Do you struggle with knowing how to say ‘no’ to children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is it hard for you to hold firm to boundaries, especially around food?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is something that just about every parent or carer faces, and if they\u2019re honest, probably finds very difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not hard to see why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today parents are busy<\/em>. They feel overwhelmed by work and life commitments. With days full up and often many hours spent in traffic moving between family activities, by the time it comes to food, our resilience and ability to hold firm is way<\/em> down. Maybe it\u2019s even non-existent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s take a classic scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve worked all week, criss-crossed the city in peak-hour traffic ferrying kids to after school activities, you know the pantry at home is empty, and up over the horizon looms the \u2018golden arches\u2019 (or similar) take-away. Right on cue, the kids start screaming for food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it any wonder we give in at that moment? Is it really a surprise that we say \u2018yes\u2019 to the unhealthy take-away, because we don\u2019t want to upset the proverbial apple cart too much, do we? Until we\u2019re emotionally strong enough to withstand that onslaught, it seems too hard not to give in. Many parents also unconsciously want to be their child\u2019s friend, and unpopular decisions could mean you\u2019re \u2018not their friend anymore\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learning how to say ‘no’ to kids is like any other habit: it takes time and commitment, and in many cases, it requires support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may seem to be a paradox but learning to say no to kids means you must do some shifting around on the family needs list. That means, you as the parent need to shift your needs from the bottom of the list (or maybe your needs haven\u2019t even made it to the list?!) to the top. That\u2019s right. Your needs must find their way to the top. By taking care of ourselves first, we are not only better equipped to address the needs of our children, we\u2019re also teaching our children one of life\u2019s more valuable emotional management skills. Yes, it\u2019s a classic case of \u2018fitting your own oxygen mask first\u2019. How many times have you heard the flight attendants tell you this before a plane prepares for take-off from the runway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parents and carers often wear their \u2018sacrificing\u2019 for children as a badge of honour, as they focus all their attention on the child or children; especially, if there is a high-need child. Nothing could be further from the truth! We cannot give to anyone, including our kids, from an empty tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My own experience of parenting this way with children who are living in addiction is proof this approach does not work. Burning myself out and running myself ragged did nothing but show me I needed to find another way. Not only is this method unsustainable, it\u2019s also not the kind of behaviour we want to model for our children, who will be watching what we do \u2013 and following along behind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0Here are just some simple ways you can start taking care of yourself and build the confidence and \u2018emotional muscle\u2019 to say ‘no’:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, none of these suggestions are rocket science. Every parent can find ways to support themselves to say no with confidence. When we approach it this way, unsurprisingly, the arguments reduce too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Struggling with how to say ‘no’ to kids? Learn healthy parenting habits. Reduce stressors and commitments, eat well, exercise regularly, and take ‘you time’. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-roslyn-boundaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commonhealthkids.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}