Parent Tip 1021

Re-learn the word "no" and use it a lot.

From Andrew Sullivan/Wesley Yang:

I felt clearer and clearer that my older son was not transgender, and that we were responsible for leading him down that path by mistake. On the other hand, I worried that if he was actually transgender, I would do great damage to him by reversing the social transition. This period of time was deeply agonizing, and was marked by incredible despair. 

Somehow, my partner and I came to clarity that the deeper truth for our son was that he was not actually a transgender girl, but rather a highly sensitive, likely autistic boy who was born into this world without a skin, and for whom the structure of certainty the girl identity provided him was a type of protection, or defense. It also provided him a way of attaching to me through sameness, a primal need for his security in the world. We decided that since we were the ones who led him on this path, we were the ones that needed to lead him off if it.

The unspoken thing - parents abandon simple common sense and what they know to be true because they are scared to say "no." When their little boy said to them "I want to be a girl" the right response would've been to say with all the love in the world: no. You aren't a girl, you are a boy. Within an hour, I'd bet the child would've moved on. Instead, the parents constructed for themselves a family drama that spanned years. 

Small, but related example: I got fed up with my kids yesterday for not listening, being annoying about not wanting to wear a certain shirt, typical kid BS so I laid down a new, simple to understand law: no more iPad. Not for today, not for the weekend: there would be simply no more iPad at all until they got better at listening. Four things happened within an hour and for the rest of the day: 1) They asked to go outside to play 2) They listened better and did not talk back 3) They were perfectly happy - if not happier - than their usual selves. 4) They invented a new game/activity. 

Kids need structure and boundaries. And if you don't provide it, they will find it elsewhere.