Generations taught only to satisfy their own needs. What happens when a child never hears "no"?

I want to write about something I have been seeing every day in our preschool room for several years now, and which fewer and fewer people around me seem to realise.

The contemporary Polish child — and yes, this is a very broad generalisation, but I am basing it on daily practice with a group of three-, four-, five- and six-year-olds — increasingly grows up in a world organised in such a way that they never feel any inconvenience. They do not wait. They do not feel hunger between meals. They do not get tired. They do not hear “no”. They do not do anything they do not want to do. They do not clean up after themselves. They do not stay when they want to leave. They do not leave when they want to stay.

And next to them stands an adult — most often the mother, sometimes the father, sometimes the grandmother — who wants exactly this for the child. “Let them have a childhood.” “They’ll work hard enough later.” “Let them never lack for anything.” “Let them never feel what we felt.”

It sounds beautiful. It sounds like love. And it is often the greatest harm we do, in the 21st century, both to the child and to ourselves.

”You’ll work hard enough later” — the most dangerous sentence in the Polish family

I have heard it hundreds of times. In the cloakroom, in the corridor, during parents’ meetings. “Why don’t you let Hanna zip her jacket up herself? She’ll work hard enough later.” “How is a six-year-old supposed to set the table on their own? There’s still time. Let them enjoy their childhood.” “Don’t make him fasten his shoes — he’s still so little.”

That sentence, regardless of the good intentions behind it, tells the child something very precise: “Your work does not yet have value. Your efforts are unnecessary. Others will do this for you — and that is how it is supposed to be.”

The trouble is that the child has no internal alarm clock that at some point announces: “all right, from tomorrow I start working hard.” That is not how it works. A child who has spent six, seven, eight years learning that an adult is responsible for their comfort enters adulthood with exactly the same expectation.

And then we are surprised by twenty-year-olds who cannot call a government office, do not know how to make soup, do not wash up after themselves, do not take out the rubbish. “They can’t do anything!” — a mother writes in a parents’ group for school-leavers. And how were they supposed to learn? For seventeen years their competence was politely postponed.

Children who cannot dress themselves

Let me list the things I observe more and more frequently in children between the third and the sixth year of life. Not in one or two — in a significant part of the group:

They cannot dress themselves. They cannot zip up a jacket, they cannot put on tights, they cannot tie a scarf. Not because they lack the motor skills — they have them. Because nobody has ever taught them, because “mum will zip it up faster”.
They do not clean up after themselves. The plate after lunch stays on the table. Blocks scattered. Crayons dropped mid-action. We are not talking about a single moment of distraction — we are talking about a total absence of any idea that this belongs to them.
They cannot wipe their own bottom. I am saying this without irony. Six-year-olds in the preschool group call the teacher because “they don’t know how to do it”. At home it is done for them by mum, “because it’s quicker and cleaner”.
They do not say “please”, “thank you”, “good morning”. Not out of rebellion — simply because they have not learned that these are words one says to other people. At home nobody required these words from them. Why would they use them outside the home?
They do not set the table. They do not wipe up spilled water. They do not pick up a dropped spoon. They do not tie shoes. They do not put books back on the shelf.

The list goes on and on. And every time we try to introduce these things in the group — very gently, because this is work with children, not the army — we hear from parents: “she really can’t”, “he’s too small”, “she’s frightened”, “he gets upset when he has to do it alone”.

Well, no. She can. He is not too small. She is not frightened. He does not get upset. She, he simply has never been invited to this at home — and now, when we invite them in the classroom, the very idea seems unimaginable.

The parent who sacrifices themselves without limit

Try to imagine the home of a five-year-old child where the adults have built themselves a rule that their child’s needs always come first.

The child says “I want to go to the park” — they go to the park. Even when it is raining. Even when the mother is just off a night shift. Even when she was supposed to meet a friend for coffee in an hour — she cancels, because “the child wants to”.

The child says “let’s play shop” — they play shop, on the floor, with half the contents of the fridge, which after the game ends up in the bin, because “you can’t eat that any more”. The mother says: “oh well”. Nobody tells the child that food is not thrown away.

The child says “I don’t want to sleep in my own bed” — they sleep with the parents. The third year. The fourth. The fifth. The parents cannot remember when they last slept the night in their own position. They cannot remember when they last cuddled without somebody between them. They cannot remember when they last talked to each other in the evening without “shhh, the child is sleeping”.

The child says “I don’t want to stay at grandma’s” — they don’t stay. The parents cancel a weekend trip they had been saving for six months, because “the child doesn’t want to”.

The child says “I don’t like cutlet with broccoli” — pasta with butter gets cooked. Every day. At some point the whole family is eating pasta with butter, because “at least the child eats something”.

