Making Sure Consequences Actually Work for Kids

Tips to make sure consequences are effective in teaching your child to change her behavior. When you discipline, your goal is for behavior to really change.

boy sitting on shore of the lake

When your child misbehaves and does not listen to you, you may be left wondering exactly how you should respond. One of the best ways to respond to misbehavior is allowing consequences to follow or giving consequences for the action.

Here are some thoughts on discipline and consequences I liked from the book Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours by Kevin Leman. 

FOCUS ON REALITY

Leman points out that discipline should focus on the reality of the situation (page 28). He uses the example of breaking a toy. If your child breaks a toy, you do not run out and buy a new one to replace it. You have your child pay for it out of allowance or earning money to replace it if you do not do allowance. Reality says, “you broke a toy, you must replace it.”

Reality means your child is accountable for his actions and that unacceptable behavior has no payoff (page 43).

Now here is a point he makes that I think is very important. The reality you must deal with is your child’s perception of it (page 32).

Everyone has a different perspective of reality. It is what your child thinks that counts.

He then focuses on a few areas that affect your child’s perception of reality. Birth order is one. Each child will view a situation differently. One child might feel like another child is loved more than he is. You can tell your child that you don’t love older sister more than him all you want, but he will still have his perception of reality. If your child perceives that he got away with something, then he really got away with it even if you think you have applied some consequence.

Tips to make sure consequences actually work pinnable image

LOGICAL AND NATURAL CONSEQUENCES

People often talk about logical and natural consequences when it comes to discipline. Here is a definition of each by Leman:

  • Natural: Consequence will happen if events are left to take their course. So if you run when you should walk, you can fall and get hurt. If you harass the cat, you can get scratched. Read more about Natural Consequences here.
  • Logical: This is something the parents set up ahead of time. You tell the child what will happen if they disobey or don’t meet responsibilities. For example, if your child comes home late, he doesn’t get to go out tomorrow night. If he constantly forgets to feed the cat, you find a new home for the cat.

Leman has a few hints for making these types of consequences work for you and your family. One is that you must let them happen. You can’t save your child from the natural consequence of his action.


Read: Consequences: Natural vs. Logical


Another is you need to watch out for your child’s remorse. He will likely be very sorry when the consequences meet up with him. Don’t stop at that point and prevent the consequences from taking full effect. You can acknowledge and accept the remorse, but you need to allow the consequences to happen for him to feel the full weight of his mistake.

At this moment, you need to enforce the rules. Remember the Childwise principle that you need to be your child’s parent first. Your child will have many friends, but only one set of parents (see Parent vs. Friend: Childwise ).

I personally favor logical and natural consequences for discipline. I find it the most effective way to teach children to change their behavior. You want logical consequences to relate to the offense, as illustrated in the examples above.

In order for these consequences to work, though, you must be consistent and you must be willing to see them through to the end. It can be hard. Say, for example, your toddler refused to eat any food at lunch. Then she is wanting a snack before naptime. At this point, you explain that she needs to eat her meals at mealtime and she can have more food at the next scheduled meal.

Will she be happy? No. Will she thank you for teaching her this lesson? No. Will she learn from it? Yes.

CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS

Leman points out another tip for making these consequences work. You must control your emotions (page 115). You can’t give the impression that the consequence is coming because you are angry or want to “get back” at your child. You want to give the consequence without emotional baggage tied to it.

You don’t hate your child for coming home late. Your love for your child is not conditional upon how much food she eats.

Your child is receiving a consequence because that is what happens when they do something wrong. It is the choice they make when they decide to disobey. They can choose to disobey if they want to, but they cannot choose whether or not they feel consequences for that decision. This is the reality of life.

When you are emotionally cool, you make it harder for your child to direct anger toward you for the consequence. He is forced to face the fact that he brought it upon himself.

