The Power of Refusal and the Necessity of Imagination
What kids have to teach us about insisting on “no” and striving for “yes”
“ …I need a poem
about happiness I haven't
written yet, an ode
to the ducks in my neighbours’
pool, another for the pink
magnolias of spring—some trees
make it look so easy: Yes,
I can hold all this beauty up.”
~Kyla Jamieson
If you’ve ever spent any time with a toddler, you have probably been on the receiving end of an ecstatic and adamant, “no!” The discovery of the power of refusal is one of the most gleeful milestones in the emerging agency of a young child. As they test their developing autonomy, children become experts at deploying refusal in a myriad of ways, from the simple, declarative “no” to the limp, boneless flop. It is exhilarating to be able to invoke a sharp refusal and to hold to it with every bodily cell, especially when one is on the less powerful end of authority, as children almost always are.
The discovery of “no” is not only an important developmental milestone in children’s increasing sense of agency, it is also a critical life skill. As much as it may be exasperating to be the adult recipient of seemingly constant toddler resistance, it is a skill we will ultimately want our children to be practiced at, down the road when the stakes may be higher. (More on this in a moment.) For young children, their refusal is often predictably leveraged to avoid the less enticing aspects of daily life—vegetables, baths, and sleep, to name a few. But the thrill of refusal’s power tends to take on a momentum of its own, eliciting adamant resistance at times that may seem mystifying. As the writer Chuck Wendig once wrote of toddlers:
“Sometimes the meltdowns are easy to see coming: you’ve said ‘no’ to a vital question (like, ‘can I have this?’) or you’re trying to take them to the doctor or make them wear pants or treat you with a modicum of respect. Other times the meltdowns arrive like a piece of space junk: an unpredictable meteor without warning. You’ll offer them ice cream and you’ll think well, it’s ice cream, who the fuck doesn’t like ice cream and want it basically every hour of every day but the toddler will suddenly freak the fuck out because you violated some secret cosmic decree.”
All of it, the logical and the seemingly random, cosmic resistance, plays an important role in a child's emerging awareness of their own autonomy and, eventually, of larger structures of power. This doesn’t mean that adults should never set limits; it can be just as scary for children to have more authority than they are developmentally capable of handling as it can be to have no individual agency at all. And, obviously, vegetables, baths, and bedtime are important. But, it is also worth being mindful, when gauging our reactions as adults, of the fact that there will be things we want our children to feel confident saying “no” to one day, whether exercising refusal to consent in a personal relationship, resisting peer pressure at a party, or taking a principled stance of political defiance. Considering this longer arc of resistance in children’s development, the educator Steven Schultz wrote:
“...if we are to make any comparisons between adult and pre-school acts of resistance, we must look at the issue of empowering the lives of our children not only from the standpoint of the ways in which teachers give self-direction to them, but also in the ways in which children take it for themselves. The simple fact is that many children (and certainly those who number among the many disenfranchised groups) will need to use lessons in learning how to take those rights that are not being freely offered as they enter the adult world.”
In addition to fostering individual empowerment, exercising noncompliance is also often one of the first ways in which children experience solidarity. As a group of children begins to chant over the voice of the teacher or pounds the table in rhythmic unison, they experience an early iteration of the thrill of shared power, and of the amplifying force of resistance enacted together rather than alone. While these are often some of the most challenging classroom moments for teachers, they can also be critical practice grounds for civic participation.
Though none of us likes to receive an adamant “no,” and though there are times as adults when we may need to acknowledge a child’s refusal with compassion, while still insisting on safety, health, or on the need to respect the rights of another, it is also true that understanding and even cultivating a capacity for noncompliance is valuable and significant. The ability to refuse is central to our internal awareness of our own rights and, at times, becomes critical to our ability to unite in recognizing and resisting the overreach of authority and oppression.
And yet, as important as “no” can be, it can also be an easy place to get stuck, mired in the lack of momentum that is inherent to digging in our heels. This is also a critical lesson children are coming into, as they learn to listen to their own internal compass and test the limits of their power. The seemingly random refusal (the meltdown in response to an offer of ice cream) or the collective resistance that becomes redundant (the group that gladly chants and stamps in choral unison but struggles to organize a game or to build together without the blocks constantly tumbling) offer equally critical opportunities for learning to extend both individual and shared capacity for agency beyond "no." Just as children learn to exercise the power of “no,” they are also engaged in a process of learning how to locate and bring to life a more compelling and engaging “yes”—how to not only resist but imagine, and how to find the thrill of solidarity not only in protest but also in creating something entirely new together.
And, just as children are drawn to the power of digging in their heels and to the pleasure of shared resistance, a child’s greatest area of expertise—often outpacing adults—is surely in their creativity and their ability to imagine worlds not yet conceived. Children are good at saying “no.” But when a child says “yes” their affirmation often indicates something much more interesting and compelling than simple compliance. As children spin imaginative stories, build new structures, and test unlikely solutions to confounding problems, they are practicing the skills and building the capacity for affirmative creation, and that is much more valuable than mere acquiescence. Children are experts at envisioning and enacting novelty. Their "yes" doesn't only assent to the existing options. As children play together, they express ideas and values and come together through emerging shared vision and invention. Ultimately, this process is at least as critical as practicing refusal and perhaps even more exhilarating, if slower to unfold.