Mum cooks what the child likes. Dad watches the cartoons the child chooses. Grandma postpones cataract surgery, because “there’s nobody to help with the childcare if I go into hospital”.

And the whole of that family — two adults, two grandparents, one five-year-old child — revolves around that child. The adults sacrifice themselves for them. Often against their own better judgement. Often unable to say “no”, because nobody showed them how to do it when you love.

And then we are surprised that the child does not know there are other people around.

How could they know?

This is the heart of this text. A child who has been the centre of every day for five years has no empirical evidence whatsoever that other people also have needs. They have not seen mum say “today I’m not going on the floor to play shop, I’m tired”. They have not seen dad say “we’re not watching cartoons now, I have to phone my brother”. They have not seen grandma say “I’m sorry, I’m not going to make pierogi today, I have my own things to do”.

The child has not seen any adult who puts their own need ahead of the child’s need. So how is the child to find out that somebody else’s need even exists?

Empathy is not an innate trait in the way that legs or teeth grow. Empathy is observed, modelled, practised. The child learns empathy in three steps:

They see that the adult has a need — physical, emotional, time-related.
They hear the adult talk about that need calmly and clearly: “I am tired”, “I need to rest”, “I would like to be alone for a while”.
They experience the fact that their own need sometimes has to wait — because someone else’s need takes priority at that moment.

If any of these three steps is missing, empathy does not develop. It does not grow on its own. It simply will not be there. And then we have a fourteen-year-old boy who is astonished that mum “suddenly” does not want to iron his shirts for a school picnic.

”Let them have a childhood” — false pity

The crowning argument against setting boundaries is the sentence: “let them have a childhood”.

According to this idea, adulthood is some sort of penal-labour period that the child should not be “burdened with” too early. “Let them not yet know what duties are.” “Let them not yet feel stress.” “Let them not yet have to share, clean up, say thank you, listen to others.”

This concept is false from beginning to end.

First: for a child, helping, doing their own work, cleaning, doing something for others is not a punishment — it is a joy. A small child loves carrying shopping, watering flowers, dusting, sorting laundry. It is enough to watch an eighteen-month-old who has just been handed a cloth — they work with such passion that an adult rarely shows for anything.

Second: a child who learns duties gradually, in a safe home, with patient parents, enters adulthood ready. A child who learns duties “suddenly”, at the age of eighteen, in the first year of university, in a rented room with three flatmates, collapses. Because they have no empirical experience that all of this can in fact be done.

Third: “let them have a childhood” does not mean “let them have no duties”. Childhood is not a holiday. It is the period of the most intensive learning a human being experiences in their entire life. A child who does not work with their hands, does not use their legs, does not make decisions, does not negotiate with others — loses their childhood, does not protect it.

The bus where you can see everything

Let me tell you a story you know from your own experience, even if you have not perhaps named it.

You get onto a crowded bus with a three-year-old child. Somebody — most often an older person — gives up their seat to the mother with the child. The mother says thank you, sits the child down, and stands next to them. A three-month-old would be understandable. A five-year-old — also sits down, while the mother stands. Soon a ten-year-old. Soon a fifteen-year-old.

What has the child just seen? That an adult woman sacrifices herself for them. That an older lady, who is probably just out of hospital, gave up her seat to the person who is the least tired. That the right to sit in a bus is their right, an eternal right, an inalienable right.

What did they not see? That you can get up and give your seat to someone who needs it more. That you can say “I’ll sit on the bottom of the steps this time, please take the seat”. That getting onto a bus is not an act of receiving — it is sometimes an act of giving.

And in twenty years’ time the same child, in a suit, on the way to work, will not give up their seat to an older lady. Not because they are a bad person. Because nobody ever showed them that this is what one does. Mum always sat them down. She did not teach them to think about others.

Boundaries are an act of love, not a denial of it

Let us leave parenting guides aside for a moment and turn to a very simple observation.

A small child who hears “no” in a safe, predictable, warm context learns two things at once:

That boundaries exist — that is, that the world is structured, has its rules, and is not a fluid chaos in which everything depends on their mood.
That despite “no”, they are loved — because “no” does not mean “I don’t want you”, it means “I want something good for you, and this happens not to be it”.

A child who never hears “no”, paradoxically, also never hears “I love you” in a way that has weight. Because if every request is granted, every wish realised, every whim satisfied — there is no field at all on which the parent could show that they love regardless. “Love regardless” is possible only where there is a difference of opinion. A home without boundaries is a home without relationships.

It sounds paradoxical, but it is the truth of every observation in the preschool room: children who hear “no” at home in a calm, clear way are the ones who trust their parent most. They know where they stand. They know that “yes” means “yes” and “no” means “no”. They can lean on the parent, because the parent is consistent and predictable.

