the stone fireplace is a source of a zillion future conflicts with that cooing little lump of newborn love you hold in your arms. The cost of that knick-knack is not only in dollars, but in kilowatts of parental vigilance that will be much better spent elsewhere.
St. Paul tells Timothy, “Flee temptation.” This is excellent advice for all parents as they contemplate the interior design of their toddler's home.
Clarify Your Nos
There are, of course, going to be times when your kidlet will overcome both his own will to do good and all the barriers against temptation you erect, in order to find something boneheaded to do. At such times, you really will have to say just flat “no.” However, as you do so, it is vitally important that you make clear (as much as you can) what sort of “no” you mean and check to see that your little tyke can compute this information in his limited cranium. My wife knows a kid who was sternly warned dozens of times, “Don't talk to strangers.” He could parrot the words back perfectly. It was a settled law of the cosmos, graven in granite and handed down from Mt. Sinai as far as junior was concerned: DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS.
However, one day junior was found outside, merrily gabbing away with a passerby. His mother scolded him, “Didn't we tell you not to talk to strangers?”
“Yes,” said the little boy, and after a pause, he added, “What is a stranger, mommy?” Junior knew the No, but he didn't know the Know.
It is also important to make clear the degree of emphasis attached to a “no.” Children pick up on the fact that “Don't snitch frosting” carries a lighter weight of seriousness than “Don't let go of my hand in the parking lot.” But their radar in these situations is not always infallible. My wife was told as a very small child not to touch the St. Joseph's Aspirin for Children. However, since it tasted nice and orangy, she thought this was a rule like “Don't snitch frosting” and proceeded to climb up on the cupboard, down a whole bottle of aspirin while mommy wasn't looking, and precipitate a family medical crisis. If she had been impressed with the fact that this was a “Danger! — No!” and not a “You rascal, no” she probably would not have performed this particular escapade.
Remember the Pinocchio Principle
The Pinocchio Principle is this: Your Nos grow with your children. When kidlets are very small you must often simply hand down incomprehensible edicts since 1) it takes too long to explain why electric sockets are not places for the human tongue and 2) junior could never understand electricity anyway. However, as your children grow older it is essential, as far as the children can comprehend, that they be clued into the reason for the various prohibitions that surround them so that they can internalize the reality that “no” is for their good and attune their will to obeying the prohibitions (both human and divine) which guard our lives from sin and pain.
Learning to help your child see today that your refusal to let him pet the big pit bull was not an act of arbitrary despotism will help him see tomorrow that God's prohibitions against drugs, premarital sex, pride, lust, avarice, sloth, envy, anger, lying and the like is not simply the hang-up of a divine fuddy-duddy, but the care of a loving Father who has been around the block a few times and knows what is good for us. For, as every parent knows, at the bottom of all those Nos is a huge Yes — yes to seeing our children thrive, live and love.
