You weren’t being unreasonable. You weren’t being mean. You are a lot of fun. You just couldn’t go play right then. You didn’t have time to get in the pool. You were just in the middle of something. You were tired. You knew exactly how this was going to go. You had been perfectly willing to earlier. You knew they were just trying to see if they could get out of bedtime. It was too close to dinner.

Whatever.

We talked recently about doing an audit—actually, it first came up on one of our Daily Dad Society calls (please join us if you’d like to learn how to become a more patient, present dad, one day at a time)—auditing how affectionate you are (or aren’t), how critical you might unintentionally be, how present you really are. One of the most important things you could audit, though, is how many times you are turning them away. How often are you saying “no” when they want to connect, when they want to do something, when they ask for attention or time together?

Because while we often have very good reasons why we can’t right this second, our kids are also tracking the aggregate. They are noticing the trend. They are getting the vibe…and that vibe is that you’re not interested. The vibe is that you’re not fun. The vibe is that you’re the wrong person to ask.

You might have your reasons for each individual “no.” But in the end, no reason really explains why you turn them away so often—why you reject the very thing you say you want. There they are, trying to spend time with you, trying to connect… and you’re saying no.