Parenting 101: Who Wears the Pants?

I was somewhat surprised when I was once told: “Please don’t use the ‘NO’ word with my child.” While I appreciate the philosophy that you can empower your child and build a positive framework about the world by referencing everything with a positive spin, it isn’t the real world, and I worry that those children will grow up to be unpleasantly introduced to a world that they don’t know or understand.

Always saying “YES” to a child is actually really difficult to do. It requires reframing virtually everything you say.  What if your child wants to eat pizza for every meal? Or worse, Gummy Bears? This parent might respond with a question: “Could you please first take a bite of the chicken – or spinach – and then you can have the Gummy Bears.” While this might sound okay on first blush, there are 2 intrinsic problems you’re creating.

First, you’re giving your child mixed messages about nutrition. Using junk food as a bribe to eat healthy food can cause food issues down the road.  Feeding children fast foods or sweets is the cause of our obesity problem in America. It has become the go-to meal when we want to please the kids and avoid dinner-table conflicts.

Second, you’ve undermined your position as the “grown-up.” Yup, as the parent, you need to look out for what’s best for your child.  Most experts suggest that children aren’t equipped with the reasoning skills to thoroughly understand right from wrong until they’re 25 years old.  So why would a parent put their child in the driver’s seat by always saying “yes” and asking permission to make a recommendation?

Besides, I can’t put together sentences that don’t have the negative words like “no” or “can’t”, and I certainly don’t want to ask a 3 year old for permission to leave a party.  I wonder what happens when this toddler becomes a teenager. Not sure that this type of parenting will work when teens know who wears the pants in their families.  What would the parent say when their teen wants to have sex, drink beer, or smoke e-cigs? Parenting isn’t easy but for the sake of the children, parents need to be the grown-ups so their children can trust them to be the caring and wise leader in their lives that they need.