Picture of a boy at the lake with text

CONCLUSION

Allowing consequences to happen or giving a logical consequence when there is misbehavior is a very effective form of discipline for children. Do not be scared of consequences; they will help your child grow to be an adult who is equipped to face the real world.

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7 thoughts on “Making Sure Consequences Actually Work for Kids”

  1. Can you help me with what you would do with this incident. My quads are 21 months and are trying to get into everything particularly in the kitchen. When they get into something they aren't I tell them they have to get out of the kitchen and can't come back until I say it's ok. Usually I put them in the playroom right next to the kitchen (which has no door – all open). This worked for a while but now they will try to come back into the kitchen immediately, laughing like "you can't make me stay out of the kitchen". I place them back into the playroom a couple of times and on the third or fourth time I usually put them in their crib. Is that a logical thing to do or would you do something else? Thank you so much for all of your advice! – Mari

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  2. I'm interested to hear your advice on Mari's problem too, mostly because i've delt with the same thing. For me I don't wait until the third or fouth time they do it to enforce some type of punishment for "not listening to mommy". But I do usually do as Mari does, just remove them from the room.

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  3. Hi! We have a new 12 day old. He is our first born and we have been trying to use the babywise principles, and had a question which we couldn't find in the book. Our baby, Chaim has been a great sleeper and generally very well tempered. However for the last 3 days he has begun crying though 2 nap cycles in the afternoon, (4:00-10:00PM) and just now fussed through the entire morning nap. At night he wakes up around 1:30 and 4:30 and we feed him and he goes right back to sleep just fine. The morning cycles have been really good, except for today.In the afternoon, after feeding and about 30 min. of wake time we bundle him up with lots of kisses and put him down. He'll cry for 10-20 minutes. Then we'll check his diper, see that he's burped, help him with gass etc. Often he does have a messy diper or spit up. But that doesn't help him sleep. He will cry through 2 cycles (late afternoon and early evening) with a feed in between. We tried feeding him at half hour early, (6:30) but that didn't help the next cycle. He is pooping 5-6 times per day and peeing 7 or 8 times and will nurse for 40 minutes (he takes a lot of pauses)but is getting milk. And we have been cycling with feed, wake, nap. Our questions are: 1. Do you have any ideas what is causing this? 2. When he cries or stays awake through an entire nap time should we feed him early, or on time?3. As we speak he just fell asleep, but his next feeding is in 15 min. Should we wake him or let him sleep? (if so for how long?) 4. How long after checking him should we let him cry before trying all the comfort things, like rocking, swing, etc.? Thanks! Nathan

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  4. Great advice. I think some adults could learn from this post. You can make choices, but the consequences are set in place; you don't get to change them just because you don't like them.

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  5. Mari, I can't imagine this with four at once 🙂 I find that Brayden and Kaitlyn can really play off of each other. If one starts to be disobedient, the other might find that really funny and give it a try. So, in your case, my first step would probably be to separate them as much as possible so they don't fuel each other. They are old enough to understand you. You can say, "if you can't be obedient then you will not get to play with each other right now." Perhaps the first time you will put them in the play room and instruct them to stay there. Tell them if they can't stay in the room and play together, then they will not get to play with each other and will have a time out. Then follow through.That is an example. Find what works for them, but I would start taking away so many chances. The first time, explain what they should be doing and what will happen if they don't. Then follow through. Remember consistency. Good luck!

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  6. Nathan,1. It sounds like the "witching hour." See the witching hour blog label to the right.2. Feed him on time or early if he is hungry. But I would try to get him to sleep. McKenna has had a witching hour, and I have just put her in the swing for that time period. She still does great for her other naps. During the witching hour time period, just soothe your baby as needed. It wil get to be the worst around 6 weeks (which is about where you are now) and should get better around 3-4 months old.3. I would let him go maybe 30 minutes longer.

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  7. Kristi, TONS of adults could benefit from this! We definitely live in a time of instant gratification and a lack of willingness to accept consequences for actions.

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