Green Owl Toys Blog

What a powerful word a child finds the minute they say “no”. For months and months babies do as we say because they cannot do anything else. But by the time they say “no” they have physically developed enough to be able to walk and shake their head. When they see the reaction of us parents to the word “no” they are fascinated.  Fascinated by our reaction and fascinated that they have a choice in what they can do.

Think about it. At this precious age of between 18 months and 2 and a half years old, toddlers do not have many words that they can pronounce properly and when they say such a simple, short word: “no” it has such a profound effect on the person that leads their lives: the parent. For example, you are feeding the same lunch meal for the 4th time in a row.  You are already feeling guilty of your lack of inspiration or energy to give something new. Your toddler is tired of this and says “no”. You, for obvious reasons, say “Oh sorry sunshine – are you bored of this? Oh Okay I understand I will make something new”.  Your toddler has said something short, sweet and easy to say and you have answered with a whole new sentence and doing something completely new for him to eat. Wow! So many new things are happening.

Toddler saying no by wagging finger

This doesn’t mean that you are doing something wrong.  If you decide not to react and continue with the lunch you might still get your way and make him eat the old lunch through perseverance.  However, if he is actually bored of the meal you might not get the entire meal consumed anyway.  So there is this fine line of knowing that you should enforce your better judgement but also common sense that he/she is also human and can have a choice. In other words, it might be best if you just take a little caution how quickly you react to a “no” answer – just so that he/she doesn’t think you are so easy to change your mind towards his/hers.