The art (or practice) of telling No without saying no – Part 1

Would you agree that No is a horrible word!?

Especially uttered as a stand-alone phrase!

NO!

NO, in itself tells us nothing! It gives us nothing!
All it does is limit us without any actual cause of why.
I would state that any made-up sound would be better off used to get the message through.

You see, there are many ways to say No!
To avoid the word No is one thing I learned while raising my dog, Chico.*

I became terrified when the third word my child seemed to say after mom and dad was – No (Nej in Swedish).
Of course, all she did was to imitate sounds she had heard and had still not really a clue of what or when to say it (at 10 months old).
Still, it made me think! I had promised to describe the world to her better than a simple No and I knew I had to adress this with the rest of the family as well.
But what I also saw, was a glimpse into the future, and my child responding with a simple NO.
Instead of giving colors to her feelings, fears, hesitations, questions etc..

You see, there are many ways to say no.

Example 1: Don’t touch –
electric plugs VS dirty shoes

“Watch out, dangerous!” or simply “Dangerous!” seems way more descriptive when talking about electric plugs.**
“Let go, dirty” could be a way of describing why you are letting “the big adventure of the shoe” disappear in front of her eyes.

Example 2: Don’t go there –
Over the edge of the bed (head first!) VS onto the wet bathroom floor

– I use my palm and with force I slap it onto the floor. A curious nose peeking over the edge of the bed shrugs back.
The sound of the slap is sudden, explosive and hard and thousands of years of experienced evolution tells any one of us to be aware. I then try to explain and show her “Feet first”.
Will she try head first again? Most definitively but I will also be there with sound and encouraging words.
– A sharp hissing sound goes a long way to attract attention from a wet floor or whatever might be of interest to any baby (or dog).***

What I want to say is a bit the same as with the text/post WHY we never “MUST” do anything!.
A text where I stated that – if we don’t understand the reason behind what we do, we can never resonate with it.

Although this text is dealing with a baby, my point is:
If all we hear is No all through life, sooner or later we will rebel against it or become numb.

_{This is my side of the story, some of my thoughts about the big puzzle we call life.
What are yours?}

Love / Pedro

_{* The reason to avoid such a common world like No would be that it could mess up the dog’s head each time the word is told.
** I taught Chico to watch out for traffic by overexaggerate my feeling of fright while telling him to Watch out.
** I learned this also while raising Chico. I got so into the dog training that I, without noticing, made the same hissing sound to get my friend’s attention as I did with Chico. Although it worked like charm, it was seldom with a happy face to be called upon like a dog.}

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Let me add:
I know that the word NO is a collective word for
WATCH OUT
DANGER
ETC…

Still, I believe it is overused and that we sometimes need to go back and understand why we actually do what we do in order to truly move forward. All together! ❤️
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