Consequences come up a lot in parenting, whether you are just chatting with friends or attending a parenting class! What makes a good consequence versus a bad consequence? Are there certain rules when it comes to setting consequences? Come listen and learn with us about healthier and more effective ways to give consequences to our children!
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Jen: Hello, friends, and welcome to the Parents Place podcast. I'm Jen Daly
Hilary: and I am Hilary Anderson
Jen: And we are your hosts for today. Today you get the two of us. The two-crazy people. We like to have a lot of fun. The two of us and hopefully we can make this topic that we're talking about a little bit fun. Parenting should be fun. Although lots of days, we want to tear our hair out because something is going wrong that we don't want to go that way, but it should be fun at the end of the day. So today we're going to be talking about choices and consequences. This is the topic I wanted to talk about for a long time because I think it's really important in just our foundation of parenting. You want to build a house, and I think this is just that important piece that's going to help the rest of your house be sturdy. So. So let's get to it, Hilary, let's talk about choices and consequences.
Hilary: So, the thing is, so it's been interesting to me because when I've worked with parents, the thing, the question I get, one of the questions I get more than anything else is, “tell me, what's the good consequence? My child has done something naughty. I know that I need to do something about it. But what's that consequence of like? What should it be?” And oftentimes I know for myself, my kids have something, done things and I've looked at them and had zero idea on how to handle it. So, let's give you a few practical ideas on what we want to look for when it comes to a consequence. A lot of times, in life, if our kids make a mistake, our best bet in finding a consequence is finding something, that we call natural a natural consequence, and that really is a consequence that's going to happen on its own. We love that because that requires zero thinking on our part. And you know what, sometimes as parents, we don't want to think very much.
Jen: Sometimes we can't think very much. We're so angry. There's no thinking going on
Hilary: Exactly! You know, the natural consequences are things like if my child chooses to eat all of his Halloween candy and one night he'll probably get sick, and hopefully he'll learn for future situations that he needs to pace himself a little bit.
Jen: And when he wants it later, he won't have any, and he will have to watch his siblings eat.
Hilary: But it's perfect because it doesn't require a lecture on our behalf. It doesn't require us putting our child in timeout or taking away a device. But all we need to do as parents is step back and let the situation play out. And sometimes that's a little hard to do, knowing what will potentially happen. But it's part of learning about how life works. And so natural consequences, in my opinion, are your best bet to begin with. When that is the option, let it happen. Let it happen for itself and be that support for, you know, if needs be after, but allow them to learn from that mistake.
Jen: And another part of natural consequence is that I think of is that they are completely related to the misbehavior. So, I remember years ago I was at the elementary schools working and I was the refocus teacher, and what that means here is that I got all of the behaviors that the teacher didn't want to deal with down in my room and I had to deal with them. So, there was one day these boys came in and the janitor came in with the boys and I'm like, “Well, this is odd. The janitor normally doesn't bring kids down here, but let's see what's going on”. And he said the boys stuffed toilet paper down the toilets to where they overflowed. So luckily, there wasn't any of that. Oh, it was just water that had come out. And he said, now they have to do something. Something has to happen to them. And in his mind, I'm thinking he's probably thinking punishment. And there's a lot of we've talked about the difference between punishment versus discipline. We want to make sure that we're teaching something to our kids and that's what discipline is. And so, I'm thinking to myself, “Good heavens, they made the toilets overflow. I have no idea what kind of consequence to give these kids. What is a consequent natural consequence for overflowing toilets?”. And I was just blank on what to do, and I looked at the kids and I said, “What do you think you should have to do?” And luckily enough, they came up with a consequence that was naturally connected to the toilets overflowing. And it was that they had to go around to all of the bathrooms in the school, girls and boys and teachers, and clean the bathrooms, clean the mirrors. The janitor was uncomfortable with giving them chemicals, but he gave them a water bottle and they went around with all of the water bottles. They wiped everything down. They had to pick up off, pick up all the trash off the floor. They had to take out the trash bins. And I would have never thought of that. I would have thought, “OK, you're going to sit in my room for this amount of time”. You're going to make an apology letter for the janitor and all of these other things. But the kids thought of something better than I do did, and it was connected directly to what they had done.
Hilary: I love that point. I love that you bring up the point of having them decide what their consequence should be. I truly feel like we do not give kids enough credit. I mean, kids are smart. And I think there's power in turning to your child and asking their opinion because we don't do that enough. And you know, it's interesting because I've been in situations where I've worked with kids, where they have created their own consequence. And you know what's funny that oftentimes they will create a consequence that's more severe than probably what I would have chose for them. So, then it's a matter of us kind of finding this middle ground compromise, which again is another great skill for kids to learn. But it's always, you know, let's let our kids think, let's let our kids come up with some ideas on their own, rather than always putting our words into their mouth. So, I love that.
