Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 13 and today I'm talking about why punishments just don't work. Now we've all been there, our child has made a poor choice and they've behaved in a particular way and we want to learn how do we deal with these situations, how do we avoid nagging our children, how do we set out boundaries and deal with poor choices that our children make in those given moments and in a lot of ways the literature, the child sort of development literature and what we look at in terms of parenting is littered with lots and lots of stuff to do with discipline and punishments. Now I want you to bear with me because I'm going to go through an analogy that I feel is a powerful reminder of our role as parents and to me beautifully demonstrates why the whole concept of discipline and punishment is so draconian. Now you'll remember I've often used the analogy that our children are like buildings which rise from the foundations we create through our family values, our family's code and our emotional availability and as their building rises our role is to provide the structure of the building. Now we don't get to determine the shape and style of the build, our children do. We're never going to live in that building, our children will. So our role is simply to ensure that it rises safely, strong and at the end of the build it meets safety regulations. Now how this relates to the concept of discipline is both in how we lay the foundations, those foundations around family values, moral code and emotional availability and then how we continue to reinforce these expectations as the build rises. So we must remember that our role is to prepare the building to be permanently inhabited by our children and to ensure that it meets safety regulations. So when we go back to my original point about why punishments don't work, we have to ask ourselves when our child has made a poor choice, when they've behaved in a way that doesn't sit with our moral values, our family code and our being emotionally available, what are we trying to teach our child when we deal with those specific consequences? And my argument is that we are trying to teach our children to take ownership of their behaviour. They get to choose how they respond in any given situation and that response comes with a lot of pressure and a lot of pressure on them. So we need to be able to with consequences, both good and bad. Now I know that and I hear this lots of times when I talk with families and also when I talk with children, that quite often when they experience these enormous, these big emotions and they're frustrated and they're angry and they think things are unjust, that they often feel that they have no control over their emotions or no control over their behaviour, that the emotion almost takes over them. But the idea is to develop a building that it meets safety regulations and actually for a child to be able to navigate the adult world, they need to take ownership for the choices of behaviour that they make when they experience a given emotion. So when we talk about punishment and discipline, we're talking very much about something that doesn't necessarily instruct or doesn't necessarily teach. So if we think about the choices that our children might make in a particular situation, when they choose to help pack the dishwasher or go to bed when we ask them, we might say, thank you, we might praise them for their efforts, we might reward them with some extra privileges, or we might just be generally happier and less stressed. So there's a positive consequence for some of the behavioural choices that they have made. When they choose in contrast to leave their dishes by the sink or ignore our constant requests for them to come up to bed, we might shout, we might chastise them for never listening to us, we might take their technology or there may be a constant air of stress and tension in the house. So both these choices lead to consequences. In the second half, they lead to these negative consequences. So consequences teach and instruct. Consequences are much more in keeping with the realities of the world our children are going to inhabit as adults. There are consequences to our behaviours, good and not so good. Discipline by contrast, discipline and punishment, creates a power struggle. I, as your parent, am all-knowing and powerful. You, as the child, are subservient and will do what I say. This doesn't build independence and confidence and ownership, but creates these power struggles which will eventually cause a whole host of issues and nobody wants those. So let me just talk you through. So what I'm going to be doing in the podcast is I'm going to talk to you about the don'ts and the do's when it comes to this concept of shifting. I'm going to talk to you about the don'ts and the do's when it comes to shifting. away from this notion of discipline and punishment to much more to do with consequences. So what we should and shouldn't do. I'm going to give you a new way of trying to set up some more positive behaviours and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about what might be appropriate consequences because I know that that can be quite tricky in the heat of the moment. So let's start with the don'ts. So for me, when we're talking about how we respond in a situation when our child has made a poor choice, what I would say is don't. So avoid long lectures. I know it can be really hard, particularly when we feel we have asked our children for the 50th, 100th, 1000th time, but keep your comments short, sweet and to the point. We don't use too many words. Children, sadly, they tune out and this is often why we find ourselves having to repeat our comments or our children time and time again until by the fifth or the sixth time we've had to shout, raise our voice, nobody's happy and then they finally listen. And the third don't is don't use a nagging tone. We've been there, it's frustrating and we are fed up, but really try and keep your tone very clear and to the point without this, oh my goodness, how many times do I have to ask you, which doesn't help anyone and it certainly doesn't model what we would like them to do in terms of taking ownership. So instead, do say what you see to get