For many parents, it can be quite disturbing when their two year-old discovers the word “No”—she says it with such gritty determination. She soon says it all the time, whether she really wants what is being offered or not. My second daughter learned to say the word “No” and then came up with her first “sentence” at the same time: “My do it.” Her determination to be both independent and in control of her life was amazing and exhausting. While she had been somewhat stubborn from birth, when she started to master language, she could be downright contrary.
Why does it bother us so much when our children learn to access the power of saying “No” and meaning it? After all, many of us spend a big chunk of our adulthood having to re-learn how to say “No,” stick up for ourselves and not get sucked into doing things we don’t want to. You would think we would celebrate it in our children and help them to retain their independence as much as possible. Instead, we get agitated: “Don’t say ‘no’ to me!” or we tell them “You don’t mean that, you don’t know what you want.” Maybe they don’t always know exactly what they want, but there is a lot of personal power in making that strong statement.
I vote that we celebrate the discovery of the word “No” in a two-year-old’s vocabulary. Instead of trying to squelch it out of them and force them to be acquiescent to what we want them to do and instead of trying to force compliance, maybe we parents can learn to “work with” them on their independence. After all, we want them to respect us when we say “No” and mean it, maybe we can allow them their “nos” once in a while so that they will forever remember how to say it, mean it, and advocate for what they want or don’t want in life.