Teaching your child to communicate "NO!"

 You might be thinking “why would I want my child to protest? Why would I want my child saying no to me?”

There are a few reasons WHY this is important to teach your child...⬇️

1- We want your child to be able to express “no” to things. This is  how we express our opinions and let others know what we like and dislike. If your child can’t say “no” to things, they might spend their life engaging in things that they don’t really like. Why wouldn’t we want to help your child communicate what they like and dislike?

2- This is self-advocating. We want your child to be able to protect themself as much as possible during a potentially dangerous situation. Knowing how to communicate “no” to others could be the difference between staying safe and not. This could be a form of protection for them. The worst case scenario (Heaven forbid!!) is that someone tries to take advantage of your child. I know that no one wants to think about this, but it’s a reality for too many special needs individuals. We want your child to know how and when to speak up and tell someone “no” when they are put into an uncomfortable situation. The scariest thought is accidentally teaching a child to go along with everything. Yes, we want your child to respect you, your rules, we want them to listen to you, BUT we want them to know when and how to say "NO" to people that ask them to do things that don’t feel safe or comfortable. 

How to teach this:

We want to teach your child to have an opinion. And they probably do have an opinion, but maybe the communication piece is missing so they aren’t able to communicate their opinion. This is where a communication system would come into place. We want to give every child a way to communicate their wants and needs. Your options are verbal words, PECS, a communication device like an iPad, sign language. You have options. But your child can’t communicate “NO” to people if they don’t have a way to communicate with others. 

Then I want you to start working on your child communicating their opinion. This will be things like you presenting them with something, whether it’s a food choice, toy or activity, and asking them if they want it. You can prompt them with their options of  yes or no. Then when they say "YES" to something, you give them that item or let them engage in that activity immediately to help teach the relationship between saying "YES" and getting an item. This process of immediately reinforcing with what they say "YES" to will help show them how to express opinions with YES and NO. 

I do have YES/NO communication cards on my website that you can download for free.

Create opportunities where your child can communicate "NO" to you and show that your reaction is calm and accepting. You want them to know that saying or communicating "NO" isn’t going to result in them getting in trouble. Asking questions like “Do you want to come play with me?” or “Do you want an apple?” and then your reaction is going to be a big part of the teaching process. Your reaction needs to show them that "NO" is an acceptable answer, they aren’t going to be in trouble and you’re ok with that response. A lot of times kids associate saying "NO" to mom and dad as a bad thing. We don’t want them to think that. Now, I want to be very clear that there is a difference between saying "NO" to wanting to play with you and saying "NO" when you ask your child to clean up their mess. Remember, this is all about teaching to express an opinion. You can still enforce your household rules with your child talking back and refusing to follow household expectations. 

After your child can start communicating their opinion with "YES" and "NO" on easy things like activities, food or toys, and you really believe that they are understanding the relationship between YES and NO, then you can move on to more serious situations. Now, you’ll of course want to be mindful of their age and what topics you think is appropriate to introduce at their age. It’s going to be a parent decision and do what feels right. 

One of my first positions was teaching at a middle school. I had a class of about 10, and once every two weeks we would go out into the community to practice different life skills. With 10 students and only 2 adults, I was terrified that something would happen and I would somehow lose track of a kid. Whether they might wonder off or someone would coax them away, there was lots of anxiety around this for me because someone else’s child was in my care and these parents trusted me. So I had to teach my kids about stranger danger before we went out and how to say "NO" when someone asked us to come with them. We practiced this, we practiced yelling "NO", which was really fun for these kids to do in a classroom since we usually discourage yelling. It’s all about practice and preparing you child for potential situations. 

Now, with all of this being said, some autistic individuals have high anxiety and spending too much time on dangerous situations  might end up causing them more anxiety than anything. So be mindful of your child’s anxiety and potential after effects of teaching and introducing potentially scary situations.