Is it bad to always say yes to my child?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau answers that a parent who never says no is not being loving. The child wants to run outside in the storm? Sure, sweetie. He wants to do anything, break anything: always yes. “That’s not love. That’s abandonment wrapped in softness.”
A child needs a parent who leads. The Torah model is not equality but “hierarchy with closeness”: “I validate what you feel, but I still lead.”
He sums it up: “A parent who can’t say no, loses their child.” And the opposite is also true: “A parent who can’t say yes, loses their soul.”
Related concepts: Parenting · Discipline
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Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Always saying yes is not love.
Underlying need or longing
A child needs to feel heard and also led: validation together with leadership.
Deepest human truth
A parent who can’t say no loses the child; a parent who can’t say yes loses his soul.
More questions from this teaching
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