"When you respect your own 'no', others will too."
In all the books I've read on co-dependence, this simple statement stands out to me. The truth of it occurred to me a few days ago.
My daughters asked if they could do something and I preferred that they didn't. But instead of saying, "No", I said, "I'd prefer you didn't do that."
Well, to a child, "I'd prefer" means, "I really don't want you to but if you did do it, there wouldn't be any sort of consequence for it." You can guess what happened next....
I've also found myself explaining to adults why I'd prefer one thing or another, rather than just saying a simple, "No that will not work for me." and then not explaining further. There's something about explaining that sounds very close to waffling.
I'm learning. Slowly but surely.
Do you put down firm boundaries or do you find yourself explaining your reasons behind them?
Do we think explaining will make us a little less strict or something?
I read an article recently on our generation being the no-to-NO parents. Most of us (I'm one of the rare 'intact' families with still married parents) come from 'broken' homes and can't or won't say no to our children because we don't want them to go through what we did.
ReplyDeleteI'm guilty of it with The Little Flirt regardless of my background. I was so terrified to divorce and cause her to be raise in a broken home I 'replaced' spermdonor with the boss when she was only 2. I stayed with him through hell and have gotten married and divorced twice with him.
We can't seem to say NO. Whether it's our children, exes, friends... No just isn't there until we ourselves are nearly broken.
I'm constantly trying to justify why I try to say no but give in to TLF, why I can't seem to be stricter like my mom was with me, why TLF 'makes all the choices' fo food, place to go, etc. If it's not directly harming her, why not?
Should be 'No I don't want you doing that' without the because.. Yet I feel terrible if I say no to her. Like I'm depriving her of something.
My friends are no different. I can't say no.