Children in whose home “no” is a forbidden word are the most anxious — because they do not know what to expect. The world for them is fluid, unclear, always up for negotiation. Every situation begins with an attempt to push their own agenda through, because sometimes it works. Their relationship with the parent is transactional, not safe.

The daily work of teachers, which no one sees

There is a part of this conversation I am having here today, but which I also have every day with the teachers at our institution.

Working with a group of children who never hear “no” at home is exhausting. A teacher in a Montessori preschool room — where we work in mixed-age groups, where children choose their own activities, where freedom is the foundation — every single day tries to introduce into these children the rules they did not bring from home.

That you cannot snatch material out of a friend’s hand, even if you want it.
That you cannot shout at others, even when you are tired.
That you must put the material back on the shelf when you have finished working with it.
That you must say “good morning” to the teacher when you come into the classroom.
That you must wait when another child is speaking to the teacher, instead of cutting in mid-sentence.
That you must set the table when you are in the group responsible for it that week.
That you must leave the room in the state you found it.

These are the most elementary rules of life in a group. Twenty years ago children brought them from home already at the age of three. Today — we teach them in the preschool, because nobody required them at home.

And then the same parent, who has never at home taught the child “please”, “thank you”, “I’ll help”, comes to us for a meeting and asks: “why doesn’t she have any friends in the group? Why doesn’t she want to play with the others? Why do they say she is bossy?”

I know why. The teacher knows. All the children in the group know. Only that parent does not want to know, because that would mean having to look in the mirror.

A generation that does not know how to be alone

There is one more observation, to finish.

Children for whom the parent sacrifices themselves without limit do not know how to be alone. They do not know how to play alone in their room. They do not know how to stay at grandma’s. They do not know how to go to the toilet when mum is in the next room. They do not know how to fall asleep without somebody at their side. They do not know how to be in preschool without constantly checking that the teacher is definitely looking at them.

This dependency is often confused with “attachment”. In reality it is its exact opposite. A securely attached child is able to move away, because they know the adult will be there when they come back. An anxiously attached child does not move away, because they have to check whether the adult is still there.

A child whose parents cannot say “no” does not build a relationship of secure attachment with them. They build a symbiotic relationship — and this symbiosis is for them a cage, not wings.

An appeal — out of care, not judgment

I know this text may be difficult. If you recognise yourself in it — please, do not read it as an accusation. Read it as an invitation.

Nobody taught you any differently. Your own mother may herself never have heard “no” and passed that on to you. Or she only ever heard “no” and today she watches carefully to spare your child the same. The internet is full of guides about “attachment parenting” that are brilliantly written but in practice stand against the child, not on their side. Adverts, blogs, podcasts tell you with one voice that the child will not be able to bear inconvenience, that they must be protected, that they must be let off.

The fact is that the child will bear inconvenience. After inconvenience they are stronger, not weaker. Inconvenience, in a safe home, in patient arms, in a calm “no”, is the best school of life you can give them.

If your child is one, two, three years old — start tomorrow. Let them put their socks on themselves, even if it takes ten minutes instead of thirty seconds. Say “no” in the shop when they want a fifth chocolate bar. Sit them at the table and set it together. Let them pick up the dropped spoon. Let them take their plate to the sink. Let them say “thank you” when grandma gives them a lollipop.

And if your child is five, six, eight years old and cannot cope alone — it is still not too late. Start with one thing. With one habit a week. With one “no” you will hold, even when they cry. With one morning “good morning, how did you sleep last night”, which you require an answer to. With one plate carried to the sink.

I am doing this not to reproach you with anything. I am doing it because in the preschool room I see, more and more often, children who are not at all happier than children twenty years ago — they are more tired, more anxious, more lonely. And I would very much like this to change before this whole group grows up and we discover that they do not know how to be with other people.

A child who learns that there are others around them — also learns that they themselves are part of something bigger. And from this grows a sense of self-worth far deeper than that given by the most beautiful presents and the most thoroughly satisfied whims.

About the author

Katarzyna Lis — founder of MOC Montessori Nursery and Preschool in the Białołęka district of Warsaw, where she works day-to-day as a teacher in the preschool group. She holds a degree in elementary education of Montessori Pedagogy, a qualification as a daytime caregiver, and a certificate in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd — a combination that reflects her holistic approach to the development of the child: their body, emotions, relationships, independence and inner world.

In her everyday work with children she does not “run activities” — she accompanies. She creates a space in which the child’s development happens naturally, at their own rhythm, and where the adult is there to look carefully and respond. The same philosophy — observation and response to the child’s signals — underpins her approach to boundaries, independence and empathy in upbringing.

Privately, a mother of four, combining the experience of motherhood with a passion for her work. This text was written for Dzieckologia as a practitioner’s voice — from the perspective of a Montessori institution that has, for years, looked at the child as a competent person from the very first months of life.