more of what you want. So let me explain this. This is sometimes called descriptive praise. When your child demonstrates any pattern of behaviour that you like, you're like, oh my goodness me, that is amazing. I want to see more of that. Then in the old sort of catchphrase television programme saying is, say what you see. For example, Sophie, I'm so impressed that you put all your dishes away in front of me and I'm asking you. That shows real initiative and I'm so pleased that you've done that, for example. Now, the reason why this is so incredibly powerful and trust me, try it, you will see your children literally seem to grow about three or four inches, their chest puffs out and they find themselves desperately trying to look for other things that they can do to get some more of that praise. So it's, you know, we want to just make sure so often when we're caught in this idea of, I don't know, our children are going through a bit of a negative spiral and they don't seem to be listening to us and feel like we're constantly having to have conversations with them about their behaviour. We can often find it tricky to find good things to praise, but when we really look for it, even if it's your child who normally goes from zero to explosion in 60 seconds, but actually what happens is they've gone from zero to explosion in 120 seconds, then let's praise the fact that they really tried. You know, I'm so impressed, your brother, for stamping on your Lego and I could really see you were desperately trying to take a moment before you got cross and I'm so impressed that you tried. So it's this descriptive praise that is much more likely to get more of the desirable behaviour that we want. So do use that regularly. Lose the superlatives. We don't want, oh, you're fabulous, amazing, incredible. Ditch those. Use clear, simple language and state exactly what it is that you have seen, which you like, and you are likely to get more of that. So do praise, do random rewards. Now, personally, I'm not a huge fan of the whole, if you do this, you will get that. As I personally haven't found it works as well as this concept of random rewards. So when your child does something that you are really pleased with, then what I find is really helpful is if you can just say, I'm so impressed with the way that you handled yourself in that situation. I'm so impressed with that you did this or that you helped me. Why don't we go out for a hot chocolate? Or why don't you have 10 more minutes of your technology time? So the idea about random rewards is your child isn't expecting it. Your child doesn't know that it's coming, but it's something that they get when you, in the heat of the moment of noticing some really fabulous behaviour, that you reward them. And I would say with random rewards is that children genuinely value our time more than gifts. So it means that they get to stay up 15 minutes longer to watch a bit more of a television programme with you. they get to have some time with you doing an activity that they really love or playing a game that they love so I'm a really big fan of random rewards rather than that if you do this I'll do that because I find with those that you'll find yourself ending up constantly negotiating the next reward rather than randomly doing it so do praise them do give them random rewards and do keep the consequences as closely related to the misdemeanor as possible if you want to teach your children so don't over leverage the loss of tech time because let's face it we all know it's the one thing that our children often value more than anything and they'll be the most upset that they've lost it and we often do that because we think they're more likely to comply but instead what happens is that you end up exhausting your options and you feel you've got a lot of time to go with consequences so do describe what you see and praise them do give them random rewards do keep the consequences as closely related to the misdemeanor as possible and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment and do discuss consequences in advance now that's a new one that you may not have thought of before but when we get our children involved in what the consequences might be then what typically happens is children are much more likely to do what they have said and so if they've been part of the problem solving to what the consequences might be so for example what are the consequences if they don't come off their technology and their devices when they're meant to if they've been part of that problem solving situation they're much more likely to comply than if we have just simply told them this is what's going to happen so let me talk you through so those are my do's and don'ts what happens if you are noticing that you've got really big flashpoints over the years and you're not sure what's going to happen over let's say bedtime or or managing tech your children coming off technology i'm a really big fan of making sure you know i've talked about this already about this idea about this sunday family meetings where you can have these typical conversations but you don't you're not confined to just having it on a sunday you can have this during the week at a particular time but how can we encourage more of the positive behavior we want so we have to talk less about consequences and for me there's a really useful strategy called a talk through and it starts by having a discussion about a pattern of behavior you're noticing which isn't helpful so for example it might go something like this i've noticed bedtimes are becoming unhappy times for all of us or you might have i've noticed when it comes to when it's time to come off technology we often have lots of battles and it usually ends up with you getting upset i get cross and no one feels great afterwards so can you see we're starting off with a discussion that it's very neutral it's non-accusatory it's just simply hey guys look i've noticed bedtimes make people unhappy coming off technology might be challenging i've noticed trying to get ready for school in the morning has become really stressful i've noticed that we don't we're in and out of our bedrooms a lot i've noticed we're not all helping out around the house i've noticed mealtimes becoming a battle