Throughout life, it is often important to establish group energy and mobilization by identifying our shared opposition. But this form of solidarity will always stagnate if we can’t also recognize that which we love in common and imagine what we hope to build together. With every new playground game or ambitious block construction, children are learning—and perhaps demonstrating for us adults—how to insist on imagination, not only on opposition.
As we age and increasingly grow into levels of authority and autonomy that are rarely granted to children, it often remains easier to retain our intuitive understanding of the power of refusal than it is to continue to imagine and create the worlds we wish to build, as children do. We continue to be drawn to forming connections through opposition, as we rally together against common enemies. And in an age of rapidly encroaching authoritarianism, it is surely vital to be able to locate our confidence, agency, and collective power in a solidarity of noncompliance. But, in the midst of all our necessary shouts of “no,” it is also important, just as it is for children, to continue practicing imagination and shared creativity, because it is only in identifying and describing the world we want to shape that we can move beyond refusal and into a better future together.
In many early childhood and elementary classrooms, one of the first tasks of a new school year is to establish rules together. Year after year, as I sat in a circle of three-year-olds, this process would almost always begin with a long list of "no’s." When asked what rules we should have, the children were eager to tally and document all the forbidden actions. “No hitting! No pushing! No biting! No grabbing!” they would call out gleefully. I would receive their litany of taboos, dutifully writing down each one on giant chart paper. As invigorating as this was for the class, it was always important that the process not end there. The next step was to look at the list together and consider what all those "no’s" might mean about how we actually wanted to commit to treating each other. This was where the real work happened.
Together we would transform their list of “no’s” into an affirmative list, reshaping all the admonishments into promises: “Use gentle hands. Use kind words. Keep each other safe. Listen to each other.” It was always easiest for the children to come together through all the things they opposed. And there was an undeniable and gratifying surge of adrenaline and power for them in calling out all those “no’s,” particularly given that children are so often the ones being told “no” by adults. It was necessary to go through the process of coalescing around all that they wished to negate, and of giving permission to declare these refusals on their own terms. But if we had left our list there, the school year would have ultimately been one of accusations and finger wagging, as various edicts were invoked with every inevitable violation. In finding “yes’s” that the group could agree upon, the children practiced naming how they wished to be treated and committed to working toward the community they wanted to form together.
Of course, all of these affirmative rules were still violated many times throughout the year. Conflict never ends simply because we’ve established shared values. But referencing their aspirations always set the stage for a different conversation when harms occurred, than a list of admonishments ever could. In part, there are elements of basic behavior science behind this. When presented with a “no,” we become overly fixated on what we are not supposed to do, and this crowds out our ability to consider or do anything else. It’s the pink elephant paradox in preschool form. But focusing on a “yes” instead of a “no” also establishes different pathways forward.
A list of “no’s” tends to guide us toward punishment when norms are overstepped. A list of “yes’s,” on the other hand, offers a reminder of shared values and a reorientation toward collaborative creation that leaves space for repair and for new ideas. “No” may protect us from others who would violate our individual rights. But “yes” asks us to be active in our commitment to do well by one another and to be creative in cultivating communities that not only avoid harm but strive for connection, care, and interdependence.
The need to stretch beyond refusal to envisioning what we would affirm isn’t just a preschool problem. In the play What the Constitution Means to Me the writer Heidi Schreck tussles with this notion within our founding document, which she notes is largely rooted in negative rights, outlining the intrusions of government we are protected from, rather than describing the society we’re entitled to. In an interview on the play she explained:
“Positive rights are active rights. They include things like the right to an education, in some countries, the right to healthcare…in my 10 years of study, I started to realize that negative rights are helpful, obviously, because we want to be protected from the possible tyranny of government, but that they're most helpful to the people who are already in power. They are most helpful to people whose rights are already protected.”
“No” is powerful and coming together in collective resistance is often essential, particularly when those to whom we’ve granted authority sever the restraints on their power and veer toward domination. But, just as children balance the rush of refusal with experiences in which they define the community values they want to establish—the “yes’s”—and with their play, through which they expand their ability to imagine new worlds and new ways of living together, it is important for us, as adults, to engage in this practice, as well. Even as we anchor ourselves in refusal when necessary, it takes constant effort to also define what we are for and to envision what we might create. And that is vital, worthy work, too. It's the only way we get to a better future, and we might just discover, as we engage in defining a shared vision and a shared imagination, that even deeper solidarity and connection can be found there.
Wishing you the solidarity of shared refusal and the inspiration of collective imagination,
Alicia
A few things I found helpful and hopeful this week…
- Giving Can Be Simple (And During a Crisis, It Must Be)
- An island in Chile covered its waters with floating solar panels and soon, thousands of salmon had turned them into their home
- Penelope Speaks: Rebecca Solnit on the Western Literary Tradition of Silencing Women
- A definitive ranking of every dish in America's Test Kitchen's potluck issue (because it made me laugh)
