stop telling your children “no!” and start saying “yes!”

One of the best pieces of advice (outside of lowering demands), I can give to parents, carers and educators who are supporting young people with PDA is to stop saying “NO!”

“No” is a massive trigger word for many children, but when you are dealing with young people who can be prone to explosive meltdowns, avoiding triggers is key to more harmonious life. This does not not mean giving in to to everything they want, but it does mean questioning your own reasons for saying “no”, and changing your language so you can start saying “yes”.

Let’s think of some reasons why as adults we tend to say “no”. Maybe we have got other things we want to do, or we are too tired, or just don’t enjoy what it is they are asking us to do. Sometimes we say “no” because it is a social or family expectation that things should happen a certain way, and sometimes we might think something they ask us for is just not a good idea, The good news is that in all of these cases you can change your “no” to a “yes”, and I will explain how in just a mo.

The important point to note is that even the most definite of “no’s” can be rephrased to make it less triggering.

The first part of turning a “no” into a “yes” is to ask yourself “do I really need to say no?”. What I mean by this is to think about why you are saying it and to ask yourself if the time and effort that you will need to put into making it a “yes” exceeds the time and effort and emotion that goes into managing the inevitable meltdown that the word “no” can often trigger. Also consider the benefits you might both get from saying “yes”. This is not about giving in. You only give in if you say “no” and then change your mind as a result of coercive behaviour. If you start by saying “yes” you are simply saying “yes”, the End!

So if we think of an example where upon picking a child up from school they ask to go to the park instead of going straight home, but you are tired and you have some emails to send before cooking dinner and just want to get it all sorted so everyone can have an early night so you can relax. You say “no” and now feel you have to stick to your guns because otherwise you would be giving in. Your child begs and nags becoming more and more irritated, until they realise you are being serious and then the meltdown ensues. If anything like my son was, these can go on for hours and affect the entire evening. I might have been hit or kicked and screamed at on the way home, or had things broken once we got home. He might have refused to eat dinner and even thrown it as an expression of how angry he was at me saying “no” and bedtime…..? That’s not happening anytime soon. So what happened to those plans of a nice easy evening sending a couple of emails, sorting dinner and an early night? Most likely disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and everyone is left physically and emotionally exhausted.

So what might have happened if we had said “yes”?

Well I can’t predict that exactly, and dealing with “no” is only part of the story, but the chances are despite having to put our own feelings aside initially, the evening might have gone at least a bit smoother. For starters the trigger word wouldn’t have been used and they would have got to have some time in the fresh air releasing any pent up energy they had accumulated in school. You yourself might actually have enjoyed some down time in the fresh air. You might have even sent those emails from your phone in the park, killing two birds with one stone, or decided that they could wait until later or tomorrow. Dinner might have been eaten and things might have been calmer around bedtime and even if they weren’t going to sleep they might have been willing to do something quietly in their room until they did. Ultimately you got your quiet evening. Now I am well aware that simply saying “yes” to going to the park might not prevent any difficulties that evening whatsoever but it does increase the chances of it and the more we can say “yes” alongside reducing demands the more we are helping to limit those difficult experiences and to have more positive ones.

The other scenario I mentioned earlier was around saying “no” because there is social or family pressure to do things a certain way. There are many social expectations that for one reason or another don’t work well for autistic and PDA individuals. In these cases we need to ask ourselves who these unwritten rules are benefitting, and challenge our own beliefs around what is and isn’t acceptable. An example might expecting your ASD/PDAer to sit with the rest of the family at the dinner table.

So remember, if you can say “yes”, then do say “yes”

What if you can’t say “yes”? What if there is something that physically and practically prevents you from being able to do what they are asking you to do? You can still say “yes” in these circumstances but it requires a little thinking ahead. Ask yourself when it can be a “yes”? In the park example that might sound something like the phrases below:

“yes we can but first I just need to …….”
”yes we can but I can only give you twenty minutes today, would you rather do that or come back tomorrow and have an hour instead?”
”I’m afraid I’ve already agreed to do ……… this evening, but we can definitely do park after school tomorrow. Perhaps we can ask one of your friends to join us”
”I don’t think I can’t do that with you today because……., how about we get you an ice cream instead today and do the park tomorrow?”
”I really want to take you to the park but……….., have you got any ideas how we can make it work for both of us?”

Other situations where we might say “no” are those where we are taking their health and well being into account. Perhaps they want to go somewhere late at night or alone for example. In these situations it can be helpful to state our case rather than saying “no”. We might say

“the idea of you being out so late really worries me, what if you went but I picked you up at …… instead?”
”I’d be very worried about you being alone, do you have a friend who could go with you”
”I’d really love for you to go but ………. are a problem for me. Can you think of a solution we would both be happy with?”

There are of course some things that won’t be resolved through mutual agreement, and in some cases standing firm is necessary to keep our children safe. This is perfectly ok, and in my opinion riding through a potential meltdown is worth the knowledge that our children are safe. The point is that if we say yes when we can say yes, challenge our own reasons for saying “no”, and show a willingness to at least meet them halfway, the number of “no’s” reduce significantly and with that comes fewer trigger points and perhaps with time, more acceptance and understanding on the occasions it does have to be “no”.

Some of these ideas are inspired by Ross Greene and his collaborative problem solving approach.