Jen: I heard someone tell me once that if I'm doing more thinking and the than the person who had made the problem, then I'm enabling them in that situation. And I really like that. I really liked when you said sometimes they came up, come up with words, and I'm thinking, What a great time for a parent to become a hero. You get to decrease the consequence and say, “Oh my goodness, that is just so hard. And that might be a little too much”. Maybe we only need to do it twice or whatever the case may be. Then you become Look at your hero, parents. I'm not going to give you such a hard consequence.
Hilary: Yeah, you know, I feel like consequences are a great opportunity for kids to learn how the world works. And that's one of our jobs as parents is to train them so that when they become adults. They're confident and competent to leave our home and to enter the real world. And in the real world, there's, there's consequences. And so, helping kids to understand that if I make this choice, there's going to be a consequence for it. And the good thing to understand is that there's good and bad consequences for things that we choose to do. If we study for a test, chances are we're going to get a good grade on it the next day. So, I think I think having that understanding that whatever I do in life, there's going to be a result because of it and. When I make good choices, I have good consequences, and I'm usually happier because of it. So, what a good skill for kids to understand.
Jen: I think we get messed up or we get hung up when. We don't know what to do for him as a consequence, and so we give out something that's not related to the misbehavior at all. So, our child's not doing their homework because they're watching or playing video games. And instead of taking away the video games as that natural consequence, we take away something that's completely not even related to the problem. And so now the kids are making the connection. If I watch TV, I don't get to, I don't do my homework and they don't make that connection. So, we always want to make sure that we're having our kids make a connection. The consequence needs to connect with the misbehavior.
Hilary: I don't know how many times my kids have done something unrelated to technology. Let's say they chose not to clean their room, and I see that their room is a mess. And so, then I ground them from the iPad. And the crazy thing is, is that when I get frustrated, the amount of time that they are grounded from, things grows exponentially. And so, then I end up saying something really stupid, like, you're grounded from the iPad for the next week or month or who knows, maybe even year, depending on how angry am. And as soon as those words come out of my mouth in my head, I'm thinking, “Crap, you can't do that. You can't enforce that! And so,
Jen: That iPad did nothing to you!
Hilary: Haha no! And so you're right, if I can allow myself to pause and say,” All right, this has nothing to do with an iPad. This has to do with a dirty room. So what can I do to give a consequence associated with a dirty room and cleaning up a room?”
Jen: And why wouldn't they clean up? Well, it was making that now if it is the iPad that's making them not clean up the room. Of course, that's a good connection. But if it's just that they're playing with their siblings or their friends or something like that, you got to look at the reason why they're not doing it. And that's what you take away.
Hilary: Yeah. I had somebody that gave me the suggestion one time when you can't think of a consequence. They mentioned that if you are dealing with a scenario, think about what you as a parent are doing. As after the mistake has been made. So, for example, let's say that my child drops his plate of food and maybe he does it on purpose, and so we have a giant spill on the on the ground. And so, I think for a lot of parents, our natural reaction is to yell and to lecture and then maybe to have that child go to timeout. And then while they're in timeouts, what are we doing? We're cleaning up the floor. We're sweeping it, we're mopping it, we're putting the dishes away while they're sitting in timeout. And I'm not saying that time out is a bad consequence, but think about what you're doing and the parent right then. Could your child be doing that? And so, if I'm cleaning up that mess after my child, that is something that they could easily be doing for themselves. And so really kind of stepping back on the situation and saying, “All right, how does this need to be corrected?” It's not my job to correct it, but what needs to happen in order for it to be corrected? And is it realistic that my child can do that instead of me.
Jen: That's great example. Now there's another part to consequences, and that is when I like to say when it's not safe for the natural consequence. And that's when we jump into logical consequences. The one thing that I always get from parents, I swear at least once a parenting class is. “My child runs out into the street”. I mean, always they run out to get the ball, they run out just to run out whatever the case may be. Well I say, well, what's the natural consequence? And they say, “Well, they're going to get hit by a car”. And I’m like, “OK, can we allow our children to get hit by a car? “Absolutely not. That's when we turn into logical consequences. It's unsafe for them to have a natural consequence. So now we come up with a logical one. They can't follow the rules of not going into the street. They can't have that natural consequence of getting hit by a car. So, I'm going to give them a logical consequence and say, you've got to go inside. And always, the follow up question is I have three kids. The other two kids didn't do anything wrong. I can't be two in two places at once. And I always say, what a great time for those other two kids to learn that you are going to stick to your guns. Let them do something fun inside that they want to do and maybe have that other child, you know, do something different that they may not like so that they know if they come inside, you're just not going to have fun inside whatever you want to do with that. But it's a great way for those other two kids to know. When I say, if you can't stay in our yard, we go inside. Then they know you're going to stick to your guns.
