Don't Disguise a Command as a Question

We, this generation of parents, want to be gentler than we grew up around. So we ask a lot: "What do you want for dinner?" "Bath first, then TV, okay?" "Can you please put your shoes on?" That instinct is a good one.

But child development specialist Siggie Cohen, after working with more than 5,000 families, has watched that same instinct backfire. Many of the questions we ask aren't really questions. They are commands we didn't quite dare to state. When a child can't tell 'this is required' from 'this is up for discussion,' the day fills with power struggles and blow-ups.

She calls the principle she keeps returning to the Say What You Mean rule. Before you speak, ask yourself: what am I actually trying to communicate? Then say it.

Trap 1 · The rhetorical "why." "Why do I have to ask you so many times?!", that isn't a question. It is frustration and shame, dressed up. Reframe: "I've been repeating myself, and I know that's tiring for both of us. Right now, shoes on. We're leaving."

Trap 2 · Interrogating a pattern. "Why do you always do this?!", this teaches defensiveness, not reflection. Reframe: "I'm noticing this has become a pattern. It's something we're going to work on together."

Trap 3 · A command disguised as a question. "Can you please put your shoes on?" sounds polite. But when a non-negotiable is asked as "can you," the child hears that "no" is a real option. Reframe: "Shoes on. We're leaving." "Time for bed." "Dinner's ready, please wash your hands."

So when do questions belong? In the real conversations. "Which part of the book made you think of yourself?" "What made you sad today?" "For that problem, what's the first step you thought of?", those are the questions we want more of. Not "why did you forget again?"

This isn't about becoming hard. Real gentleness lives inside clarity. A child who knows what you actually want doesn't have to keep testing your limits, and you don't have to rely on anger to be heard.

Small, steady shifts in how we speak, over time, turn a home into a different place.