No
This is a story from Book Week that’s not really about Book Week at all. It’s a story about a little girl, two little girls really and their ‘NO’.
We had a plan for Book Week weeks ago, a nice simple plan that didn’t involve any sewing or crafting this year. A Disney princess Rapunzel dress, a hair straightener and the long golden hair we’ve been growing for months now. We had the book, had read and listened to the story. We were set and then the actual day snuck up on us.
A message reminded us on the weekend that the parade would be on Monday. A parade. The Easter Parade this year didn’t go so well for us and with another one approaching I realised that it hadn’t actually been a one off. Starting kindy in 2020 had meant that my little girl has only had a few experiences of participating in school events. Most assemblies were cancelled in her kindy year and my memory of the small class prayer service that had gone ahead is of her hiding under a desk as soon as it started. While she has settled into the routine of the classroom and no longer gets upset when I leave her, her anxiety around participating in performance type activities has not settled. It seems to be growing.
I decided to mention that the parade is part of the Book Week dress up day to gauge her reaction. It was an immediate NO. It was a whole lot of I don’t want to, I can’t, I’m not going to, please Mummy don’t. It was panic. So we focused on safety and calm until the panic was no longer part of the conversation and we talked about it. It could be fun? She knows everyone who will be there? Maybe she could see how she feels on the day? No, no, no and up came the panic again. I let it go.
Monday morning came around and we had so much fun dressing up and doing her hair. She loved how she looked and put her book in her bag happily but she was clear ‘I don’t want to do the parade Mum’. So I had a think and felt into it for a solution, I checked in with her teacher to make sure it was ok and she stood with me, all dressed up watching the parade this time. We cut the stress, we stopped the build up, we created a memory for her of enjoying a book parade to add to the ones she has experienced in a negative way. We didn’t solve the problem of her stress response to something she will likely have to do in the future but we didn’t add to it either.
At the end of the parade I walked her back to her classmates who were getting setup for a photo before returning to class. I asked her if she wanted to join them, expecting a yes, but she said NO and contracted into my side for the first time since we had arrived at school with our plan. I wasn’t prepared, I hadn’t thought or felt this part through, I was in front of a bunch of people now who were calling her over, expecting her to join in. I caved.
I felt the expectation, I felt all of the shoulds. She should be able to do at least this part, all of the other kids were happily doing it, why wouldn’t she? I tried to convince and coerce her but she wasn’t budging. I waved them off with a forced smile, ‘No, I’ve tried’ and before I knew what was happening they were moving the whole group over to where we were standing. Before I knew what was happening, I was handing her over to be forced into the photo, to be held there when she didn’t want to be. When she had said NO.
I was frozen. I was now in my stress response, I was the five year old version of me who didn’t understand that my NO was important and often felt the discomfort of suppressing it to please others. I was back in my childhood in a time when a five year old did not have a NO, before anyone understood or accepted the importance of teaching our children about boundaries and body autonomy from a young age. I was stuck in ‘respect your elders’ and ‘do as I say not as I do’, in ‘always follow instructions’, ‘don’t make a scene’ and ‘say yes to make others happy with you at all times’. In that moment I felt all of the repercussions that have followed those ‘rules’ through my adolescence and adulthood, all the way to now. All I could do was kneel down behind her, out of the camera’s view, and touch her back to tell her I was still there with her. I had lost my NO in that moment and so I couldn’t help her to hold hers.
She wanted me to stay, she wanted to come home with me, she was scared. Not of a book week parade, not of a photo, not even of her teachers who were doing their best just to get her involved. She was scared because her NO had been dismissed and ignored and I had not helped her to hold it. She was scared and I was so very sorry and sad. She stayed and I went home and sat with it all, called a friend who I knew would be able to hear me and hold space for me, unraveled the heaviness I was feeling.
It’s confusing to be in the middle of such a big paradigm shift. The way it’s always been and always been done holds so much weight behind it. Nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes though and this is a simple experience that could been seen as insignificant or could be the catalyst for huge and significant change. NO to a parade now could grow into the ability to say and hold a much more important NO in the future. NO to being in a photo that feels uncomfortable is an important NO in the future. NO to joining in because everybody else is ok with it and doing it is an important NO in the future. NO when it doesn’t feel right in her body is an important NO in the future.
It didn’t hurt or bother anybody for her to watch rather than participate in the parade. She smiled and laughed the whole way through it, everybody else was able to do what they wanted to do despite her absence. She could have watched the photo being taken too. Even though she usually smiles for photos in class, even though she’d be the only one not in it, even though, even though, even though. Whether she feels comfortable and safe to be in it needs to be number one. Whether she is able to say yes and actually mean it needs to be number one.
We had a chat about it on Monday after school. I apologised for not helping her to say NO to the photo, I shared with her how it felt hard for me and why. She showed me more grace and understanding than I have ever had for myself. “I know Mum, you got scared in front of all the people, I know”. She was light as a feather, she had cried in the moment and moved the emotion of it through on the spot. I had taken a little longer, held it all in my body for most of the day, but together after our chat we let it go with a promise to keep trying our best.
This morning we got to school a little later than usual. She had asked if we could walk and I decided we had just enough time, we would get there just on the bell but it would be worth it. The walk was beautiful, we spotted yellow blossoms all over the bush and kangaroo paws starting to uncurl. We got to the door to find her class lined up and her face fell. She hung her bag on a hook and looked up ‘assembly, I don’t want to go to assembly’. I was confused, they don’t usually go to the school assemblies but she knew and I had been wrong about it being ok to arrive right on the bell today. We made our way into the classroom trying the ‘catch up to speed’, she froze, I started to freeze. ‘Oh no’ I thought ‘not again’. I was unprepared, I didn’t know how to proceed, I can’t rescue her from every experience like this but I need to hear this NO. This NO was her chance to unlearn what she had learned on Monday, that her NO is not important or not as important as what everybody else wants her to agree to do.
Her teacher looked down at her face and in a split second she saved us both. ‘Let’s put your stuff away and write your name on the sign in page and we’ll head up to the assembly in a few minutes. Let’s give you a minute to arrive.’ What she really said was, ‘I see your NO and it’s ok to be unsettled by the unexpected, there is no problem here, let’s just wait until you’re ready to say YES’. This can be a NO until you’re ready for it to be a YES.
That’s all I want for her. Not to ‘get out’ of every experience that she doesn’t like but to have a chance to feel what it’s like for a NO to turn into a YES rather than just being ignored and pushed through. Not just at home but out in the world too. There are so many things that feel uncomfortable and hard to start with, things that we need to sit with, learn more about, practice and even try harder with. Our children are learning. Our children are being given all of the experiences they need to learn, practice, understand and grow. Their innate responses are guiding them and our job is to teach them how to listen. To help them to express what things really feel like for them and sometimes to fight for the time and space they need to process what they feel.
There are many NO’s that will turn into a YES with time and awareness but there are some NO’s that don’t, that never will and it is when we honour these NO’s, when we hold them strong, that we are able to have real and honest YES’s in our lives. I want my children and especially my daughter to have a life filled with real and honest YES’s so she needs to be able to express and explore her NO.
