This Mom Challenges Parents To Say No To Their Kids

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This Mom Challenges Parents To Say No To Their Kids

These days it seems like parents can't go anywhere without hearing advice about what they're doing right or wrong, and most of it isn't helpful.

Harris and her family.Emma Lou Harris Blog / Facebook

But Emma Lou Harris, a blogger and mother-of-two from Limerick, Ireland, has gone viral for sharing an important lesson that every parent could use. In a Facebook post, Harris reveals that she was a "yes girl" growing up, someone who was afraid to turn anyone down because she would feel guilty. As an anxious child, it felt easier to say yes to everyone and everything, even if the consequences were painful.

Emma and her daughter Frankie.Emma Lou Harris Blog / Facebook

Now, she says she's "learning to love no," and wants other parents to do the same. Harris says she trained herself to say yes "to everyone but myself," and found herself in dangerous and uncomfortable situations because she was worried about letting other people down.

Harris and her children.Emma Lou Harris Blog / Facebook

Today she knows better and says the kindest thing parents can do is to teach their children - and themselves - to embrace saying no. Not only is saying 'yes' something parents do too often, Harris says it's also a risky habit to grow up with in the world we live in today.

Click to the next page to read the benefits of telling your children 'no!'

One of the main reasons Harris wants her children to embrace saying 'no' is so they don't repeat the mistakes she made while growing up. Being afraid to turn people down landed Harris in some uncomfortable situations, and she thinks it's important for both boys and girls to understand "no means no."

Learning to love "No" I've always been a yes girl. Yes to everyone but myself. My anxiety simply couldn't tolerate...

Posted by Emma Lou Harris Blog on Wednesday, July 12, 2017

"It's telling my small son who will one day be a man, that NO means NO," she writes. "A man who I hope will go on dates, or a have relationships or marriage. He needs to know that No means No and there are not any exceptions to that."

But she thinks it's also import that teach her daughter "that NO means NO and that she needs to feel ok with that decision. She's ENTITLED to say 'No'."

It's important to say 'yes' sometimes too.Emma Lou Harris Blog / Facebook

Especially in today's wired world, where "every 'mistake' someone makes these days could be broadcast to the entire world," she says parents need to set boundaries instead of shying away from discipline. Otherwise our entitled children's rude mistakes could come back to haunt them.

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