Teaching Your Child To Say No

By Anya Abdulakh
Founder of 3 House Club and blogger for parents | London

As a mother of 8 and 10 years old children in London, I am more and more thinking how to teach children to say “No”.

I am doing my best to teach my children to make the right choices in life but it is very hard to confront peer pressure. I am not sure if my children will be strong enough to say “no” to watching a movie during a sleep-over that would give them nightmares, or “no” to watching a disturbing video on YouTube during a play-date, or “no” to drugs when they are older. It will be even a harder challenge to tell “no” to adults, when things do not feel right (confronting an attempt of emotional, physical or sexual abuse).

I looked through some behavioural psychology articles and books (e.g. Stress, Appraisal and Coping by Richard Lazarus), and I wanted to share some useful tips we can teach our children to become stronger.