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Be Kind With Your Parenting Consequences
It’s easy to fall into the trap of using consequences as
punishment, especially with a child who frequently acts up. But
as I discuss on pages 136–137 of my book When You’re About To
Go Off The Deep End, Don’t Take Your Kids With You, it’s
important that your consequences are kind and respectful.
Keep these steps in mind when using consequences:
1. Choose a “commonsense consequence” that is related to your
child’s behavior—Grounding
and taking away privileges are sometimes unrelated to the
misbehavior. If your child is interrupting, forgets to do her
chores, or has a temper tantrum in front of his friends, how
does taking away TV time help? If your consequence is unrelated,
a power struggle is likely to ensue. Instead, keep the
consequence related to the misbehavior at hand.
2. Prepare your child for the commonsense consequence—Give
your children fair warning, but only once. Respectfully tell
them what you have decided to do, but don’t remind them every
five minutes. Nagging never gets results.
3. Follow through with your parenting consequences—Do
what you said you were going to do. This is not the time for
reminders, hints or “second chances.” Chances only teach our
children to not listen to us the first, second, and sometimes
even the third time!
4. Evaluate—Be
open to making small changes after you have experimented with it
for at least one month. The key to success is that you stay
kind, firm and consistent.
Parenting
with Your Feet
Following through with parenting consequences doesn’t require a lot of
talk. Instead, I encourage parents to let their feet do most, if
not all, of the talking. What do I mean by this?
Often, when parents are following through on a consequence, they
will justify it or explain with words. Such justifications include:
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"I told you I was going to ________ if you did _________."
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"The reason you have to do __________ is because you did
__________."
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"If you had done ___________ like I asked you to, you wouldn’t
have to do ____________."
Instead of justifying or explaining, just take action. “Talk
with your feet” by following through with the consequence, no
explanations needed. As the old saying goes, “Actions speak
louder than words,” and this is nowhere more true than in the
realm of parenting.
Parenting
Success Key: Focus on the
Benefits
Once you’ve eliminated parenting nagging, you can encourage positive
behavior by focusing on the benefits of such behavior.
This is perhaps one of the top parenting tools of the trade. All
that is required is awareness of your children’s general daily
routine—and what parts of that routine they like most.
For instance, if you want your children to clean up the game
they were just playing, and yet you know they are already
thinking about the next thing in their schedule—listening to
their favorite music—you might say something like, “Before you
go and enjoy your music, you get to put the game away.”
(As a side note, notice the use of “get to” rather than “have
to.” Try to keep your tone positive, and you’ll reap positive
results!)
It’s pretty much guaranteed that your children will say, “Can’t
we clean up later?” Simply continue to focus on the benefit.
“The quicker you clean up, the quicker you will be able to enjoy
your music.”
Stay
Positive When Parenting
When parenting gets
rough, it’s very tempting to come down harder and harder each
time your child misbehaves. Yet it is important, especially with
problem children, to encourage your children in good behavior,
not discourage them with constant nagging. A good balance of
commonsense consequences and focusing on the benefits will yield
wonderful rewards.
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