Do you tell your child 'no'?

[Mumof1DS]

I'm of the opinion that it's fine to tell a child not to do something, it's how they learn to keep safe. MIL disagrees... We should be explaining why he shouldn't do something. which would be fair enough if he was old enough to follow the logic. DS is 9 months old he's getting mobile and inquisitive. I am comfortable that a firm voice of "no, hot" when he tries to touch the fire or the oven is perfectly acceptable and that an explanation that it's dangerous isn't really going to cut the mustard at this stage.
What do you do?

Your MIL is nuts. YANBU.

A 9 month old will soon start to grasp the concept of "No" but will not grasp the concept of "oh little Johnny don't do that dear as the fire is very hot and you might burn your little fingers". Of course, as children get old enough to understand things more in depth and/or question why not to do things, you can begin to explain (for example) that fires are hot and they will hurt themselves if they touch it.

FWIW I have baby of a similar age, and would say the same as you.

Agree with you & LMDC, when you have a toddler trying to stroke an unknown dog or run across a road or even grab a knife, you need to be able to stop them in their tracks with a loud sharp NO.
Obviously it would be better to be within reach, able to intervene and explain the dangers gently, but we live in the real world.

My ds ran ahead of me in a park once and managed to find an adder which he was just reaching down to touch......

She’s entirely OTT. Young children aren’t going to understand an explanation of why not to touch hot things.

That said, at 9 months they aren’t going to really ‘understand’ a No either, in the sense of having the conceptual understanding to grasp a) my mother wants different things to me b) I can consider an impulse but not act on it and c) there are things I should do even if I don’t want to. You may as well just distract them at this age. But it’s not like a ‘no’ will hurt and it’ll help them make connections later on.

Often. Mine are 10,8,5 and need to be told that No, they can't play Xbox until midnight, No they can't have sweets for tea, No they can't decide not to go to school.

Why wouldn't you tell your children no?!?