Wearing the Crown Proudly

From what I have observed, many first-time parents have a hard time learning to say “no” to their children.  They fall victim to the pleading eyes and quivering lips – and next thing you know, that toy is in the shopping cart and headed to the register.  Some develop cute kid resistance more quickly than others do. . . some never develop it at all, which quite often directly correlates with the behavior we see out of their children when they’re adults.

I didn’t have this problem.  My husband would be the first to admit that he struggled with the whole thing, and it took years for him to feel as though a trip to Wal-Mart wouldn’t be inherently more expensive if the kids were with him.  For me, however, it was pretty easy from the get-go. . . largely because I had two very important things going for me.

First of all, I had a good role model: my own mother.  My mama had no trouble whatsoever saying “no” to me, and she also had no trouble whatsoever reminding me that “if I were their mama, they wouldn’t be doing it, either” if I was ever dumb enough to make the “everyone else is doing it” argument.  For the record, although I wasn’t on the same page she was on those issues back in the day, I see things much differently where they’re concerned now.  Case in point: she wouldn’t let me go to school dances as a middle schooler because they were open to students in grades 7-12, and I TOTALLY understand why she thought putting 12 year-old girls (and because I was a year younger than everyone else in my class, I was actually an 11 year-old girl when I was in seventh grade) in a dark gym with 18 year-old boys was a bad idea.  Yes, I know the dances were chaperoned, but still. . . .

What I give the most credit for my ability to say “no” to my own children, though, is the fact that before I had my first child at 44 (no, that’s not a typo), I’d already spent almost 23 years teaching high school students. . . which meant that I’d had LOTS of practice at learning to say “no” to other people’s kids.

“Can we have a free day?”  “No.”

“Can we NOT have an essay on this test?”  “No.”

“Can we postpone the test until tomorrow?”  “No.”

“Can I PLEASE finish my apple?”  “No.” 

You get the idea.  (And yes, I do know that “can” denotes ability rather than permission, but that’s how I generally hear those kinds of questions.)

Now, my 10 year-old doesn’t necessarily always have a good grasp on the fact that when I say “no,” I’m not going to change my mind. . . but whether that’s because her non-neurotypical brain hasn’t matured enough to accept that reality or because her stubborn streak refuses to is anybody’s guess.  Mariah’s official diagnosis (well, in addition to her official diagnosis of ADHD – combined type/severe) is “unspecified neurological disorder” because the psychologists who tested her had trouble communicating with her during the testing process, probably at least in part to that then-undiagnosed ADHD, but her symptoms are pretty closely aligned with those of autism spectrum disorder. . . later on, if/when she’s retested and her ADHD doesn’t interfere with the testing process, she may ultimately have an ASD diagnosis.  As a result, she doesn’t react to a lot of things in the way a typical 10 year-old would, and it’s really hard to know where her condition stops and just plain ol’ “I want what I want when I want it” kicks in when it comes to the word “no” – and sometimes, she handles it better than she does at others.

My 11 year-old, on the other hand, learned his lesson about Mama and “no” very early and very quickly.  The week before my maternity leave with Mariah ended, I took Price to the grocery store with me so that he and I could spend a little bit of quality time together before I had to leave both him and his sister for the rat race that is teaching high school English.  Needless to say, I’d been giving Mariah more attention during those first eight weeks of her life, and I thought that little outing would be a good chance for me to focus on 18 month-old Price for a little while.  Well, that all came to a screeching – literally and figuratively – halt on the snacks aisle when my sweet little boy decided he wanted some chips. . . and Mama said “no” to them.  Price wasn’t feelin’ that answer, and he pulled the chips off the shelf and put them into the cart, anyway. . . and within moments learned first-hand that if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.  When he went into full meltdown mode after I took the chips away from him, I not only took the chips out of the cart and put them back onto the shelf, but I also took errrrrrything out of the cart and put it all back onto the shelves – fortunately, I was only about two aisles into the shopping trip – before taking my fussy toddler out of the cart and to the car so that I could take him back home to his father and grandmother before returning to the store to shop.

Let the record show that was his first and last public meltdown with me.  (I’m pretty sure it was his first and last one, period, but I know he never had another one with me.)  Eventually, after asking me enough times over the years for various things in various stores and not getting them, he nicknamed me “The Queen of ‘No’” – and to be honest, I sort of love that.