whatever it might be it's a discussion where you simply say i've noticed and of course you kind of open up that conversation when it's a really opportune time everyone's home you get everybody involved you all sit around together and it becomes a discussion rather than a finger pointing exercise so you start off a talk through by simply highlighting the pattern of behavior that is tricky and the situation and then it's a case of saying you know we know we don't all want to be unhappy at bedtimes and i know that you don't like it when i then end up becoming cross because that makes you feel sad so i thought it would be really good if we could all sit down and talk about it and i think it's a really good idea and try and come up with a new way of doing bedtime a new way of managing technology a new way of getting ready for school a new way of not being in and out of our bedroom a new way of managing mealtimes now what's important that when we talk about creating these new routines as part of these talk throughs is you as the parent are not handing over the responsibility to your children but what you are doing as a parent is making a decision about what are your boundaries around bedtimes what are the non-negotiable boundaries around bedtimes and what are the non-negotiable boundaries and those might be for example that the children need to be upstairs and in bed by 7 30 for example or that meal times the non-negotiables are that everybody has to sit and eat the same meal at the same time so you're thinking through what are my absolute non-negotiables are those non-negotiables reasonable for my family and for my children at the age and stage they are at and then what we're then trying to do is help our children to be able to sit and eat the same meal at the same time help us problem solve a framework around that so if bedtime is if we want our children in bed by 7 30 we can then if that's our rigid non-negotiable then we're a little bit open to negotiation about how bath time works or stories or how we then transition from downstairs to upstairs because the ultimate goal is for everybody to be in their beds by 7 30 and not in and out of their bedrooms so we're starting off that conversation with the i've noticed that no one really likes it when we're all getting unhappy i thought it'd be great if we could all sit down together and see if we can find a new routine now we all know that we have to sit and eat a meal together we all know that we need to be in bed by 7 30 but how we get there i thought would be really good if we can think about how might we best manage it so you open the dialogue and here i would really encourage you to get your children to have a real think about what what are their ideas what do they think might be a good way of doing it because you'll be amazed how incredible your children are at problem solving we just often feel with this whole idea of discipline and punishment is that our role is to create these rules and these frameworks and so we're the ones that say what the rules are we're the ones that say what the consequences are and our children just have to passively observe when we actively get them involved in the process and we help them understand that their behavior has a consequence that's what we're doing then we come up with a framework that works much better for our for our family so you talk through what that routine might look like and obviously if your children come up with some suggestions that are unworkable try and encourage them to think that through okay that's interesting so you think we should do that how will that then work with the next step of bedtime how's that going to make sure that we're all in bed by 7 30 so ask them ask questions rather than necessarily cut off their suggestions help them see what they're doing and what they're doing and what they're doing so that they can see their suggestions through so that they can realize actually yeah that's that's not really going to work and that then becomes so incredibly powerful because our children have been part of the process and what we can and always do with these situations is once we've come up with a new routine we can say to our children well why don't we try it for a week let's see how we get on and then when we have our next family meeting we'll sit down and we'll chat and we'll work out how how was that what worked what didn't work what might we tweak what might we change now creating the new routine is just part one the next part which is often what we miss out is we should then discuss with our children so we've come up with this new bedtime routine that you've made some great suggestions what's the consequence if we don't follow the new routine so we're in advance our children are being given advance warning and actually actively encouraged to problem solve and think through what's going on might be those natural consequences so put it to your children what do you think the consequences should be if you don't if we don't follow these this new routine and then be quiet and listen and encourage your children to come up with the consequences and i'll tell you from experience they come up with some pretty mean consequences some pretty severe ones like i won't be allowed to have television for a whole week or you can take my tech away or i'm not allowed stories or i can't i won't have a i won't be able to eat lunch the next day so children often come up with these extremes and we can sort of temper that a little bit and just say well i think not having television for a whole week is probably a little bit severe why can't let's think of something else that might be a bit more reasonable so it's really encouraging them to come up not only with the new routine but also for them to consider what those consequences will be if they don't adhere to it and then recap recap recap and you're going to recap in a couple of ways so you've set out the problem you've problem solved the new routine you've spoken to your children and you've come up with what the consequences are going to be if the if this new routine isn't isn't followed and you've disbanded the meeting the chat the conversation now what i would say and bear with me and try this and feedback to me is what you're then going