Learn more about the power of saying "No" early.
Timestamps:
00:00 Parenting never stops.
02:03 Small problems precede big one. Example and metaphor.
04:05 Sooner, clearer. Act NOW
Transcript:
Parenting never stops. Never.
A child whines about something, and you’re just tired of stopping it, even though it’s VERY easy (you just say, “English.”). Or a room is left a mess, and you just don’t want to bother with hearing the excuses or the attitude. So you don’t.
But EVERY time we ignore something that doesn’t contribute to loved, loving and responsible, it grows. Like weeds grow, without any attention or nourishment from us.
What’s the solution? Be a parent. Every time. You chose the job, so now it’s yours to do. If you don’t do it, who will?
Over and over, every day, I hear from parents who describe a problem they can’t handle, and it turns out—EVERY single time—that before this problem became unmanageable, there were 8, 20, 100 problems very much like it that preceded the big one. 100 small problems that were not addressed. Every time.
To illustrate, nobody ever bursts into flame. Never. But if they open a gas can, spill it on the floor, leave the door closed, continue working while really meaning to do something about the spill, and then they drop a hammer on concrete, generating a spark, they CANNOT claim that “suddenly” there was a fire.
No, the fire was virtually planned. It was inevitable, and this is the case with nearly every problem with children.
It’s the problem with our individual unhappiness too, and our problems in relationships. We have to stop them early.
I do a lot of outdoor work, and I’ve seen that with a single pebble I can keep a large boulder from rolling down a hill. With a twig, I can stop a commercial chainsaw that has the horsepower of an entire lawnmower.
But once the boulder has begun rolling, or the saw is spinning at thousands of rpms, all kind of disasters become possible, and stopping them can be impossible. Fixing them can have a horrifying cost.
Solution? Act NOW. If you’re having even an unkind thought, that might come from anywhere—usually somewhere in your past, but who cares? The initial thought is nothing.
What matters is what we do in the next single second. We can feed it or starve it, like the fire or the unstable boulder, or the running chain saw.
One day I was working in the backyard, and I had an unkind thought pop into my head about someone who had treated me badly. Came out of nowhere, but I know where those thoughts go. They explode like weeds or fires or rolling boulders, so immediately I shouted out loud, “No!” I changed the subject and thought about something else.
My neighbor happened to be out in his backyard, maybe 100 feet away, and he heard me shout. He called over to me, “You okay?”
I said, “Yep, just having an argument.”
He said, “Who with?” since he couldn’t see anybody with me.
“Myself,” I said.
“You winning?” he asked.
“Yes.”
You want to stop old habits? Stop them now. You want to stop negative thinking? Say NO right now. Don’t feed the thoughts, and they die.
You want your children to feel loved, loving, and responsible? DO something every time you see a behavior or facial expression, or hear a tone, inconsistent with loving or responsible.
Stop EARLY anything that isn’t congruent with the happiness you want. It’s SO much easier than fixing the problems later on.