Interestingly enough, though, the fact that I don’t have a problem saying “no” to him has never caused a problem in our relationship. . . we’re actually pretty close.  (I’m imagining parents of teenagers reading this and thinking, “Yeah. . . just wait.”  I know.  Remember what I do for a living?)  I’m not saying some of those “no”s don’t cause some bumps in the road because he’s not necessarily happy when I don’t give him something he wants or let him do something he wants to do, but he never throws a fit or tells me I’m being unfair or tells me he hates me or anything along those lines.  He may make it abundantly clear nonverbally that he doesn’t like my decision, but he handles his disappointment respectfully – and I more than sort of love that.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, he had a sort of a rough week in the “remembering to do homework” department, rough enough that I went for the jugular Friday morning after looking at his grades and told him that he was going to have a technology-free weekend: no laptop, no Switch, and no phone (although we did allow him to listen to music at bedtime and play on his phone in the car during a road trip on Saturday).  Unfortunately, part of the punishment package was our holding off on buying him the new Pokémon game that had just come out, that he’d had his heart setting on our buying for him, and that he’d planned to play online with his friends over the weekend. . . a fact that he didn’t grasp until he visited me in my classroom at break on Friday.  The grasping process didn’t go well; it actually went badly enough that after seeing how visibly upset he was, one of the seniors who is in my class that immediately follows break, Dax Reese*, was ready to go have a word with whoever had been mean to Price.  (My response: “I’d better take cover because I’m the guilty party.”)  It continued not going well through third period and into fourth period. . . enough so that his fourth period teacher talked to him to find out what was wrong.  (The short answer he gave her: “I made a bad grade in science.”  That tends to happen when you don’t do an assignment, for the record.  Also for the record, that’s not the only one that he forgot to do.)

But you know what?  He survived. . . and we survived.  I knew he wasn’t happy about the decision that I made – and when his daddy was brought up to speed on what I’d seen online about his grades, he was in full support of that decision – but he didn’t blow up at us.  He didn’t stop speaking to us.  He didn’t pout. . . much.  He also didn’t make much of an effort to get us to change our minds because he has nearly twelve years’ experience with the concept that (1) “no” means “no” and (2) trying to change that fact isn’t going to work.  And on Monday, he got his devices back – and later that week, he got his game.

I want to clarify something: I am well aware that I am not the perfect parent, and I don’t want anyone to think that I think I am just because I’m good at saying “no” and have a child that doesn’t challenge me on it.  Again, I have a child that doesn’t challenge me on it – and I have two children.  Something tells me that even if Mariah were a neurotypical 10 year-old, she would push the envelope more than Price does just because that’s her personality. . . as is, I constantly remind her that Mama has had the same determined streak she does a lot longer than she’s had it, and I’m better at using it than she is.  Kids are wired differently, and Price is just naturally a more “chill” kid than his sister is.  I’m also aware of the areas in which I drop the ball as a parent. . . I’m not going to list them all here, but I know what they are.

What I have learned, though, as a child of a mother who was good with the word “no” (and much better than my father was, which may or may not be how I ended up with my first cat) and as a mother who is good herself with the word “no” is that enforcing those boundaries with our kids doesn’t mean hampering our relationships with them. . . in fact, I believe that just the opposite is true.  My mother and I were extremely close, and I could talk to her about anything. . . which is what has made watching her mind slip away so painful.  She was my friend without being my buddy; at no point was I ever under the mistaken impression that we were peers, and I’d like to think that the same thing holds true with Price and me.  I can say that we talk about pretty much everything – and I do mean EVERYTHING, including the awkward things – and he knows he can talk to me about anything.  At the same time, he respects me and knows that there’s a decided difference between his relationship with me and his relationship with his peers.  I’m shooting for the same balance with him that my mother achieved with me. . . and at least for now, I’d like to think I’m achieving it.  And at least for now, I’m still listed in his phone as “Cool Mom,” a nickname that one of his friends gave me and that she and another one of his friends use with me pretty consistently. (I’m also perfectly willing to admit that I may need to revisit this discussion when he's fully into his teen years.)  Translation: apparently at this point in his life, I can be “The Queen of ‘No’” and “Cool Mom” simultaneously.

I can only imagine how hard it is to set boundaries for your children if you didn’t have them set for you. . . or if you’re the only one doing the setting as a single parent/a parent who doesn’t have the support of the child’s other parent. . . or if you have other adults in your life who are undermining your efforts to do so and making you look like the bad guy.  Thankfully, I don’t have any of those issues.  Unfortunately, I’ve seen the results of all kinds of parents – including those who are married to each other and are parenting their children together – not, for whatever reason, setting those boundaries.  Are they afraid that their children won’t like them?  Do they want to give their children everything they didn’t have growing up?  That they did have growing up?  Is it easier to say “yes” than to deal with the ensuing conflict that can follow their saying “no”?  I’m not sure.  What I do know is that a failure to set boundaries early while simultaneously building a solid relationship with the child to whom you’re saying “no” can be a recipe for disaster as that child becomes a teen and eventually an adult.  After all, things can go horribly wrong when you do those things. . . it’s not as if things turn out perfectly with every child of good parents.  They don’t.  However, the chances that they’re going to go awry without those boundaries are infinitely greater.

So. . . my advice to new and future parents is – pretty obviously – not to be afraid to say “no” and set boundaries with your kids.  Backtracking if you didn’t start out that way isn’t easy – it’s the same principle that holds true in a classroom if a teacher starts out letting students get away with too much and then tries to crack down later – but it’s not necessarily a bad idea to try, either.  As G. Callen once said on NCIS: Los Angeles, “Sometimes it takes a rock and a feather for balance.”  For me as a parent?  It takes a rock and a feather to balance on my head the crown I wear proudly as “The Queen of No.”


*Dax tried his best to get me to work him into my most recent book, which didn't happen, so I asked if he wanted me to include his name in this story that I told about him.  His answer was an enthusiastic "yes". . . "I didn't make the book, but at least I'm in the blog."