to do is about five or six times during that day you're going to have a quick sidle up to your child individually so if this is a conversation you've had with three children as a family together you're going to sidle up to each of your children and you're going to have a quick child separately and you're going to completely just have a quick chat and just say you know we chatted about what the new bedtime routine was going to be can you just remind me what did we agree and then be quiet now if your child pretty much comes up with the right bedtime routine don't correct them it doesn't matter if the words are not exactly the same but if they've pretty come much come up with what the bedtime routine is then that's great and then just ask and what did we say the consequences were going to be if we didn't follow that rule ah okay brilliant yes fantastic thank you move on now the reason why we ask our children what their routine is i love love this saying repetition is the mother of all learning the more our children repeat back what the new routine is the more likely they are to follow it because it becomes more more embedded in them as to what that routine is going to be so we don't have to make labor it we don't have to do a huge amount but the idea is they're much more likely to do that so that talk through is just such a brilliant way of getting our children to do more of what we would like them to do when we bring up some specific flash points and we can you can create new routines with the talk through without there being any flash points you might just say well we're all with september coming up and we're going back to school uh thought it would be really good to talk about how we might make the morning routine work for example so you can use it for anything where you want to get your children actively involved in creating what that might look like so those are the talk throughs and that is more likely to encourage the behavior that we want to see you so let's go back to this idea about what are good consequences if you've been listening to this and you're thinking do you know actually mary how i think i'm i'm beginning to agree with you about this idea that punishment and discipline don't fit as consistently with me as i thought they were going to but how do i what are consequences how can i create consequences so my give for this episode is a list of consequences for some common behaviors as i'm often asked this so many times that we've created this so i'm going to give you a list of consequences for some common behaviors particular resource so remember that if you want the free resources you can access them from drmaryhand.com forward slash library more about that later so for me when we're thinking about consequences natural consequences in my mind are the ones that are the best so these are the things which naturally fall out of a particular choice of behavior so for example if you don't take a outside when it rains and natural consequences you get wet if you're not ready at 8 a.m. when the bus comes you miss it and you're late for school again another natural consequence now i am a real advocate that we try and create natural consequences as much as possible as these are likely to be the most instructive for our children because they learn so for example messing about and not going to bed when asked has a natural consequence you know the 30 to 45 minutes or even hours of minutes that we've wasted downstairs means for example a bedtime story might be missed or it might be shortened or if you read several books to your children they might only have one book read to them rather than their usual three or four another natural consequence might be that if they're not coming off their technology when they're asked that might mean they lose the privilege next time or they have a reduction in the time that's allowed another natural consequences maybe breaking your siblings toys means that you need to make good and this making good will mean that you need to replace it in some way either with your own pocket money or being gainfully employed by us so that they can work and make up the money in order to replace the broken toy so can you see that we're framing these consequences as natural consequences which would fall out of the behavior our child has chosen it's not a shoot from the hip quick punishment that we come up in that moment these are thought through obvious end products of poor choices that our children have made in those moments they don't shame our child by punishing them and and sort of you know demonizing them and telling them how bad they have been they simply instruct and when we go back to some of the don'ts that i came up with that i talked through earlier on about don't avoid long lectures or keep you know it's this idea about keeping things short and simple if our children understand that there are consequences to their behavior and particularly where we've done a talk through when we've explained to them you know what's going to happen with the new routine and what the consequences are there's no need for a long lecture it's simply you haven't done what's been asked you know the consequence to that is x y and z so that's what's happened rather than us getting caught in this laborsome long discussion of trying to teach and instruct in that moment but instead what we do when we shift away from discipline and punishment to consequences and also rewards that our children understand almost in advance that when they make that poor choice in that moment what the consequence is going to be and we don't end up battling with our children about it and so it's a much swifter much more instructive and no one feels awful afterwards so if you would like my free resource so the free resource for this podcast episode is the list of consequences for some of the common misdemeanors then do hop over to drmaryhand.com forward slash library pop in your email address and get instant access not only to this week's resource but all the other free resources across all my podcast episodes as ever if you've enjoyed this episode i'd love it if you could follow and review the podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time you
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