The word “no” is typically a word most people don’t want to hear. I recognize that in certain situations the word is welcomed as positive news, I’m willing to bet most of society views the word with a negative connotation. The word “no”, however, is also a word that should always be respected. There is one subgroup of the population, though, where the word “no” typically isn’t respected.

Children.

Usually the word “no” coming from a child is a parent’s nightmare. I’m picturing a flailing child screaming the word in the middle of the toy aisle, the candy aisle, or anywhere that’s very quiet and crowded. (If you haven’t experienced this yet, I promise you will one day), but we often forget that the word should still carry meaning.

Even if you don’t have children, you can probably name a time a child has screamed “no” or “stop” while being tickled excessively, or even a time a child has remained silent while being forced to give someone a hug or a kiss.

The truth is sometimes people just don’t respect the word “no” when a child says it. When that happens, what message does it send the child? There’s this belief that children should do whatever it is an adult says. Don’t get me wrong, I expect my child to listen to me when I give directions, or set rules, but why does my child need to accept kisses from me? Why does my child need to give in to anything I want him/her to do? If i’m enjoying a tickle fight with my child and she says stop, I stop. If she isn’t in the mood to give me a kiss, I can ask for a hug or high five. Then, if she doesn’t want to do any of those, I can tell her I love her and walk away.

Sure, there are certain times when you need to change a disgusting diaper and a child telling you no isn’t going to work, but just think of all the other moments children say “no” and get ignored. In our house, we’ll say “I’m going to change your diaper, OK?” and believe it or not, our child always says yes (because who wants to walk around with a dirty diaper).

We are by no means perfect in our execution. There are many times I reflect back on my day as a parent and realize I missed a few opportunities to allow my child to have a voice. It takes a lot of conscious though, but how else am I going to teach my children that their words and others words matter?