I was cooking in the morning rush and my toddler brought a play mat into dining area. That freaked me out since I am using oil in kitchen plus kitchen has lot of sharp corners and I really want my toddler to play safely. I tell my kid “hey, can you take play mat and play in the living room”
K immediately and loudly : “NO”
Obviously I got annoyed and started rolling up my sleeves in an attempt to use one of the settling limits technique. As I was about to sit down and start my gyan, I observed my kid bringing the play mat closer and closer to my feet and I again had my Eureka moment (remember I am only posting Eureka or face palm moments here – which means there were several instances where I did not get this.)
Every morning as I cook, my toddlers finds ways to sneak into kitchen to stay close to me. In between, we were doing well with independent play hence k was playing more in living room, but recently my kid was going through separation anxiety and has started visiting kitchen space often. And that is exactly what k was doing that morning. Unfortunately, the urge to use play mat has also taken precedence and hence k brought it along to kitchen.
When I asked k to take it back to living room, k knew perfectly well about few things:
- k wanted to stay in kitchen
- k wanted to use play mat
- k knew in some level that I am going to force k to move play mat and k to living room with my silly ‘setting limits’ routine. and more importantly
- k has not learnt our language skills enough to put the first two points in a full sentence.
Hence the loud NO, it was more loud because k was already worried about point3
Once I realized that (trust me, all this takes few seconds when you are in Eureka moment), I softened a little bit, reduce the heat in the stove, moved unsafe items to back of stove and sat down on floor at kids level and said gently
Me: “did you bring it here to play near me?”
K: “yes”
Me: “this is not safe place to use play mat, can you please go to living room”
K (little softly this time) : “No”
Me: “okay, but there are lot of sharp corners here” pointing to sharp walls “you cannot jump on this now okay? maybe you can sit on it or do slow games, because I am worried about these sharp corners and your safety”
K: “Okay”
Post that we both continued doing our work and k really kept it low profile and even though I was really worried sick of corners, thankfully it went okay that day.
Since then, I started paying attention to situations when k used the loud “NO” and it all started to make sense. Yes, it is always pieces of a puzzle making its way to fit very well into a completed picture.
Due to lack of extensive vocabulary kids say “No” to most situations. They are not rude but very quick in response which gets perceived as rude and get on our nerves. More often than not, they are already stressed because they know we are going to force them and due to that it is more loud and immediate and used very often.
Once we understand this, it is easier since we can reframe our questions/ discussion to suit their specific need. I am going to list several scenarios I managed to decipher below in the hope that it helps you. Also once my kid acquired language skills, this theory was proven right as well and hence I am adding that language too below. Do read it and if you have more scenarios like this let me know. I will give my toddler actual response to these situations to help you relate.
Remember guys, toddlers are BRAND NEW. They are not terrible, they do not prefer tantrum, but since we have created complex language skills which they are not well equipped with, they end up using NO often in the initial toddler years.
Hold on that is not completely true.
Actually, the real truth is since we developed complex language skills, we stopped listening to body language and hence stopped understanding or relating to toddlers. In most of the below examples, if you observe their body language closely, it will tell you if they are really involved in their play or food, if they are scared, or tired or dislike the food etc.
Since we cannot retrain ourselves to go back to toddlerhood, until then just remember this – Toddlers are BRAND NEW and take a deep breath. You will get the answer to the puzzle.
| My Question | Toddler answer | Root cause | What to do instead? | In Toddlers own words (hence ignore grammar): |
| Asking kid to eat | No | Kid is busy playing and needs time to come | Use countdown method or advance notice methods | I am busy now, need 2 minuttt |
| Winter dressing | No | inside house, it is hot due to heater, and hence kid is refusing to wear sweater | take winter clothes in a bag and step outside and ask kid again | toooo hot, no coat |
| Asking kid to walk | No | Kid is tired | use stroller or pick up kid | I am too tired |
| Asking kid to walk #2 | No | There was a loud emergency car noise that made both of us jump. Kid needed safe space to recover from that. | Hold hands and pacify or pick up and put kid to walk after kid calms down | what is that, I am scared |
| Asking kid to pick up the spoon that k dropped on floor (my countdown method post) | No | K is in middle of eating | Ask once and use countdown trick internally in your head and wait for toddler to pick up | I am busy eating, give me 2 minuttt. |
| Asking kid to eat food that we already put in plate | No | 2 year regression, kid hates mixed food | Give items separately and ask kid to choose what they want | I don’t want it |
| Asking kid to eat | No | kid is not hungry | Give proper gap between meals | no hungry, don’t want it. |