Our “Yes Day” Rules
Every summer, we give each of our two kids a “yes day” of their very own. It’s a tradition that they look forward to with great eagerness every year. It’s so fun to watch their excitement! I always share the excitement over on Instagram, and I get questions about how it all works. How do we set it up? What does it look like? What are our Yes Day rules?! Well, Jackson just had his Yes Day last week, so it’s on my mind and I’m digging in a little deeper. Let’s talk about how Yes Day works in our house!
Yes Day always starts with donuts in our house!
What is a Yes Day?
Let’s start with the obvious. What’s a “yes day”? The idea was made popular by the Netflix movie, Yes Day, with Jennifer Garner and Edgar Ramirez. The movie is based on the children’s book of the same name by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. In it, the kids of the family complain that their mom and dad are too strict, so they decide to give their kids a “yes day”. That means that for a full day, the parents will say yes to anything the kids ask to do.
As you can imagine, chaos ensues and things go sideways really fast. It’s a really cute movie, and our kids loved watching it.
Our Yes Days are quite a bit calmer than the ones in the movie, thank goodness. We set some serious ground rules up ahead of time to make sure it’s fun for the whole family, not too expensive, and not too chaotic.
How Does a Yes Day Work?
Obviously, you can do a Yes Day any way that works for your family – there are no hard and fast rules! But here’s a look at how we generally do it.
First of all, we give each of our kids a day. They have very different personalities and are 4.5 years apart in age, so sharing one doesn’t seem fair. Generally, one kid gets a day in June, the other gets one in July. There’s no real rhyme or reason to when we pick the days, it’s just about what works for our schedule. We alternate who gets to go first each year, and the kids start planning their days weeks in advance.
Yes Day Rules
Of course, things will go off the rails really quickly without a few boundaries in place. Here are the ground rules we have for our kids on Yes Days:
- Nothing unsafe or illegal. This isn’t a problem now but for teens, they might need a reminder!
- We aren’t buying toys or making random purchases for you. Setting a budget for the day can be a great approach to enforcing this!
- Requests need to be reasonable (meaning, not too expensive or difficult to accomplish). We’re not going to go adopt a few puppies, take a random road trip, or anything like that.
- We always reserve the right to veto something – and if that’s a problem, Yes Day can be over.
And the most important rule? HAVE FUN! We make sure to keep our phones away most of the day, throw out the normal routine, and make the family’s Yes Day as much fun as we can. It’s such a special treat for the kids, and it’s fun to focus on giving the kids as many yeses in a day as we can. Kids don’t often get to be in charge of the decision-making on a day-to-day basis, so getting to make their own decisions about how the whole day is going to go feels so special for them.
Basically, we just expect our kids to be relatively reasonable with their requests and remember that it’s a big privilege to get a Yes Day. So, if we need to say no to something, we expect respect and flexibility. It hasn’t been a problem at all, but it’s a good thing to remind them of the guidelines when the day starts!
When we come across a request we have to turn down, we always try to soften the blow with another suggestion. Something like, “we can’t do that today, but what if we….” instead?
What Do You Do on A Yes Day?
It’s the only day of the year where I don’t say “no” to the mall strollers.
Obviously, this varies a lot by kid! We have one that loves a quieter Yes Day, with lots of extra video games, a trip to the movie theater, lots of junk food, and dinner at a favorite restaurant. The other kid goes a little harder and keeps us up and out of the house all day long on adventure after adventure.
It can be helpful to have a quick list of ideas for your kids if they struggle to decide how they want to spend their Yes Day. Sometimes they just need a little something to spark their creativity. Here are some thoughts!
Yes Day Ideas
- Have ice cream for breakfast
- Play board games as a family
- Go to an arcade
- Have a picnic in the park
- Go hiking
- Family dance party
- Visit the zoo
- Skip chores for the day
- Find some new playgrounds in your area
- Order pizza for lunch…and dinner!
- No screen time limits
- Have a movie marathon
- Late bedtime
- Go backyard camping
- Have a water balloon fight
- Go to a theme park nearby
- Have a sleepover in the living room
- Skip working on homework for the night
- Do a fun craft together (bonus points for one that makes a mess like slime!)
- Stay in pajamas all day long
- Have breakfast in bed
- Visit a new restaurant
- Build a fort
- Do some science experiments as a family
- Make an obstacle course
- Have a pillow fight
- Go to a trampoline park
- Go bowling
- See a movie in the theater
A trip to the arcade is always a good way to spend a Yes Day afternoon.
Sample Yes Day
Jackson (our 10-year-old) just had his Yes Day on Friday, so I can give you a really good example of what a typical Yes Day looks like when he’s in charge. Keep in mind, he’s a lot more chill than our younger son and things won’t be nearly this calm come July when it’s Grant’s turn!
I’ll also note, we put a little more of a budget on Yes Day this year. The kids went extra hard last year, so this year we added to our Yes Day rules. We said that they can pick two “big” activities that cost more money (think: movies, eating out, etc), and everything else has to be on the cheaper side.
Here’s how the day went:
- Donuts from Krispy Kreme to kick off the day
- A lazy morning of video games and pajamas
- We took a trip to the movies to see Inside Out 2 with the grandparents
- Came back home for more lazing around. More video games, a movie, some crafting
- Grabbed dinner from Jackson’s favorite burger place
- Dinner at home with a favorite movie
- Staying up waaaaay past bedtime playing and giggling
Yes Days are so much fun, and we love being able to give our kids their own special day each year. If you’re on the fence about it, I hope this post can give you some encouragement that it’s well worth it. The kids love getting their own Yes Day, and being able to call the shots for a day feels so special. I love watching their anticipation as we lead up to the big day. Plus, it’s fun to see how they get just as excited for their siblings yes day because they know they’ll have a blast too!