No-no! No-no! No-no!

Yes, we have been using that word quite often recently.  Yes, Jan does understand this word.  And yes, she does gets unhappy at times when we say that word to her, as you can see in her photo.

We believe that as parents, one of our greatest responsibility is to draw boundaries for our children; help them know the parameters that are safe for them.  And definitely these parameters should change as the child grows.

The book "Babywise" gave me fresh perspectives on boundaries.  The book asked, "will you let your 10-month-old play with the remote?".  My answer was yes, but I didn't realise that I would be exhibiting inconsistent behaviour when I refuse her the remote when we are at my neighbour's place (fearing that she would bang or drop the remote).  She is not yet old enough to understand the reason...so ya, seems like we parents need to think quite hard of what is ok...my take is to let her stick to toys for now and slowly let her touch more stuff when she exhibit greater maturity.

My colleague has a good way of describing this philosophy.  He said it is called loving the "V" way.  Notice how the letter "V" is narrow at the bottom and widens as you move to the top?  Same way with boundaries.  It's easier to start with very strict boundaries and slowly relax them as the child goes, compared to doing it the other way round.