Why Do Toddlers Say “No” All the Time?

Recently, during one of my toddler classes, the inevitable question about “No!” came up. Toddlers say it so often. It's discouraging, it's exasperating, it's annoying. I encouraged the parents to brainstorm what they thought the toddlers meant when they said “No!”  Then I added a few of my own.  I hope that hearing this from the child's point of view may shed some light. Here’s what we came up with.

You say ”no” a lot. (And I mean really a lot!)  I'm just imitating you. That's how I learn just about everything!  Maybe you could develop different ways of setting limits:

            “The sand stays down”

            “Fluffy likes to be touched gently like this – yes! Just like that!”

            “That doesn’t look safe to me.  Let’s move over to the carpet...wow, that works much better.”

A big plus to intervening this way is that you’re giving me information.  You’re telling me what you do want instead of just telling me what you don’t want.   You’re showing me alternate behaviors.  And you may even be teaching me why something is a “no.”  Consider that it may be a good idea not to wear out the word “no” – you may need it to stop me suddenly and forcefully in an emergency.

I love power words! When I say “Baba,” milk appears. Shrieking “Mine!” makes my big sister back off. All I have to do is ask “More!” and my grandfather will indulge me in yet another round of our favorite song. “No!” is a power word too. It brings things to a halt. It makes eyes pop and heads spin. I love that! Please try to stay calm and state what you think I mean:

            “Sounds like you're sad to leave the park. I'm sad too! But I have to get dinner started.”

You've thrown in a little empathy and re-stated the necessity of leaving behind something we are both enjoying. Your next move is to follow through. Over time, I'll learn to accept the fact that we can want something and not get it...without falling apart and without taking it personally.

I truly don't know what you're talking about.  Maybe you’re referring to something by a name I don’t recognize.  For example, if I loved the model of the wooly mammoth at the Page Museum and I called it the "big-big effent," I won't have a clue what you mean when you say “Would you like to go to the Page and see the wooly mammoth?” Maybe you could say something like “Remember how much you liked the 'big-big elephant' at the museum? We're going to go see it again.” We can straighten out the terminology later.

You've interrupted me. Despite a reputation for having short attention spans, we toddlers can be quite riveted to things that interest us. (What captures my fancy may just not capture yours.) A five minute warning can be very useful in “getting ready to get ready:”

            “Sweetie, in five minutes I'm going to tell you about our plans for this morning.”

This piques my curiosity and helps me change channels to prepare for a transition. That way, I'm not caught completely off-guard by having to stop one thing and begin another.

I crave self-determination. The need for autonomy is my current passion. I want to do things myself and I get so frustrated when I'm not able. Please let me do as many things for myself that I can, even if I don't do them as neatly or efficiently as you could. And I need choices. Giving me a choice about which stuffed animal to take to the market might make me feel less oppositional about getting in the car to go there.

You asked me in question form, so I thought I had a choice. Parents have a funny habit of putting “OK?” at the end of a declaration, as in “We're going to the library, OK?” Maybe you want to sound less bossy, more genial. But a question is a question – and even though I can't say much yet, I recognize that upward inflection in your voice as an invitation to weigh in. So I say “no”...and you feel disappointed...and I feel tricked. As I said before, I love to have choices, but if I don't have a choice, let's not pretend I do. Tell, don't ask.

Maybe I want veto power. I don't yet have the ability to ask for many things, but at least I can try to exercise the power to negate. As I become more verbal and refine my ability to endorse and request – to use language in a positive way – you will see my urge to negate diminish.

I'm feeling trapped. Just as I have trouble requesting some of the things I want, I also have a difficult time articulating what I want to do. When we always have to do what you want/need to do, this underscores my feelings of impotence. Is it possible to spend some part of each day (even if it's just 15 or 20 minutes) simply noodling around and following my lead? That will satisfy some of my urge to direct traffic.

I have to be me. They don't call toddlerhood the “first adolescence” for nothing! So many of the same issues are at play in these two stages of life. I'm working very hard to individuate – to understand and promote myself as a person who is not part of you. If I say I don't want what you want, I get to feel very separate and distinct. I enjoy hearing you put this into words: “I like the red shorts and you like the blue shorts. Why don't you go ahead and wear the ones you like.”

I may not understand that it's for my own good. Let's say I'm playing outside and starting to shiver. You run in the house and come out with a jacket and try to wrestle me into it. To me, that's just an annoyance, an interruption. I haven't got an innate sense of the connection between my comfort and the jacket. Try breaking this down for me: “You look like you're cold. You're shivering and your teeth are chattering like this – BRRRRR. I'm going to put your jacket on you so you will feel warmer.”