Hilary: Yeah. You know, you bring up that a lot of what we do when it comes to consequences and scenarios where kids are making mistakes as we got to evaluate what the price tag is and I'm not necessarily talking about how much money it cost, but we talk about, you know, this, these consequences. Will I allow my child to live with this? We talk about price tags. Now, obviously, we would never allow our child to be in danger in the road because that price tag is too big. We we're going to step in. We're going to run to the street, we're going to pull them away because the price tag is too hefty at that point. But if it's something where the price tag is small, where they can learn from it, while being safe, then yeah, we're going to let them live with that price tag because it's within their developmental grasp. So, I have some parents that maybe get in a situation where their child makes a mistake, and you know what, in the moment, either we can't think of a natural or logical consequence or honestly, I think this one's more common than not. We're just too mad to think straight. And I, my best suggestion at that point would be to delay giving out a consequence. You know, something happens to our brain when we're frustrated, we're not thinking clearly. And so, I think it's completely appropriate to look at our kids and to tell them, you know what? I'm mad. And but when mom's mad. She's not thinking clearly, so you're going to have a consequence, but I'm going to take some time to think about what that is, and I will let you know later. Some parents fear that, you know, waiting, will make the consequence less effective, but honestly, that wait time for kids is sometimes so good!
Jen: It's torture for them!
Hilary: Yes, for them to sit and stew and to think “What is mom decide? What is Dad going to decide?” I don't think that's a bad thing. And I also think it's a good thing, maybe to even say to your kids, you know, you're going to have a consequence, but I'd love to talk to dad about that first, because as parents, we're on the same page. So, we want to make sure we come up with what the consequence will be. It will help with the battle of going to one parent for one thing versus another. If our kids know that we're coming up with it together, we're that solid front.
Jen: So, I also think that there are some times that. Yes, and maybe a misbehavior, yes. It may be annoying, but, do I really need to tag on at consequence? If we're going to consequence everything that our kids do wrong, we are all going to be miserable. So, there are some things that we can just let go. And it’s that whole adage of choose your battles. I mean, I think one thing that comes up a lot is clothing. What they are wearing and what do they look like in public and when it comes down to it? It's really like, how does that reflect on me as a parent? And if we can get over that point and just let them wear whatever the heck they want to wear, we're going to have a lot less battles. But if we're going to have a consequence stuck to that, something like that is just going to be a battle all the time. And that's not what life or parenting should be.
Hilary: Well, and I think that's a great a great leeway until our other discussion that we wanted to have, which was giving kids choices. Because that's what it's really all about. I have said to two individuals before I would love for one day and I only want to do it for one day because I feel like that's all I need in order to truly realize what needs to be done. But I want someone to follow me for one day and I want them to keep track of how often I tell my kids, “No, you can't do that. Don't do that. Stop that. Leave that alone. Don't touch it”. Because I think we would all be amazed at how often that came out of our mouth. And so, you think about these kids and these toddlers, for example, you know, and we talk about these terrible twos. Well, part of that is probably because we are so used to giving these kids commands and telling them what to do at all times of the day. I would, you know, as an adult, we don't want to hear that. We don't want to be told what to do, and our kids are the same way. And so being able to give them some choices give them some freedom within boundaries. I think that's so important and will make for a much happier child.
Jen: Is that kind of sounds like micromanaging, do we hate being treated like that in the workplace? And so, are you micromanaging your kids? But choices are a way to give your kids control. We all fight for control. It doesn't matter what age we are. You may think I don't really fight for control, but we all do in our own little way. And kids need to have a sense of control as well. This helps them have less behaviors because they have they feel like they have a stake in the game. They just have control over what they're doing instead of being told all the time. “No, don't do that. Don't touch that. Leave that alone. Take your finger out of your nose”, whatever the case may be. But yeah, giving them choices. And I always like when I'm telling parents or I'm giving my own stepdaughter choices. If I give her five or six choices, she's going to sit there and think forever, or she's just going to say that as far too many choices. I always like to say give two, one for each hand. I don't know why it's one for each hand, but you know, just to. And the other thing that I always think I because I have to stop myself because I can say to my stepdaughter, “Would you like to go to the grocery store with me? Or would you like to go to the movies?” Okay, which one is she going to choose?
Hilary: Well, I don't know about you, but I would just go to the movies.
