The concept of natural consequences has been creating confusion among parents for years. The concept is quite different from the standard tips you will read in parenting magazines and books. To many parents, the techniques relying on natural consequences even sound a bit odd. But knowing how to discipline with natural consequences can be one of the best ways to teach your kids.
From my experience, from the experience of many parents I know and from my talks with experts, I can say that using this technique is quite a natural and healthy way to discipline your children – that is, if you set the right framework and know when and how to intervene.
This article is envisioned to help you start implementing this technique if you are new to it. So, let’s kick it off.
What does the concept of disciplining your kids with natural consequences imply?
To put it simply, this concept is a positive parenting tool which actually requires parents to be passive and avoid interfering with the kids’ actions. This way, your children can see the logical and natural results of their actions.
It means you are letting your child make their own choices and face the consequences on their own, and we all know how things are much more intense when we experience them on our own skin.
Once they make some of the mistakes and realize they are the outcomes of their own choices, the next time they will probably be more careful.
Now, this technique, of course, should be used very carefully. You need to estimate when it is safe to use it – when it doesn’t endanger your child or other people.
The following are the essential cases when you could and should allow your kids to experience natural consequences:
Social life.
So, you are in a park with your child, where there are so many other children. Your child has this cool new toy and another child wants to join the play. Yet, your child is not in the mood to share their toy.
Sounds familiar?
What happens next is that the other child gets bored or annoyed or simply hurt and leaves your child on their own.
Sure, your child might be happy for a moment but soon they will realize that they have just lost a chance to gain a new friend.
Having a cool toy doesn’t mean that much when you don’t have anyone to share the playing experience with. Instead of yelling at your child to let the other kid play with them and forcing them to share the toy, you can use the natural consequences tool to let them deal with the experience relying on their own emotions.
The next time maybe your child will be the one who will offer their toy for sharing.
Schoolwork.
This is perhaps the clearest type of situations where your child sees and experiences natural consequences.
Not doing homework and not studying comes with the consequences of bad grades or falling behind. Your teacher may also experience criticism from the teacher.
As simple as that – your child understands that not studying diligently comes with loads of unpleasant situations and, naturally, they will want to fix it. Sometimes this is much more efficient than forcing your child to do their homework.
House chores.
If I only had a dime whenever my children skipped their chores despite our previous agreements!
I used to go around the house picking up their toys instead of them but I noticed it is much more effective when I don’t do it, even at the price of having the toys scattered all over the house.
So, what happens then? The child can’t find their favorite toy! They soon realize it is a natural consequence of their laziness to do a simple house chore and the importance of keeping their stuff in order.
Discipline with natural consequences
I always strongly encourage moms to let their children experience things and understand the importance of making safe and responsible choices.
But I also insist on parenting responsibilities as well – disciplining your children with natural consequences doesn’t mean that you are absolutely passive.
On the contrary, you are still in charge of following the process and estimating how safe is the situation for your child. The natural consequence of playing with matches could be, well – fire. So make sure to use this tool as responsibly as possible.
Have you already tried using natural consequences as an additional tool to discipline your children? What are your experiences and what other situations would you add as convenient for this tool? Join the discussion in the comments!
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