I grew up with because I said so.
Not once. Not occasionally. As a default. As the end of every conversation I tried to start. I learned early that my questions weren’t always welcome, and that asking too many of them had consequences. So I stopped asking. I stored them instead.
I don’t know if my mother realized what that communicated. It probably wasn’t her intention. But what I heard every time was, your question doesn’t deserve an answer. Over time that becomes, you don’t deserve an answer. And eventually it just becomes invisible.
I made a decision somewhere along the way that I would not do that to my children.
With my son, I tried. I didn’t always get it right. There were times I said because I said so too. Times I shut him down when I should have stayed open. But I knew enough to know it was wrong even when I did it.
With Cami, I explain things. Not always in detail. Not always perfectly. But enough that she understands why. Even at two, she gets a reason. Even when the answer is no, she knows what the no is about.
What I didn’t expect was what that would give her in return.
She advocates for herself. She asks follow-up questions. She negotiates. She found a loophole in my no about coffee because she understood the reasoning well enough to work around it. She turned down ice cream because she’d internalized why—not because I said so.
That’s not defiance. That’s a child who knows her voice matters.
Talking with your child like a peer doesn’t mean they have equal authority. It means their questions deserve answers. Their reasoning gets respected even when the answer is still no. They are participants in the conversation, not just recipients of it.
If you grew up with because I said so, you may be passing it on without realizing it. Not because you’re wrong, but because it’s what you know.
You can do it differently.
It starts with answering the question.
The unfiltered version of these stories lives in my emails. That’s where I say the things I hold back here.
If you’re looking for a simple starting point, I put together a free guide on building vocabulary through everyday moments. You can start with that here.
If you’d like to read more, you can find my book, Your Daughter Is Weird…, here.
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