Consequences
There are times where the kiddos are not acting out with a full-on temper tantrum, but they are doing behaviors that we do not like. This is when consequences are awesome tools to use. Think of consequences as removal of stimulation. When we punish the behavior with a consequence then that behavior will decrease. This again is an amazingly simple concept that we complicate. We can have consequences like time outs, taking away of tv time, going to bed early, taking away phone, taking away screen time etc. Even when the kiddo says “I don’t care that you took away my television time tonight I am going to read instead so there” yeah-do not fall for this. They care! They just don’t want to show you it bothers them so they will instead lash out and tell you how wrong you are for taking something away by showing you or telling you it will not work.
They are crafty little buggers.
If you threaten to take something away, you better hold yourself accountable and take whatever it was away. This helps provide security and trust between you and your child. They will understand that when you, the parent, say something, you mean it. If you hear yourself repeatedly saying the same things to your child/children, then it is you that needs to change something, not the kids.
Example 1:
One of my daughter’s chores in our house is to empty the dishwasher when I ask. When the dishwasher is ready, I will call her downstairs and say, “could you please empty the dishwasher by 6 pm”. She of course would say what I wanted to hear “yes mom” but then she would not follow through with what I asked her. The me that was raised by my parents would have said yelling, “get down here now and do the dishwasher” and then as she was walking towards the dishwasher, I would say things like, “how many times do I have to ask you, it’s not that hard if you just did it the first time I wouldn’t have to yell,” etc. you get the picture. But the Denise version 2.0 just says “if you don’t empty the dishwasher by 6 then the cell phone is mine. It’s literally that easy. There is no yelling in my house. It is not allowed.
Example 2:
I had a client who was married for over 25 years and she would get so angry over one of her husband’s behaviors. After several times telling me her frustration with this behavior I asked if she wanted to change it. She looked at me with a very puzzled look on her face, “He has been doing this for ever how I am going to get him to change?” That was the moment I strategically placed my consequence plan in place. Her husband’s behavior that she was frustrated with was that he would eat at the island and not push his stool back in. yep, it might sound frivolous to some, but this droves her crazy. What is the plan: I told her that every time from now until next week he does not put his stool back in that she was to say nothing and when he left the room, she would take away that stool?. Again, she looked at me like I was nuts. She said well there are two other stools and I said, “Guess what you are going to do if he uses the 2 other stools and doesn’t push them in? Yep, you are going to take those away as well.” I believe that she put them out on their porch for safe keeping. So, after the 3rd day when he was going to sit down for lunch there were no stools. He looked at her confused and said, “where are the stools” she calmly and politely said “Since you won’t push them in like I ask I guess you don’t have them anymore” after some short discussion he said, “oh that’s all it will take to get my seat back you want me to push them in?”
Ever since that day, which has now been years, he has pushed his stool in. This person’s husband literally had no idea how much it bothered her even though she begged and pleaded, yelled, got into arguments about the stool throughout the years he never heard her until she “acted” and took something away.
Stay well, friends. You are important.
No comment yet, add your voice below!