We should do a Yes Day

One of my co-workers sent me a TikTok of a woman who decided to do a “Yes Day” with her children. I had heard of a Yes Day before, but never thought how we could do it or even how it worked. The woman in the video I saw broke it down for me in easy steps and parameters and I wanted to adopt them as we cater it to our children. The thing that stuck out to me was when she described her day and what her children chose to do, she said they decided on things they do every day, but it showed her those things were important to them. I was interested to see how it would work with my three children under 7.

What is a Yes Day?

A Yes Day is a day where for the entire day is filled with only “Yes” answers from the parents. This means, they get to choose what they eat, what they do, what they don’t do etc. Now, this isn’t just a free-for-all where the kids dictate all the things and the parents have to fork over money etc. to make it happen. The rules of the day were:

1. Parents had to say Yes to all the things the kids wanted to do between 8:00am until 8:30pm.
2. Bedtime is non negotiable as well as quiet time / naps in the middle of the day.
3. There was a budget of $100 for the day to spend on food and activities. We could not go over the budget (this helps with them not getting to outlandish with their ideas and requests).
4. All three children needed to agree upon what we did. If it wasn’t unanimous, we didn’t do it.
5. There is no whining allowed.
6. Have the best day ever!

So how did it go?

It was so fun to see our three children get so excited when we told them about our Yes Day. We told them Wednesday evening when we were about to leave on a date. They immediately got to planning. Elevate, a jumping trampoline park in Queen Creek was the first on their list. And second was to have Panda Express for lunch (it’s obviously their favorite). Swimming was another activity they wanted to do. They also wanted to eat ice cream for dinner and play games as a family. The way they wanted to spend the rest of the money was to go to Walmart and to each buy some toys to play with. So we did all of these things.

If you are thinking of doing a Yes Day, don’t hesitate, just do it!

At the end of the day, we asked each of our children what they thought of the Yes Day and of course, there was a resounding positive response. They loved it. Jayme and I were completely exhausted because normally we would take them to Elevate, go swimming, go shopping, play games, etc. one at a time and on different days. But today, we did them ALL in a day. It was happy and great times were had, but it was definitely tiring. We also decided to spend a little more money on the day since we didn’t do a family vacation this summer. We wanted to make it fun especially since they are starting school next week. So, if you are a parent, and are looking for something amazing to do with your kids that they will love, schedule a Yes Day soon. It will be a day to remember for sure!