Jen: Yeah. So, you don't want to give two choices and one that you can't live with. You want to make sure that you can always live with both choices because really, I need to go to the grocery store. I don't have time to go to the movies. So why am I even offering that? So, with younger kids, if you don't want to go to the park, don't offer the park because the kids are always going to take you up on, going to the park, so make sure you can live with both choices.
Hilary: You know, I think some parents really fear giving their kids freedom because they feel like once it leaves their hands and enters the hands of their five-year-old that their house is going to completely crumble. But I think that we need to remember as parents that we're giving choices about things that matter to them but may not necessarily matter to us in the big picture. I mean, our goal for our toddler is to put on a jacket because it's cold outside. Do we care what jacket it is? No, we don't. He can pick any of the jackets in his closet as long as he's covering his arms, so he doesn't freeze. But for us to be able to say, “All right, you pick this blue jacket or this green jacket” In my head, it's a win-win because I'm getting him to put something on his body. But for him, he gets to decide what he wants that to look like. And he's giving them that freedom that he's really wanting and honestly needing. So, don't forget that when you're giving away that freedom, it's not that you're letting them rule the house at that point. You still are maintaining that overall control.
Jen: And with the jacket, you know what? They can pick color. They can also pick which way it goes on. You want on front words or backwards. Do you want the zipper in the front or the back? And the great thing about the back is you never have to worry about that again for the rest of the day that jackets on and they can't get to it. So be creative as well!
Hilary: You know, one good thing that I like to remember with choices with my kids is that when I'm offering choices, my favorite thing to do is to offer choices about the particular scenario. And for me, it's not about. And if you want to do this, but it's about a win. So, for example, I'm not going to say, would you rather do your homework or do your chores? Because then I'm offering an if statement, do you want to do your homework? Guess what? Most kids are going to tell you? No, never like homework’s the worst, right? So instead, I'm going to give them an option that is a one option. So, here's the two things that we need to get done. Would you like to do your homework first or your chores first? Again, it goes back to that control of either way, both responsibilities are going to be accomplished, but you get to decide how that's going to look for you. You know, unfortunately, I'm not perfect. I mean, I'm not perfect by any means, but be cautious of that because I know there's a lot of times when I have said to my kids, you know, are you ready to go home or do you want to stay? Guess what? If you ask your child if he wants to go home from the park, I mean, kids will live at the park if we give them the choice. So that's not the choice we're going to offer, but we're going to say it's time to go home, unfortunately, and we're really bummed out about that. But would you like to listen to the radio while we're in the car or would you like to play Eye Spy you know? Would you like a snack when we get home or would you like to watch a video together? And so, we're still maintaining what we need to maintain, but we're allowing them to decide what the scenario is going to look like.
Jen: I always like to share with parents as well that don't give your kid all day, all day long to make a choice. You know, give them a timeframe. And if they don't choose by that time frame, then you get to choose for them. And I think that is a great teaching moment for you and a learning moment for them that, OK, I don't have all day. I need to pick this choice. And mom's going to stick to our guns. And I really don't like what mom is going to choose, so I better hurry up and choose it for myself. I do like that idea that you say that it's not taking control out of the parents is kind of like taking chaotic control and controlled control.
Hilary: You know, and I think the beauty with giving choices throughout the day is that, realistically speaking, there's going to be times where maybe your child doesn't have a choice. It's something that they need to do, and it helps to soften the blow with kids, if we can look at that child and say, “You know what? I have given you oodles of choices today, but unfortunately at this time, mom is going to make the choice and this is what we're going to have to do”. But if they feel like they have been forced to do things all day long, it's just one more thing that they're being forced to do. So, the beauty is, is that you almost continued to put it in your bank account. You put these small deposits, these small choices throughout the day so that when something big does come that you can't necessarily let them decide they're more likely to still listen because they know that more choices will come their way. It just may not be during that time.
Jen: Great time to say, you know what, I've given you lots and lots of choices, this one's mine.
Hilary: Yep, so and I think that's important for us to parents as parents to remember is that in the end, we do have the final say. You know, and that's our job. And so, it is OK to look at our child and to let them know that from time to time.
Jen: Well, hopefully you have maybe learned a little nugget in this podcast and can maybe try something out. We encourage you to try something change like we talked about last week, never comes unless we put it into action. And so, takes take a little piece and try it out. Thanks so much for being part of our podcast today. We encourage you to share our podcast with others and encourage them to listen as well. If you would like to reach Hilary or myself, you can reach us at parents@thefamilyplaceutah.org. You can find me on Facebook. Jen Daly -The Family Place If you would like to receive weekly texts from the family place on parenting ideas, text TFP at 33222. We hope you have a great week, and we'll catch you back here next week.
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