> You're setting expectations. This is pretty effective between adults, I am not sure it's as effective with children, and I say this as someone who has tried t

> You're setting expectations. This is pretty effective between adults, I am not sure it's as effective with children, and I say this as someone who has tried to apply it to children. In hindsight as an adult, I could better appreciate the occasions where she turned down requests and possibly the reasons why, and there is some value in kids learning that there are limits to what they can get without being offered a detailed explanation in return. > There's a certain amount of value in being able to guess What Mom Would Say. Mom isn't always going to be there. On the other hand you have to be careful how broadly you apply that. What Mom Would Say about eating berries you haven't identified is pretty good, or going off the grid for 48 hours without telling anyone where you'll be and when to worry. This isn't really the context in which these things came up in my family. Her stated goal at each occasion was that it's very important that her kids learn that life doesn't always go the way we want. So while we could go to a friend's birthday party, we couldn't go to all of them, and she made the call (perhaps ~ 75% of requests that required a non-trivial expense would be turned down (~25% otherwise), but as a kid it was hard to see the distinction). We knew as kids that we had very little expendable income as a family, and did a decent amount of filtering out requests ourselves. I think our financial situation was a lot more dire than we could appreciate as kids, and this approach was one way my mother kept things sane.