Yes, We Have No Papayas

Lots of Yes/No Games

It is very useful to teach your child a simple Yes/No game where Yes means Yes, it goes there and No means No, it does not go there. After you establish this sing-song Yes/No game, your child will understand you when you are trying to teach him or her how to play other games or do other activities. Your child is trying to put something together wrong and you can launch into, No, no, no, Yes! as you demonstrate the wrong way, another wrong way, another wrong way and then the RIGHT WAY to put the thing together. If you tried to explain with more complex language how to put that thing together, your child would not understand and would get frustrated and feel you are interfering. No, no, no Yes! means you are helping.

Most children like the Yes/No games featured below but any game where your child will see why you are saying no or yes will work. I often start teaching a No/Yes game by putting a child's shoe on his hand...No...then on his other hand...No...then on his head....No ... and then on his foot...YES!.

In order to learn this game, your child has to be able to see that an item does not belong in a location. When you say No!, it has to make sense to your child and when you say Yes! it has to make sense and that you have, indeed, placed the object in the right place. I often use a matching color ring game (demonstrated below) to teach a verbal version of the No, No, No Yes! game first. The ring matching makes sense to a child if he or she can match colors. In the clip above, we use an old Hats Off Game (I don't even know if they make this toy anymore) and it is interesting to many children because the clowns wobble. But sometimes that is too interesting and the child does not listen to what I am saying. Sometimes, the child wants to put the hats on (which is good) but then can't manage getting the hat on a wobbly clown (which is bad) and frustration shuts this game down. The point is, pick the right toy and your child will watch and learn that No means, it does not belong and Yes means, it does belong in this location.

Non-Verbal Yes No Games

Non-verbal Games Teach Your Child to Look at Your Face

Soon after teaching the verbal form of this game, we teach a non-verbal form. I began to understand how important non-verbal yes/no games were after attending a Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) training. These games teach skills that set the foundation for an amazing number of other skills. Most importantly, non-verbal yes/no games help your child learn to look at your face for information and how to understand the information after seeing it. This skill is called social referencing. Just as we use simple language (and just a little language at a time) to teach a child to understand words, we gradually teach a child how to comprehend nonverbal information as well. In this game, there is going to be a non-verbal signal (a head shake) to indicate that No, this is not where the ring belongs or a different non-verbal signal (a head nod) which indicates that, Yes, this is where the ring belongs. I expect that the child already knows where the ring belongs so the only interesting bit of information is that for some reason, mom or dad is conveying this information with head gestures.

At some point, we use this same serious head shake to communicate a different meaning of No. We use the head shake to say, No you don't have permission to do that or No, I won't let you do that.

Help Your Child Learn to Accept a No with a Head Shake

From the perspective of a child, when a parent says No, it is not a positive communication experience. Many children with autism don't wait to hear the details but rather have a meltdown immediately. If your child does this, using a head shake instead of the verbal No may help your child learn to accept a parental No without getting upset. I suspect this is because just trying to figure out exactly what you are communicating with the head shake seems to help a child think a bit rather than just react. Below is a game that also can help your child accept No.

You teach the idea of No, not yet when you shake your head No. Perhaps you say, at the beginning, not yet with a smile. You continue until you suddenly nod your head, saying Yes, and give a push on the swing.

It is important that you do not create a pattern (like saying two no's and then a yes every time) but instead say Yes after a random number of no's. If you use a pattern, your child will learn the pattern and not the meaning of the words. Even more importantly, your child will not learn to wait and watch for the Yes!

Your child may not like the No at all at the beginning. No can be upsetting regardless of whether it is done with a word or a head shake. If No is upsetting, do a lot more Yes head nods than No head shakes.

Your child may try to take control of the game. Don't let your child determine when you are going to say Yes. You are trying to help your child accept your No without becoming upset. Just smile calmly and keep control in this game. I can't emphasize this enough, starting with simple games, every child needs to learn that mom and dad can say No and whining, yelling, hitting, and other forms of meltdown do not result in a change to Yes! Eventually, over the course of a few weeks, these games are meant to move from No, not yet to No, period. Stretching out the amount of time before you say Yes will help children learn how to stay calm when you say No.

No, not yet can be played when pouring juice into a cup, turning on the faucet, throwing a ball, blowing bubbles, jumping on a trampoline, dropping balls down a slide - you get the point. As long as you control when something begins in a game that your child likes, you can practice a verbal or a non-verbal yes/no game. Your child should also, eventually learn to say No and Yes in these games and learn how to say No, not yet and YES!

Note: As you are teaching this word, it would be good if the NO worked for a child quite often but of course, sometime in situations like the example above, Daddy will have to say something like,

"Daddy says, yes Jacob, you need to take a bath"