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Natural consequences for parents
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The natural consequence of being grumpy with children is having grumpy children
The idea of "natural consequences" is very big with parents these days. The theory is that children will learn to do the right thing if they live through the real consequences of their actions.
Instead of fighting over whether your child wears a sweater, you let her go without and she gets cold. She puts on a sweater. Practical and painless.
I'm not always a big fan of natural consequences because when parents use them, they're often just using a nice catch phrase for sugar-coated, plain old punishments.
Take the woman who posted the following on a parenting bulletin board:
My three year old refuses to make her bed. What natural consequences can I use to make her do it?
Well lady, the real natural consequence of not making your bed is you have a messy bed!
Instead of trying to think up some dire, make believe consequence to befall your little one, how about making it with her in a fun way each morning and establishing a routine for her?
What I've noticed lately, though, is that we adults often don't learn from natural consequences.
Think about it...
We eat junk and don't exercise, so we get fat and unhealthy.
Natural consequence, right? But instead of eating right and starting to exercise, we look for some pill, herb or procedure to fix us-- and we continue to eat junk and skip exercising.
We spend too much money living above our means, so we end up in debt.
Do we change our lifestyle and learn to live frugally? Sometimes. But many people get another credit card, look for a second job, beg money off the folks, play the lottery and avoid answering the phone. We keep right on doing whatever's causing the trouble, and just try to find a way to change the results.
So much for natural consequences.
The thing is, if you pay attention there are natural consequences every day for how we're parenting:
We don't give our little ones enough time and attention, and they become clingy.
We're cranky and say no all the time, and we end up with cranky kids who say no all the time.
We haven't been loving and attentive enough of our children so they (depending on their age and personality) cry, misbehave, whine or pull away.
And instead of realizing it's all a practical reaction to us, we scold, yell, nag, pull away and punish-- making the cycle that much worse.
Our relationships with our kids are reflections on what we're doing-- or not doing-- with them.
If your children's behavior has you contemplating putting your head in the blender lately, there's something going on. Get the root of that and the natural consequence is happier kids and parents.
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