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Week 6 Overview:

This month, we’re going to be noticing what’s keeping us from having fun and opening up your heart to fun.

This week is the start of our first YES week. There will be more of these to come, but this week, I want you to focus on saying YES to your kids.

Why? Because it feels better to say YES than to say NO. We get stuck in a cycle of saying NO even when it doesn’t really matter to us.

If you have older kids, you know what I mean:

• You say no when your kid asks to bring a LEGO into the store to prevent the possibility of disaster when he drops it and it shatters to pieces.
• You say no when your child asks to play in the mud because he’ll get dirty.
• You say no when your child asks to go to the park because you don’t have time today.

This isn’t a parenting class, and this week is not meant to derail your child’s discipline and the consistency you’ve set up in your parenting routines. This week is meant to help you reframe your “NO’s” into yesses.

I once tried to only say NO to my kids when they were doing something illegal, immoral, or dangerous. But we get into a routine of saying NO to everything at times, and it makes everyone cranky. (My husband does this even more than I do, and guess who is always in a cranky mood when he’s around? EVERYONE).

So this week, I challenge you to only say no to your kids 3 times a day. Here’s the trick: When you want to say no, try to figure out how to say it with a “YES.”

For example:

• Yes, you can bring a toy into the store, but not the LEGO.
• Yes, you can play in the mud, and you can clean yourself off with the hose and this towel before coming back inside.
• Yes, we can go to the park tomorrow, but tonight we’re out of time.

Every day, come into the Facebook Group to share your Yes’s!

Feel free to share any revelations, insights, or even the answers to the journal prompts or photos of the activity in the Virtual Summer Camp Members Facebook Group.