love & logic: tip #17

don't freak out, you haven't missed the previous 16 love & logic tips. i haven't actually shared any of the tips up till now, although they are all good and insightful. i am having a hard enough time sharing the basics without just rewriting the book, you know copyright laws and such. but this one is good. this one is something i have always always believed in, even before i knew it was a love & logic tip. i have used this very same outlook in all my years of teaching, lesson planning, and nannying. if you can keep this in the back of your head, using thinking words will start to come more naturally. promise. here you go, taken straight out of the book, love & logic tip #17:

let your "yes" be "yes", and your "no" be "yes" too

the word "no" is one of the biggest fighting words in the parental arsenal of commands. it is a child's call to arms, a shot across his bow. kids hear it far too often. in fact, parents of two-year-olds are known to say "no," in some form or another, 77% of the time. children gradually tire of hearing it. in fact, they hear it so much that the first word many children learn to say is "no" and variations of it. when kids hear "no" half of the time they ignore it. they hear it so much that sometimes they think it means "maybe," and other times they think it really means "yes." 

the rule with "no" is that we use it as seldom as possible. but when we use it, we mean business. all of the other times we are tempted to use "no," we can avoid a fight by replacing "no" with "yes" to something else. in this way we use thinking words instead of fighting words, and we establish the behavior we want. 

compare the two: 

fighting words: "no, you can't go out and play until you practice your lesson." 

thinking words: "yes, you may go out and play as soon as you practice your lesson." 

fighting words: "no, you can't watch television until your chores are done." 

thinking words: "yes, you may watch television as soon as your chores are done."