- Spaghetti tacos.
Uh huh.
- Yeah!
- Yeah?
I guess we're making spaghetti tacos tonight.
I consider myself a gentle parent.
And if you don't know what a gentle parent is,
let me school you a little bit.
The three key points of gentle parenting
are understanding, empathy, and respect.
Letting your child kind of have autonomy over themselves
and their lives, while still being a parent.
But something that I've seen circulating
in my little mom groups on Facebook
is that gentle parents shouldn't say no.
I don't practice that because I think
kids are gonna hear no in their lives
and so shielding them from that is silly.
So, I wanted to try something for a week.
I wanted to try saying yes to my kids for a week.
So I did it and I learned a lot.
So first I had to set some ground rules
because, if not, my house would probably have burnt down.
First, I did not let my kids know that I was doing this,
because if they had known,
that would have been just pure chaos.
So they had no idea that this was happening.
Second, there were some things that needed to still happen.
There are certain hygiene-oriented things
that need to happen, health-oriented things,
like you can't have cookies for every meal.
But beyond that, I let things go and I said yes.
And we had some interesting results.
It is Saturday morning.
It is 6:45 in the morning.
Both of my kids are awake.
Usually, I'd have them watch a little T.V.
so I could get a little extra sleep,
but they both are hungry, apparently starving to death.
And they wanna go to breakfast.
So I'm gonna get up and we're gonna go.
So we're gonna get Jackson's hair cut.
We're walking and he wanted to ride his scooter.
For sure, something I would say no to
because I know my kids.
I know that we'll get there, get his hair cut,
and then I'll end up lugging the scooter
and his younger brother all the way home.
But I said yes.
We got there fine and lo and behold,
he rode his scooter the whole way back, too.
And that was a pleasant surprise
and that was kind of my first realization of like,
"Oh, this might not be a bad thing."
So they both wanted chicken nuggets for dinner
and they asked if we could sit and watch Adventure Time
while we have dinner.
So the one thing that I was most nervous about
in this whole experiment of saying yes
was the food situation.
If you are a busy parent like me,
you know what it's like getting meals on the table.
It's really tough.
So I have this rotation of standard meals
that I know work.
And so, I don't deviate from it
because you got something good, you just keep doing it.
So when I started saying yes to them,
the orders got a little weird.
So I have some spaghetti.
I'm gonna attempt to put it in a hard taco shell
because I feel like a soft one with soft spaghetti
is gonna be, like, pretty weird.
Do you like it?
- Yeah.
- [Hannah] Jackson, are you happy?
- Yes.
- [Hannah] Wyatt, are you happy?
- Yeah.
- So I think this was the one thing
that my kids caught on to during the week,
that I was being a lot more flexible with.
What I learned from this whole week
of them choosing their foods
is that they're more likely to eat the entire plate
if they've chosen what they're gonna have.
This kid's on his third one.
Oh my gosh, look at you go, Jackson.
And ultimately, they'll get what they need nutrition wise,
just maybe in a really weird way.
So this week wasn't all rainbows and butterflies.
There were definitely some slip ups
and some things that I learned
that I definitely should continue to say no to.
The kids really wanted Starbucks for breakfast,
so I said yes.
And we have a lot of errands to run today,
so I wanted to just drive there
and drive straight from there to go do our stuff for the day
but Jackson really, really wanted to walk
'cause he says he wants to get exercise.
It's about 85 degrees out right now
and Wyatt is insisting on being held, so we're doing it.
Big mistake!
It's 85 degrees, Jackson's already tired of walking
and so he's melting down, Wyatt's melting down,
I'm melting down.
It was a disaster and we ended up just going home.
Never again.
There was one evening this week
that I really stepped out of my comfort zone.
So the boys wanted to have a picnic at the park
and play soccer for dinner today and it's a work night.
So I normally wouldn't do this but it's really nice out.
It's a beautiful day and they're having a blast
and we're having a good time.
Are you guys having a good time?
- Yeah!
- If you are a fellow working parent,
then you'll understand that at the end of the day,
it's just kind of like food, PJs, teeth, sleep.
But I said yes 'cause I had to.
And it ended up being one of the most beautiful nights
of the week for us as a family.
You know, we packed the picnic,
they played with their soccer goal.
The kids asked me to play soccer with them
and I said yes because I had to.
And that's not something I typically do
because I've never been good at sports.
And they didn't care that I was bad
and they had a great time.
It was really eye opening to me to realize
that we can spend weeknights doing quality family stuff,
instead of just reserving it all for the weekends,
'cause that's something I didn't think was possible before.
Soccer star!
- [Dad] 'Til she scores on you.
- So the culmination of this week of saying yes
was really this one thing that my kids ask me for constantly
and I knew it was coming, but I was kind dreading it
because I didn't know how I would handle it.
This morning I was getting ready for work
and Jackson was like, "I wanna come."
I couldn't think of a reason why not.
Are you guys excited?
- Yeah, yeah!
- Wyatt, are you excited to go to BuzzFeed?
(cheering)
Wow.
And I was terrified because kids are so unpredictable.
I've seen my two-year-old being a sweet, perfect angel,
then I've seen him morph into a shrieking banshee
in the middle of the grocery store.
It ended up being so much fun.
But it was really cool, first of all,
to have everyone I work with meet both of my kids
and I was just really proud
to have these two really well=behaved, sweet,
and polite, and respectful kids at work with me that day.
It made me realize that they just really wanna know
more about me and what I do and they wanna be around me.
And it just, it made me feel like
maybe I'm not doing such a terrible job.
I think part of it also had to do with
we have this like chocolate-covered raisin funnel
that you just like twist it and they keep coming out
and that might have been the whole reason
why they were happy that day.
I don't know.
I'm just gonna say it's 'cause of me.
So, what did I learn from this whole week?
I learned, first of all, that I say no a lot of the time
out what I think is convenient.
But it ends up not being that much more difficult to say yes
and it ends up being a lot more rewarding.
I've learned that there's a better work life balance
that I can achieve as a parent.
It doesn't have to be this like
Monday through Friday is work
and Saturday and Sunday is kids.
And that has been such an important realization for me
because that's something I struggle with every day
being a working parent and I'm sure
most of you working parents out there can relate.
And finally, I realized I have good kids.
And I know that we all think our kids are the greatest.
Like, obviously my kids are the greatest.
But just having this week to relax
and let them make the choices,
made me realize how genuinely great they are
and how sweet they are and how smart they are.
And I also learned how to make spaghetti tacos
and I also learned that I am never gonna make those again.
So that's all I got for today.
If you've tried this experiment or want to try it
or you want me to try anything else in the future,
'cause I'm totally on a kick right now,
leave it in the comments or you can text me.
This is a real number.
I do read every single text.
I don't necessarily respond because I get a lot of them
but I love to know what you guys want me to talk about
or do in future episodes.
'Til next time.
I'm gonna try to take a bite of this spaghetti taco.
The one difficulty I'm running into
is keeping the spaghetti in the taco.
(crunching)
Oh man, I'm messy and weird.
(upbeat music)