Just say NO

So...... something that really weighs on my mind all the time is "wanting to do right by my children." For pete's sake, my husband and I were the ones who chose to bring another soul into the world. I want my children to be a good contribution to society (respectful to all adults, and all that good stuff). So many kids these days are soooooo disrespectful but in my opinion, parents are the ones who enable that behavior. I'm a BIG advocate in "NO means NO." I can't tell you how many parents I've seen that tell their children NO just to have the kids do what they want anyway. For example, the latest example of this.... I saw a mother tell her child, "no they can't have dessert before dinner." Well, next thing you know, icecream is out on the counter and they've dished themselves up a HUGE dish of icecream. I didn't want to be meddlesome and assert myself into somebody else's business so I kept my mouth shut. When teh parent saw what the child had done, they calmly said, "I thought I told you no. Fine, you can have one scoop."
WHAT THE.......??? Didn't you say no????? No wonder the child was just dishing themselves up icecream anyway. They've learned that no doesn't really mean no, it just means do it anyway and mom or dad will cave in and let you in the end.
Now, let me just say I understand this is a really hard thing to do. You don't want to be a bad guy that always is punishing and saying no. Trust me, I don't want to be the bad guy either!!! I just think that I'd be doing my kids such a disservice by being so lenient.
Lately I've been doing my best to apply this lesson in my own parenting stuff. It's soooo much harder than it seems. I didn't even really start being hard-hearted about the word NO until I thought Peyton was old enough to understand the concept. So at about 18 months I figured I'd start "meaning NO." Oh gosh, gives me a headache just thinking about it. So he'd want a third glass of chocolate milk....... "NO." Oh myyyyyy, he'd cry and cry and cry and cry. And I admit, I couldn't handle it at the beginning. I'd justify in my own mind..... chocolate milk really isn't worth such a fuss..... and, well chocolate milk is healthy.... what kind of mom am I for not allowing him his calcium and vitamin d from the milk for the day.? And the list goes on, so I'd end up giving him that glass of milk. So obviously, I'd made the problem worse even before I'd begun "saying No" for sure.
Peyton definitely is not stupid and he knew that if he put up enough of a tantrum I'd say ok. And I would.
When I realized what I was doing........ my mindset went back to that hardhearted mom who says NOOOO and means it. We had a lot of tantrums around here for awhile, and I learned to just ignore him. And finally....... today when he wanted another fruit leather strip for a snack I told him no and he was ok with that. I guess he figured throwing a tantrum wouldn't be worth it because it wouldnt' get him the snack in the end. HALLELUJAH!! I may or may not have hugged his cute little body for being ok with NO and smothered him with kisses for being so proud!!!
I'm definitely not super good at it yet and occasionally I'll give in to his screams but I want to be better!!!!! So I'm going to live by the motto, "JUST SAY NO," for the next couple weeks to get this ingrained in our family. I Bre, vow to not give in when he wants something at the grocery store and starts throwing a tantrum that tottaaaallllyyy embarrasses the heck out of me. I vow to say NO and mean it!!! Yes, yes I do!!!
Oh, except for when we fly on the airplane to Utah...... trust me, I'll give him ANYTHING he wants. As long as he's quiet and sits still....... and I'm not ashameddd.......