Children are constantly making requests. Some are easily answered: “Of course you can go play outside!” Others can be immediately dismissed: “No, you absolutely can’t have an alligator for a pet!” But there are some requests that can be trickier to answer; they require more thought because the outcomes are not readily apparent, or fulfilling the request might be inconvenient or be contingent on variables out of a parents control. And that’s when parents reach for the old standby: “maybe.” It’s one of the most commonly uttered words — and, it turns out, most damaging — in the parental toolbox.
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