No!

If you're expecting or have children, chances are you probably receive weekly updates about your child's development from Baby Center. I found this weeks update pretty comical:

Whining and screaming: If your 15-month-old has started sounding like a hyena or worse, you're experiencing his intense desire to interact with you. Children thrive on their parents' attention, and a toddler this age will do just about anything to get yours. When he gets loud or whiny, kneel down to your child's level and tell him you're listening. If he keeps it up, calmly say, "I can't understand you when you talk like that. Please use your normal voice and I'll be happy to listen to what you're saying." Eventually, he'll get the message.

What I'd like to ask the editors is this: Have they really tried this approach and does it seriously work? I bet the answer is a big fat NO!

And speaking of that simple two letter word, Baby Center never warned us in ALL their weekly updates that toddlers Ella's age will actually USE the word no. What happened to it being all about the parents? And what about all our efforts to avoid saying no but rephrasing our intentions so they sound less like, well, no!, but more like refined and polished. Personally, we thought we were doing pretty good at it. Here's a couple of really good (or so we thought!) options to use instead of the no word: "That's mommy's, please put that down," or "Hot, hot! Stay away, be safe!" or "Mommy loves you sooo much so kindly step aware from the roaring fire," or "Look Ella! Your play phone is so much more interesting than daddy's blackberry!" Now, that all sounds all good and fine but seriously, admittedly, we might have used the no word one too many times. Case in point: Ella and Erika are coloring and enjoying some quiet playtime. Erika is drawing a tree (or sun or flower?) and Ella decisively and swiftly (with defiance of course - I think you all can get the picture) grabs the crayon out of her mother's hand and looks at the women who brought her into this world with a face that would make anyone surrender their crayon. A little taken aback, Erika asks Ella for the crayon back (didn't Ella like the picture mommy was drawing?) and Ella coveted the crayon even closer to her chest, looked her mother straight in the eyes, and say "No!" Now, you had to hear it to understand the effect of the little word. See, phenotically, it sounded for like "Noo-ah!" (note: draw out the no and end it with a sharp ah sound, it's really effective this way).

So Baby Center, we'll be waiting for your big weekly update about the use of "No-ah!" and will sure expect some expert yet tried but true advice!