“Can I ride my bike to the park with Ryan?” “No, not today sweetie!”

Starting during the toddler years and continuing all through the adolescent years, there is a parenting tendency that seeps into a child’s psyche and deeply influences their motivations, efforts, and even their very personality. As parents we brought our own upbringing into the marriage and needed to get on the same page when providing answers to our children’s request.

Lis grew up in a parenting environment mostly characterized by “No”, whereas the parenting Dave received was more one of “Yes”. In other words, if Lis were to come to her parents with a desire, she had to come up with the reasons that would allow her to receive a yes answer. She often did get the yes answer, but with a big box of caution along with it. Dave, on the other hand, would receive a yes answer unless there was a reason not to. Compounded over a childhood these psychological environments produced two different adult styles which we brought to our parenting.

Generally speaking, moms nurture and protect, dads grow and stretch. Maybe those two generalities over-simplify, but these opposing perspectives can create a very valuable tension when used in balance. Needless to say, when out of balance Dad’s “growing” efforts can seem “indifferent” and Mom’s “protecting” can seem fearful. Kids might respond to Dad’s yeses by assuming too much freedom or interpret Mom’s caution with a prohibitive consciousness. Trying to figure all this out illustrates where marital growth comes into play.

In our marriage, it took us many years of parenting before we came to understand that Lis’ nurture/protecting style created a slightly (not excessively) “no” environment for the kids. We always wanted our kids to be bold explorers of life, so breathing “no” air wasn’t harmonious with that idea. Not that Lis just said, “No, no, no.” The issue was she was cautious and expressed that cautiousness to the kids which created a hesitancy in them. (Conversely, Dave’s yeses were often too open-ended.) Further, when we first started to understand this idea (where “no” answers were the starting point) and we tried to shift things, something new emerged – “yes”, but with reluctance.

“Bold” and “reluctance” are not soulmates. As parenting partners we needed to work through what our joint style was going to be. We didn’t want the kids growing up asking Dad for permission hoping they’d likely get a yes instead of Mom. We needed to be a team with our answers in quality and spirit. Our yeses needed to look and feel like yeses.

  • “Can I have a snack?”
  • “Can we build a fort downstairs in the basement?”
  • “Can we run in the sprinklers?”
  • “Can I ride my bike to Kurt’s house?” (actual issue: 3 miles, busy streets, major intersection, 13 year-old).

These questions are endless and there are often good reasons to say no.

  • “Dinner’s in an hour.”
  • “We’re having people spend the night in the basement guestroom tonight.”
  • “We’ve had so much rain lately, we need the lawn to dry out a bit before we turn on the sprinklers again.”
  • “They are doing roadwork on the way to Kurt’s house so you won’t have anywhere to maneuver the bike on that stretch right now so today it’s not safe.” (not actual)

But reasons are different than an automatic “no”. It required a present mindedness in Lis who was on the front lines. Lis would have to think about how she could make her answer a yes, whereas before she just reactively said no. And Dave would have to think about whether his yes was going to be supported by Lis and their mutual parenting goals. Sometimes this meant our answer would have to be “let me talk to dad/mom about that and get back to you”.

Ultimately our parenting was characterized as being unified and our kids gained security in knowing that mom and dad were on the same page. If mom said no, dad would say no. If dad said yes, mom would say yes. And if either of us had a real issue with the answer, we would discuss it after the fact and made sure we came to an agreement on how to handle that particular scenario in the future. Occasionally, we had to go back to our children and tell them we changed our mind. We always told them the moral, practical and/or safety reason why we had come to a different answer. That way they knew we were united in our answer. With this, the “reluctant yes” aspect of our parenting was completely eliminated. We became a team.

This issue of letting your yeses be yes and your nos be no is one of nuance. As parents we want to encourage exploration and positive expectation. However, we also want them to think through potential consequences in order to avoid injury to bodies or things. The first step is for mom and dad to get on the same page which will require accusation-free evaluation and discussion. This is an excellent topic to discuss during Couch Time.

When our kids were in their late teens, they’d ask us separately questions and received from us essentially the same answer with the same rationale behind the answer. They expressed to us numerous times their extreme happiness at how nice that was and how easy it seemed to be.

If they only knew…

To your family’s well-being.

Lis and Dave