Saying No: When is it OK?

Should we be teaching children how to appropriately tell adults no?

As parents and teachers struggle with many behavioural concerns today, a common theme is noncompliance: either aggressive displays of behaviour following a request; or verbal refusals followed by leaving the room or something similar when the child is asked to do something.

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Behavioural strategies that can help include: looking at how we can increase compliance by increasing levels of reinforcement, reducing response demand and gradually increasing it, maximizing motivation and altering antecedents, or removing demands for a short time while pairing teachers or parents with desired activities and items to promote compliance. However, recently I had a wild and radical thought that popped into my head: it occurred to me that maybe saying no is okay now and again!

Saying no has been spotlighted in the highly effective work carried out by Dr Greg Hanley in the USA, who is an internationally acknowledged Applied Behaviour Analyst
working mainly with children with autism. Dr Hanley recently visited New Zealand and  was fortunate enough to hear him speak about his research project. His work fascinated me because it was so applicable to many daily encounters in schools and homes for typically developing children. As part of the intervention, a child is taught functional communication skills. This intervention might begin with making a demand, teaching the child to say no by modelling it, then removing the demand and allowing them to continue with their preferred activity. Gradually the level of response is increased. For example, the child can say, ‘No thank you,’ and the teacher responds by saying, ‘Okay, you can continue but first you have to do xyz.’ Then, reinforcement is provided. What is important to remember in this case is that many of these children who are displaying aggressive and violent behaviours have limited, if any, functional verbal skills. What can we take from this research? Perhaps explicit teaching on how to scaffold children to communicate their needs under specific conditions could help children with aggressive responses to demands. By providing reinforcement upon use of an appropriate verbal response rather than aggressive or noncompliant behaviour, we could begin to teach tolerance for delays to this reinforcement and increase compliance. We have to start somewhere, and that might need to be where the child is at right now rather than where we want to start! I am constantly encouraging families and teachers to aim for a consensus about trying new ideas: you don’t have to agree or even compromise your beliefs. We just need to try something new to get a different result.

We know that  control and the feeling associated with having a sense of control over your environment is essential for wellbeing. This directly relates to the ability to be able to say both yes and no and to know that the choice is available at least some of the time! I grew up a  people pleaser’ as a result of always saying yes to others: yes, I want to go to your party, or yes, I want to be with you even though you are not good for me, or yes, I’ll go out just because I don’t want to be alone or because I can’t bear the thought of what others will say or think of me. This certainly impacted on my wellbeing for many years until I recognised the pattern and the effects it was having on my behaviour. Maybe  aying no gives us bad press because it is associated with being selfish and only thinking of ourselves… but aren’t we also taught in airline safety to look after ourselves before we look afterothers? Why are we taught this only in survival situations? Maybe saying no is  art of surviving life in general? I have noticed that many of the top motivational speakers and even some therapists are encouraging people to say no and not give excuses. Tim Ferris suggests radical ideas such as making suggestions about where and when to meet rather than leaving it up to the other person all the time! Why is it a radical idea to make an arrangement that suits us? I know that many of us are berating the selfish society and the ‘what’s in it for me attitude,’ however I firmly believe this is a direct result of people not being comfortable saying no politely. Just like the non-compliant child who knows that in order to get what they want they have to take radical action!

I wonder if saying no and hearing the word no are linked in any way. Do we resist teaching the word no as we don’t like hearing it said to us? Appreciating the need to feel comfortable enough to say no and hear the word no said to me as well, was a real breakthrough moment for me in providing choices for my classes and accepting that sometimes they didn’t want to do an activity I had prepared. Maybe we could contrive a situation to keep students engaged, reduce access to other reinforcement or even  shorten our sessions so we leave them wanting more, but why not instead say, “OK, fine with me. Let’s finish or do something else?” Why do I have to be in control of the session length and why can’t students decide when they wish to leave? Is this a wrong thing?

Asking these questions got me thinking about the wide implications of teaching children how to say NO and when it is acceptable for them to do this. The only time I have heard of direct teaching of using the word ‘no’ is in relation to staying safe from potential abuse where children are taught it’s OK to say no if someone wants to touch them inappropriately.

What if we taught them to say no appropriately in other areas of their life, too?

Perhaps we should consider teaching children how to say no appropriately!

You don’t have to agree or even compromise your beliefs. We just need to try something new to get a different result.

Here are my suggestions, or you can simply say NO thank you!

· Ask children to do various simple actions you know they will comply with and then throw in one task you know for certain they don’t want to do. When they say no, listen and say, “Ok. That’s fine,” and then move on.

· Have group discussions about when it’s OK to say no.

· Role play saying no in different situations such as peer games, invitations, adult requests and get the children to come up with ideas.

· Balance the above with discussions about when you want to say no, but you know it
will be good for you or in the best interests of someone else. Empathy teaching, morals and personal development are key: examples might include visiting your lonely grandma, giving away old toys, exercising or studying for an exam.

· Define the word no: what does it mean to your children?

· In contrast, what does saying yes mean?

This challenge will stretch your class, enrich your teaching and add to the wealth of
opportunities for discussion and debate around when it is OK to say NO. I almost
guarantee it!

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Kate Southcombe


Kate provides individually tailored professional development for Early Childhood Centres and schools on evidence-based behaviour management. Her key points of difference are that she is a fully qualified teacher who has lectured in Early Childhood, and she provides essential theory which is frequently missing in trendy packaged material. Kate also consults for parents of children with specific behaviour concerns. kate@eprtraining.co.nz