He Always Says No!

Like I’ve said before, we are raising a social toddler and trying to teach him more words each and every day. I know that he knows more words, but his favorite thing to say is NO! Do you want chocolate for breakfast? NO! Is dad your biggest hero? NO! Would you like to go to the zoo? NO! I can’t catch a break with this kid.

It’s funny though because if he wants something and is trying to tell me he will usually scream at first. We tell him that he needs to use his words. Screaming isn’t going to get you anything in our home, but it is usually his go to form of communicating. But when he really wants us to get him something he is quickly learning that saying what it is makes it a lot easier for us to get things.

Now that he is talking more, I try to watch what I am saying around him. You hear it all the time; kids are like sponges and soak everything up. This couldn’t be more true! I may have said a few words that I regret saying around him and I am pretty sure he has said those words, I looked at him, laughed a little and then I thought, he learned that from me. I realized that I had to start using other words around my son and probably shouldn’t be saying these words anyways.

Since I never had little brothers or sisters I never had experienced this. After my mission I moved to California and lived with a family that I had become great friends from the mission. They had younger children and I knew I needed to clean up my language and just some of the mannerisms that I was doing. No more taking my hand looking like a gun to my head when things were annoying me because one day I saw their five year old do it. That stuck with me forever! I knew at that moment that when I had children I was going to watch what I say and do around them.

Fast forward to today where I have a child that is repeating things that I am saying.  I had the flashback of my dear friend making her little hand look like a gun to her head. I said that I didn’t want my child to be doing things that I do that aren’t the best. He said something that I wasn’t happy about and knew for sure that it was from me and had to make sure that it was time to clean up again.

So when I hear him saying NO! it makes me think twice before saying anything around him that I will regret. He is growing up fast and as funny as I think it is sometimes to hear him say these things, it’s also time to be a parent/adult and make different choices on how I am raising my child and how I am acting around him.

It’s time to be a better example and tell myself NO! to what I am saying and doing to not only him but those around me.