Parshas Devarim: Knowing When to Say "Yes"...Or at Least "Okay"

There is a nice D'var Torah on torah.org with a great chinuch message that people don't always get. I'll summarize it.

Based on the pesukim that recount the story of the meraglim, the Gemara in Sotah deduces that although Moshe thought sending the spies was a good idea, Hashem did not. So why allow it?

R' Frand quotes R' Mottel Katz, a former Rosh Yeshiva at Telz, who answers the question:
Sometimes, even thought the "correct" to a request may be no, for the sake of chinuch we have to say yes.

Then, R' Katz relates a personal story, showing that he practices what he preaches:

"One day, the boys came over to me in yeshivah and asked me to change the yeshivah schedule for one night," writes Rabbi Katz. “They wanted to daven Maariv earlier than we regularly did.
"When I asked them why they wanted to daven early, they explained that there was a heavyweight championship bout being fought in New York that night, and they wanted to listen to the match on the radio. If we would daven at the regular time, they would miss the fight."

"Of course the very request was inappropriate, not to mention the questionable propriety of yeshivah students listening to a fight between two humans trained to beat each other until one of them could no longer stand up."

"I realized that if I refused, the boys simply would not understand why I refused. Having grown up in America, they were accustomed to the finest, most respectable citizens flying in from all over the country to view these matches. They considered watching or listening to the radio broadcast of two adults pummeling each other a perfectly normal means of recreation."
"I decided," concludes Rabbi Katz, "that since these boys would not begin to understand why I was refusing their request, it would be better to allow them to daven early and listen to the match."

I would go on, but the message is so clear.

Actually, I just thought of something to add: Even when we have to say okay, we should also explain our decision: Why we thought it was the right thing to say okay, and why we would rather have said no. I have found that kids actually appreciate the "I understand you guys" speech, as long as it is not given in a condescending way.