Day 6 When "No" is a big trigger

Aloha, sensory heroes. We are on day six, and this is going to be about when the word knows the trigger, which we deal with quite a lot. That, that can be a very triggering word. And I'll tell you, it's because the kids need that sense of control and so that that word can really send them going, just send them into a frenzy. So have a lot of thoughts about the word now. So first of all, I would avoid it when it's not necessary. So think before you say no. Because what happens is a lot of times when they get pushback or they get upset, then the parents like, oh, well, you know, really, it's not that big a deal. I guess they could have it or I guess they could do it. And then what happens is they reinforce the, the being upset. And I call that the slot machine. So intermittent reinforcement is stronger than consistent reinforcement. So if, if I throw a big fit, you say no. And every once in a while, I hit the jackpot, man. I'm going to do it next time. So I like you to think about just holding back on the word no unless it's essential. And then you got to stick with it through thick and thin. So if you want to just kind of, kind of be careful when you use it. Another thing is a kind of a pet peeve of mine is when parents are like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And they're kind of like teaching the child to ignore the word no. Really, we want the word no to have power because, like, if a child was, you know, in an uncomfortable situation, you want them to feel that their word no has power. And, and that I like to kind of save it for when it's really important and not just using it excessively. One thing that really works well with our sensory kids is shared control. And even our sessions when we, when we, when we are doing our sensory integration therapy, I always say they're the motor, we're the driver. So we want it to be child directed. If they have something that they're interested in, we're going to let them kind of take the initiative. We're going to guide that session into what we want to get out of it. So if we want to work on balance or strength or whatever. So giving choices is such a powerful thing. So if you just give choice A, choice B, one of my therapists would tell her daughter, you can have water with ice or without, but you want both choices to be something you're something that you want. Now, I know a lot of times they'll be like, I Don't want either of those choices, but you just go back to, well, these are the choices. You choose or I can choose for you and you just stick with it. I learned this from a parent and it's such a good one. Instead of saying no, you can say yes when. So say they want some TV time or something like that and but they got to get their chores done first. So you can say yes when the chores are done. Instead of saying no, you haven't done your chores yet. So it's just, it's just that word can trigger them so much. So if you use a different phrase, it can help. So yes, when is another really good one. And then, oh, I used to have a hard time with my kids when they'd want something that maybe other parents could do. Like we had a lot of friends that could fly to Hawaii a lot and back then I had never even been to Hawaii yet and their friends would go like every year and, and it would just be so hard because I want to go to Hawaii and all this stuff. So when it's something that like you would love to be able to do, but you just don't have the means to do it, it's really fun to just engage your imagination and just say, oh my gosh, that would be so fun. That would be so fun. If we could do that someday, what would we do? Oh, we could take a surfing lesson. We could do this. And you just get in the imaginary world and instead of shutting them down, we can't afford that. We can't do that. And just shutting them down. You can just like have fun with it. And so with my kids we would just do these like imaginary things like and, and just come up with how fun it would be and just have fun with it and you know, letting them know that it would be amazing. I wish that too, that kind of thing. So it's validating. You kind of want to validate how their, you know, their desires or even just like hearing them out, like, you know, I hear that you really want to do this thing and it must be really frustrating. Especially kids that are non verbal. I think it's really important to, if you can kind of have a sense of what they're feeling, get, just say the words for them. Wow, that made you really mad that we had to stop doing this and now, now it's time to go home. Most of our meltdowns happen when the kids leave because they're having fun, they don't want to go. So just to recap, don't overuse the word no. Like no, no, no. Be selective when you use it. Use choices, choice A, choice B. And yes, when is a good one. And then just engaging imagination and just have a little fun with it and be light hearted. Because a lot of times they're just reacting to us when we're like, when we just kind of shut them down and say no. So I hope that's helpful. Go ahead in your homework and, and write those down. Or, or, you know, find the one that you think is going to be your favorite one to try. The question will prompt you in some way about that. I haven't written the question yet, so it'll be something like that.