Saying Yes to Say No
All humans have an innate drive for autonomy. When you feel that you are being coerced or forced to do things, your instinctual reaction will be to try to gain back some control. While adults are often aware of their negative reaction of feeling like someone is trying to control them, people often forget that children have the same need for agency. Children are constantly being asked to do this, do that, now, not yet, more of this, less of that, etc. All of these demands lead them to feeling very out of control.
Children (especially toddlers and teenagers) are in a stage where they are constantly bouncing back and forth between needing you and needing autonomy. When you give up some control to your child, you in turn gain a huge amount of cooperation as they won’t feel the instinctual need to gain back agency and autonomy.
Give Kids Autonomy:
Having a sense of control over your life leads to less anxiety. The same is true for children. When children feel that they have the ability to make meaningful, but age appropriate decisions, they will not feel the need to push against you quite so much.
Saying Yes:
Handing over some control to your child will help to fill their need for autonomy so they don't need to fight you so hard for it. Try to make saying yes your default. So often, grown-ups default to saying no to children because what they want to do or the way they want to do things isn't how you would choose to do it. But every time you can say yes to your child (even if it is just in the form of choices), you are meeting their need for autonomy.
Saying No:
When you do inevitably need to say no, try to see what parts of your child's ask that you can say yes to. There are situations where your child will need you to step in and say no. Sometimes their ask is too dangerous, too inconvenient for the time, they need a boundary, etc. The good news is that if you have made saying "yes" your default, your child will be more open to accepting the occasional "no" because their need for autonomy is already being met.
