"No"

To a three year-old, the world must consist of one large temptation, which 99% of the time elicits a "no" response from parents.

Over the last few months, Andy and I have both noted that most of our interaction with Ivan consists of us telling him "no." The scopeof "nos" is wide, from minor issues such as telling him not to pick his nose or wipe his mouth with his shirt (this is a recently-acquired daycare behavior, I assume, as he used to be perfectly able to use a napkin for at least a year now), to more phyisical ones, such as not to throw things in the house, jump off the couch, harass Mariposa, etc.

So we both try to limit our "nos," preserving them for safety-related occasions, such as not jumping of the couch, pulling on Allen, throwing stuff at Mariposa, etc....

A new parenting book just came out, recently reviewed on NPR, which instructs parents not to use "no." According to the book, whose title escapes me, too many "nos" limit the child, affecting his self esteem, creativity, curiosity etc. Kids apparently have an internal gage to know not to do really dangerous things that could hurt them.

I'm not sure I can embrace this approach. It's hard not to say "no jumping down the stairs" when it seems pretty obvious to me that he can't jump off the fourth stair safely. And I'd rather limit, if not totally avoid, visits to the ER. If , at all possible, I'd love to avoid bruised and scraped knees, although I know that may be taking it to the safety extreme.

And to Ivan's credit, he is a very cautious, not intensely physical child, who errs on the side of not doing crazy physical things I see his preschools peers undertake.