Yes to You!

When one of my favorite Peloton instructors, Leanne Hainsby, gives shout outs during her classes, she always follows the person's name with, "Yes to you!" It makes me smile every time.

One of the best pieces of parenting wisdom I received when my girls were young was to say yes as often as I could. As humans our first reaction is usually to say no. It's how our brains protect us from doing something dangerous. But going with that first reaction means we miss out on so many chances to say yes.

When my older daughter was a toddler she went through a phase where it was very important to her that she go up or down the stairs first. So I let her. Because I could say yes. It added some extra time to our trips up and down, but it allowed her to assert her independence in a way that ultimately didn't matter at all to me. But it mattered a lot to her.