Wow, great post! I rarely get reading time for anything but LJ really so I adore it when I can crib some solid parenting philosophy.
I completely agree on the empathy and respect principles, and on the idea of creating a "yes" environment where there are as few structural forbidden things as possible. (Like my MIL would always leave out her cheapo glass chess set, 2 inches off the floor, then when my 18 month old would try to play with it she would be mad at him and tell him no, for ages. It resulted in us refusing to visit her because she refused to move it even temporarily out of his reach. Same thing for dangerous stuff she had like nicotine gum and knitting needles.)
But at the same time, we do say "No" a lot to my now-3-yr old, because he has a lot of trouble following verbal instructions (maybe ADHD or auditory processing disorder), and we need to be really clear about limits whenever we cannot structurally remove the problem. If we phrased things positively (without first saying "no") like "I know you like to put your fingers in your baby brother's mouth, and he likes to suck on them, but..." then he wouldn't get the message.
And we have had a lot of success using "We NEVER.." too - again mostly for dangerous activities. Hmmm.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-03-30 04:57 pm (UTC)I completely agree on the empathy and respect principles, and on the idea of creating a "yes" environment where there are as few structural forbidden things as possible. (Like my MIL would always leave out her cheapo glass chess set, 2 inches off the floor, then when my 18 month old would try to play with it she would be mad at him and tell him no, for ages. It resulted in us refusing to visit her because she refused to move it even temporarily out of his reach. Same thing for dangerous stuff she had like nicotine gum and knitting needles.)
But at the same time, we do say "No" a lot to my now-3-yr old, because he has a lot of trouble following verbal instructions (maybe ADHD or auditory processing disorder), and we need to be really clear about limits whenever we cannot structurally remove the problem. If we phrased things positively (without first saying "no") like "I know you like to put your fingers in your baby brother's mouth, and he likes to suck on them, but..." then he wouldn't get the message.
And we have had a lot of success using "We NEVER.." too - again mostly for dangerous activities. Hmmm.