>>>I also worked hard to learn not to say "no" so much, especially not to let it be my immediate reaction to requests. That way, I didn't teach my kids that "no" really means "yes."
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>>Wasn't so hard... because I rarely say yes or no anyway. The life is usually more complicated than that, and I'd usually bring up my concerns over the why. Then depending on their ability to appease our concerns, it may become a "why not" or "well, then, next time when there's a {insert condition here}", or they'd just give up. In very few occasions it was a "no, not this week/month/year".
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>Well, my immediate reaction to "Mom, can I ..." tended to be "no." But I worked to learn to say "tell me more" or "why?" or "and then what?" or something to buy me more time and information to make a decision.
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>My kids still heard "no" when that was the appropriate answer, but more often, they heard "yes." And they learned that "no" meant "no."

Exactly. More important, they understood why, and the reasons weren't a parent's caprice, they were a bit of a lesson about the world.