Consistency is important. When we say no, we mean no. If you start to let kids change your mind all the time you’ll forever be arguing with your kids. When asked something, think about your answer. Then you won’t have to change your mind.
Having said this, since they reached their teenage years we’ve had an arrangement with Master18 & Miss15 – if we say ‘no’ they can approach us and say it’s important to them and state their reasons why they think we should reconsider.
They can’t overuse it. We explained if it ends up everything is suddenly really important to them, nothing is.
We might still say no, but we gave them our assurance we would give their request extra consideration, taking into account their wishes. This has resulted in a nice balance where what we say goes, but when something is important to them they feel they’re being listened to.
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