PSYCHOLOGY – It is healthy to know how to set limits, and this gives more value to the yes.
To the saleswoman who assures you that this dress suits you well, to the boss who overloads you with work, to the child who asks for another ice cream… it is not always easy to say no. By expressing their disagreement, some are afraid of hurting their interlocutor, of giving a bad image of themselves and above all, of no longer being loved.
“This difficulty in saying no often comes from early childhood, says psychologist Marie Haddou, author of Know how to say no (I read, 2014). During the child’s opposition sentence, this famous “age of no” which allows him to assert himself around 2 or 3 years old, the parents sometimes pronounce sentences like “If you don’t obey, we won’t ‘will love more’… Unconsciously, the child will then associate no with the loss of love: even as an adult, he will feel guilty for saying no…»
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