It occurred to me a few months back that our kids are pretty amazing. They don’t ask for anything, they do everything we ask of them and more. Usually their behaviour is impeccable so with the husband doing incredibly long rosters with incredibly short rnr’s; I in my wisdom did a yes day.
I first heard of a yes day from Jennifer Garner. Whether she was or is the bright spark behind the idea I don’t know but she advertised the glories of the yes day on her Instagram feed and I immediately thought that’s a cool thanks for being awesome kids day. The concept of the yes day? Its a day where she doesn’t say no to her children; its a yes day to do everything and anything they want with her. Sounds fun right and how hard can it be? The kids would love it after all they deserved it for being so good.
We are not yes parents in terms of allowing the boys to have what they want unless of course, it’s not worth the argument such as wearing a superhero costume to the shops, not wearing shoes, wearing odd shoes, sleeping in their board shorts over PJ’s, playing in the mud and being kids. Do you get the picture? We say yes to what I consider common sense stuff the making of childhood stuff. That stuff gets a big fat yes from me a big fat tick. Its stuff like screen time all day, IPads in the car over conversations with us and doing stuff outside of our budget because they ‘have to have it’ stuff we don’t do.
So the day arrived and we announced to the boys its a yes day you know for being awesome I said casually. They cocked their heads in unison like three of the cutest puppies as we explained we are going to do everything you want within reason. They gushed you’re the best mum and dad they squealed as we headed to the city to fulfil their list. Their list I should mention was substantial and naturally included nothing I’m sure Jennifer Garner kids had which was camping in the lounge room (regular in our house) and hiking in the woods (every afternoon). No my country kids list included a waterpark, a movie, lunch at a restaurant their father and I loathed, laser tag and finally walking around the shopping centre getting so much sensory overload that they bounced.
Now initially the boys were grateful and after each activity, they thanked us profusely but come to the end of the day a shift happened. Perhaps it was the sugar setting in or perhaps it was knowing they had us over a barrel with yes day but they stopped listening to us. They stopped respecting our decisions and their tone shifted to something I would call sassy brat-like, the thank yous stopped and it was purely and expectation that they would get what they wanted. Had they been like this at the begining of the day yes day would have been a very short day. In turn, their father and I became tired of asking them to be quiet, to calm down or be considerate of others. Yes, we took into account the excitement and sugar high but it was crazy out of this world. Nothing like we had expected.
Now on reading others parents experience of yes day, ours seems to be a complete disaster and a glimpse into the life of what some parents different from us must experience. They have turned into sugar high entitled little demons is this what happens when parents cant say no I said to my husband as we drove up the range and as he finished threatening for the fifth time he would drop them to the side if they didn’t start listening. Come to the end of the day I didn’t feel the close bond that other parents raved about. I was too exhausted for that.
Yes day isn’t something that will be happening again although what I did realise however is that we spend such a great amount of quality time together as a family which is why yes day was a slight disaster in my book.
We have the balance of spending time with our children of saying yes and no. Our kid’s behaviour is a result of being ‘no’ parents. We have done it right and we don’t need to compensate with a yes day- ever.again.
Even as I write this I realise there are far too many Yes’s happening for my liking.
Deb.
