Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the bucket-emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr Mary Han, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode has come from a listener and the question is, help! Consequences aren't working in our house. So, just for some context, when we talk about this subject of how do I get my child to do more of what we want them to do and less of what we don't want them to do, I have a real passion for this notion that what we're really trying to do is teach our child that there's consequences for any choice that they make. So, rather than it being punitive and we're looking at punishments, what we're actually trying to do is teach our child that there's consequences for any choice that they make. What we're trying to do is deliver consequences for their actions and as a result of that, they should be informative and help. So, this particular listener is basically saying, I'm dishing out consequences that don't seem to hit the sides. Nothing, it seems to be working, so help. What am I doing wrong? So, I want to share three things really about why this might be happening and you might be listening to this. Maybe you're working with consequences as well and you're not finding that it works consistently. Or you're looking at refining it. So, the first thing is when it comes to using consequences, it's making sure they're most likely to be effective if the consequences are really connected to the misdemeanor. So, if your child takes forever to go upstairs to bed, faffs around, you have to ask them repeatedly to go upstairs so that they can have bath time, a natural consequence with that may well be if you've got a cut off of bedtime being 7.30, 8.00, 8.30 is what happens is that time reading gets cut short. That's a natural consequence. So, the first thing I would say is just check whether your consequences really are connected to the misdemeanor and do you deliver them calmly and dispassionately and is the incident forgotten once you've dealt with it? So, in other words, you move on once you've discussed it and you don't weaponize it. So, that's the first thing I would say is just do a bit of a reflective piece if you're sort of equally pulling your hair out and saying, well, the consequences just aren't working. Are they being connected? When we deliver them, is it a straightforward, but it's not about being rigid in doing it or dogmatic. It's just simply if we've had conversations around consequences and our child, you know, going back to this example of their faffing around going up to bed, then that should be a very straightforward, easy to come up to bed. Unfortunately, we came up 10 or 15 minutes later. And so, that means we haven't got enough time to read our two bedtime stories. So, this evening, we're just going to have one. So, it's this idea that we've delivered it calmly, we've been dispassionate and we've moved on. So, that's the first thing I would say is ask yourself that. The second thing is, have you considered what might be driving the behavior? So, if you're finding that you're having to have conversations or you're delivering consequences on a regular basis, then sometimes it's worth looking at rather than what am I doing in response to the behavior? It's also questioning, why might I be seeing this behavior in the first place? Is there an unmet need that I'm missing? And so, instead, I'm focused on the consequence for the output, but I'm not necessarily considering why I'm getting that behavior in the first place. So, for example, could it be that you've got a child who's actively seeking a little bit more autonomy, a little bit more agency, a little bit more control? And when I talk about control here, I'm not talking about in a negative way, but just simply, I'm a young child who feels that I'm ready to make choices, I'm ready to be responsible for things, and I'm feeling like I have no sense of agency because I'm being told what to do all of the time. So, it could be that, and obviously that's within an appropriate framework. There may well be certain instances where our children are desperate to have some autonomy and agency and control, but it just simply isn't appropriate. But it could be that there's an unmet need around control. We're just doing what we have always done, and we've sort of forgotten or not really updated where our child might be at and what their needs might be. So, that might be, is that one of the reasons why? Is it that actually your child, and let's remember children don't all always tell us what they need in the most appropriate way. So, could it be that actually you've got a child who has an unmet need around connection? They're craving connection. This is not about attention seeking, but just simply that they're feeling disconnected from us. And so, that might be the reason why they're choosing the responses that they are. So, is there an unmet need in terms of connection? Is there also an unmet need? Because you're child, to some extent, or teen, doesn't feel heard, or their voice doesn't matter. Maybe when there's conversations and decisions that are made, they feel as though things are happening and being told to them. And when they try to express their opinion, when they try to have some input, that is dismissed or it isn't listened to. And remember that this is how your child feels. It's their perception rather than necessarily what we feel. It's really what we're trying to do when we're considering if there's some form of unmet need, is trying to see through the lens of our child, are there aspects of their world that we might be missing, that might be contributing to their repeated poor choices? So, I think that second one is just, you know, is really sitting and considering, is there some aspects that might be driving this behaviour that I've missed, that I've not considered? And then the third thing, and this is a really crucial bit, which sort of goes back in terms of what the whole purpose of consequences are, is they are meant to be instructive rather than punitive. So, what they're meant to, what I mean by that is that when we deliver a consequence, our children should be learning from that as to the desirable behaviour. So, what do we ideally want them to do? And why, as a result, that the consequences happen? And then the third thing is happening. So, it's helpful when we are delivering the consequence, when we're talking about the consequence, to problem solve with our children or our teen about what they might do differently next time. So, that then builds on this, it being instructive rather than something that's just delivered to them, happens to them, and they don't necessarily feel or understand the connection and how they might make different choices next time. So, hopefully those three will really help us if you're equally slightly stuck and finding the consequences aren't working. Now, remember, for those of you who have listened to the podcast for a while, you'll know that I've, that there has been a longer episode on why punishments don't work. And one of the free resources that was attached to that particular podcast episode was a list of misdemeanours and potential consequences. So, if you have not accessed that or would like access to that, then that is in the free resource library. So, that's the www.drmaryhand.com forward slash library. It will ask you for your email address, but you'll then get access to all of the free resources. It is searchable, the resource library. So, if you just type in consequences, it will bring up that, that PDF, which you can either download and print out or download and just save to your files, because then that will give you some ideas about how you might, begin to sort of administer some of these consequences in terms of those sort of challenging behaviours. And hopefully the three points from this episode will also optimise the effectiveness of them. So, do write in and let me know how you get on with them. Now, as ever, if you have enjoyed this episode, I would be eternally grateful if you could rate, follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So, until next time. Bye.
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