Have you ever asked yourself as a parent or as an educator why do you say NO when a child asks for something?

Rethinking the NO brings us to a journey inside ourselves where we need to be clear about our beliefs, values, and daily responses.

Firstly, with regards to beliefs, we need to consider the following: If we believe that children need guidance all the way through and that they are not able to take good decisions, this will make us react differently to children’s requests than if we believe that children want guidance to make the right decision themselves.

Giving guidance highlights that children have needs that they like to see fulfilled and are happy to learn from the people around them so there is a win win situation between the adult and the child.

A belief that children learn when adults enforce strong rules early on in life triggers a strict and firm response from the adult with little room for flexibility. The emphasis is on exerting an effort to prevent the child being spoiled.

What are your beliefs as a parent or as an educator?

Secondly, what are our values?

If we value respect from the child to the parent by all means, we don’t mind if the child fears us. We should be controlling and demand respect from the child regardless even if the respect is not in the child’s best interest.

On the other hand, if we value the rights of children to meet their needs, we respect this right and guide them towards fulfilling their needs in socially acceptable manner even if that means that the child could grow up different than us, the parent or the educator, and could be interested in different activities.

We have to be careful when we ask children to comply with our demands without any consideration for their opinion. This teaches them that the strong person should be followed and they could later follow an abuser out of fear and of a need to belong.

We want to gradually give the children control over their decisions and to release our power. More importantly, we want to be compassionate towards children. They make mistakes but that does not mean that they have evil intentions.

The ideal practice is to acknowledge the behaviour or misbehaviour that children engage in without defining the personality of the child based on that behaviour. We need to accept that children need to learn how to present their beliefs, values, and practices, and that there will be many attempts along the way prior to working out what conveys the need and the message and what doesn’t.

We want children to have a bank of constructive activities and behaviours instead of constantly reminding them of what is not working.

That is how we can help children grow into successful global citizens ready to explore and contribute to the future of humanity.

For further reading, refer to:

Porter, L. (2016). Guiding children’s behaviours. In M. Ebbeck, & M. Maniganayake (Eds.), Play in early childhood education: Learning in diverse contexts (2nd ed., pp. 161-182). Oxford University Press.