Tuesdays Teaching Moment:The Consequences of Life

Today's teaching moment comes from a book I am reading called, "How To Get Kids to Clean Their Rooms and Other Impossible Tasks: Ways to Help a Child be More Responsible" By The Parenting Resource Group with Dr. Henry Isaksen.

I wanted to share with you from the chapter which speaks of "The Consequences of Life". How do we teach our children or grandchildren about this very important concept? Here is the information I read in the book that is very good and practical.

"Many parents just love to step in and help their children work things out. And they like to impose punishments from outside situations. The parent may think if they don't get involved, how in the world will their child ever learn? There is a better way. Let the situation itself determine the consequences of the child's act. The approach : The use of natural and logical consequences.

Natural consequences: Where the child has to experience the consequences that will naturally flow from his act if no one else interferes. If he throws his food on the floor, he doesn't have any food anymore and goes hungry. The same with the child that doesn't want to eat breakfast before school; he goes hungry.

Logical Consequences: Where the parent intervenes to impose consequences that are logically connected to the child's behavior. These are generally used when there are no natural consequences; the child hits his little brother and the natural consequences is that the child get sent to his room. Where the natural consequence is harmful to the child , such as a child running in front of a car and gets hit; the parent rescues the child and imposes the logical consequences that the child doesn't get to play outside anymore.

The more a child experiences the results of his own actions, the more likely he/she will learn to be responsible for their actions. The parent who consistently creates artificial consequences (like spanking or yelling) will end up with a child (and later an adult) who is irresponsible. The child will see no connection between his behavior and the results of his behavior.

In the same way, the parent who consistently shelters his child from the results of his actions

is creating a person who doesn't recognize a responsibility for those actions. The child never learns that some acts can be harmful both to others and to himself."

Let me know what you think about todays teaching moment.