Excerpted from Chapter 5 of Sexuality: Your Sons and Daughters with Intellectual Disabilities, by Karin Melberg Schwier & Dave Hingsburger, M.Ed

Copyright © 2000 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

You'll love this one. You need to teach your child how to say no to you and to other adult authority figures. Pick yourself off the floor and stop laughing; We're not kidding here. I don't mean teach your child how to throw a tantrum, pout, or scream, "You aren't my boss." (Just how did your child learn to fling peas across the room while screaming, "I hate peas," anyway?) We mean that you need to teach your child how to effectively and maturely say no to things that violate his rights, his boundaries, and his beliefs. Saying no firmly without a temper tantrum is a skill that your child needs to learn (and is one that many adults haven't really learned either!).

Begin by being careful of how you ask and what you ask of your child. It is very important to keep choices and demands quite separate in your head. If it's a choice, that means your child can either say no or select a preferred option. If it's a demand, that means there is no choice. Some people will tell you that everything should be a choice. We couldn't disagree more. The reason we as adults maintain our jobs, our relationships, and our self-control is that we have demand tolerance. We all have to do things we don't want to in order to get a paycheck, a kiss on the cheek, or a feeling of responsibility. Part of growing up is learning that in some issues there are no choices and that we simply have to follow the rules or suffer the consequences, as in "I may want to play my new CD really, really loud and sing and dance along with it, but if I live in an apartment or if I love someone who is trying to study, then I won't." The rules are "consider others" and "I have to follow this, or I will either lose my apartment or wind up sleeping on the couch." It's okay for your child to learn that sometimes "because I said so" is reason enough.

Consider the following scenario: You ask your son if he wants to go visit Grandma. Because you asked, your child figures this is a choice, and he says no because he knows Grandma is going to make him sit on her lap while she fusses about him. You then say, "Don't you think you should get your coat on?" Your child still figures this is in the realm of choice and says, "Nope." What do you do next? You have to make him get up and get his coat on.

Now ask yourself, "What is my child learning?" You are teaching your child, by example, that when he says no, he will be forced to do what he doesn't want to do anyway. He is learning that saying no is meaningless and powerless. This is not what you want your child to learn. So, by ensuring instead that demands are demands and choices are choices, you aren't stuck in this position. This isn't to say that you can't build a choice into a demand: "Do you want to wear your blue coat or your black sweater on the way over to Grandma's place?" Choice and demand can co-exist, and it really does make life a little nicer for everyone.

Rest Stop: Now actively teach your child to say no. When you offer a yellow shirt and your child can say, "No Mom, I want to wear the blue shirt," or can tell you by some other means that he would like to wear the blue shirt, your child will demonstrate a good command of "No." If you insist and your child says, "Okay, yellow," or throws a massive tantrum, this shows a limited "No" skill and you have some teaching to do. By purposefully planning times when your child needs to say no, you can ensure that he learns that no means no. This is easier than you think: You: Michael, do you want to wear your blue shirt or your yellow shirt? Michael: Um, blue. [You hand your son his yellow shirt. Michael should be at a point at which he can comfortably restate his preference.] Michael: No, blue. You: Okay, blue. You look handsome in blue. Now it's your turn. Make a list of everyday choices relevant to your child, and teach him or her to pick one option or the other. Make sure you can follow through on the choices!

Choices my child can make:

If your child has difficulty with temper tantrums over issues like these, then this isn't the best way to teach. Think of temper tantrums as a poor way of saying no. This means that your child may have to learn better ways of communicating her desires before you can effectively teach these skills. Be careful, though, that your child isn't in a situation in which she has to throw a temper tantrum to be heard. If you need more help with your child's behavior, you may want to find resources in the library on how to deal with temper tantrums.

One mom complained that her son said no to everything, and she thus figured that he had the "No" skill down pat. This isn't true because her son isn't discriminating "yes times" (like when there is no choice about a matter) from "no times" (like when a situation is getting dangerous). Saying no all of the time is as bad as saying yes all of the time. It indicates a lack of skill. So practice, practice, practice!