Consequences and punishments for children's behaviour.
I support a lot of parents who ask for help around setting boundaries and using consequences for their child’s challenging behaviour. I have a lot to say on using consequences because it’s such a huge topic and there’s so much misinformation out there! (Note before we begin that I have HUGE empathy for parents struggling with this! It’s not easy. Also, make sure you don’t miss the part on boundaries and limits at the end).
Ok, let’s jump right in! This is why we need to be VERY careful when utilising consequences for our child’s challenging, unwanted behaviour:
As parents and educators, we often unconsciously feel that ‘kids must learn!’, and ‘they need to be taught!’ otherwise they will ‘turn out bad’, or never learn what is appropriate vs inappropriate behaviour. Please hear me when I say this, when referring to giving harsh consequences and punishments for concerning behaviour, this is simply not true. This is not just my opinion. It is backed by years of neuroscience research.
When we are ‘unconscious’ parents (not intentional, or aware parents) we get caught in the trap of interpreting unwanted behaviours automatically, as pathological, when in reality they are not – they are a smoke signal, they are communication and they are rich opportunities to learn.
We have often been conditioned to see children’s unwanted behaviour as wrong, bad, naughty and something that needs resolving or suppressing (with consequences). Behaviour is not ever wrong! Yes it can certainly be inappropriate or dangerous, and I am NOT advocating for simply ignoring these. Let’s keep going…
On the surface level, challenging behaviours frustrate us as parents as we are often unaware of our triggers, or if we are aware that we struggle to manage our triggers. This leads up to feel a strong desire to ‘do something’ in response to a behaviour, such as to give consequences or punish.
Consequences can come from a ‘need’ for us as parents to fit the mould – keep up with the Joneses, and be seen to be doing something about our child’s inappropriate behaviour. In addition to this, consequences are often doled out in the heat of the moment, without enough clear, rational thought, and without genuine empathy for the child and what they are struggling with.
Often when we give out consequences to our child, we are unwittingly misinterpreting their behaviour as intentional, as though they ‘know better’, or could have made a better choice in that moment. (HUGE side note here: If they could have made a better choice in that moment, they would have. When they haven’t made a better choice, it is because they could not. Here I draw on Dr Ross Greene’s mantra, “Kids do well if they can”.)
We forget that giving consequences has an impact on our child’s brain, placing them in a stress response, potentially in fight/flight or fear mode, which is the exact opposite zone they need to be in to LEARN! So it is counter-intuitive for us to give consequences for our child to learn what to do/not do.
Consequences are often aimed at removing things from the child they enjoy or love, or separating from a parent or caregiver. This does not teach a child what the appropriate or desired behaviour is! It simply teaches them that when they fail to make the right choice, when they cannot reach our set expectation, or demonstrate a skill (e.g. sharing), then we will make them suffer and detach from them. “When our kids are their most unlovable is when they need our love the most” is a quote I love.
Consequences often miss the purpose of coaching our kids how to act, what is appropriate etc and fail to teach communication and emotional intelligence skills.
At best, when we inadvertently give out poor consequences, our child does not know what TO next time or how to solve the problem if it comes up again.
A word on PUNISHMENTS.
There are so, so many problems with punishment, some big ones being that punishments fracture the connection between us and our kids, they do not consider what is driving the behaviour (I talk a lot about the iceberg of behaviour in my Facebook lives and Youtube videos), and also that punishments usually don’t teach our child what TO do (instead of the unwanted behaviour).
Some other problems with using punishments to shape behaviour in our children are:
“Kids do well if they can”
It usually becomes less effective each time the punishment is used (I’ve worked with parents who have said they’ve removed every item their child loves and it hasn’t “worked”. Eek.)
Punishments are usually poorly timely, unrelated and irrelevant (e.g. “Because you hit your brother we aren’t going to McDonalds on Saturday.” This does not teach anything about how to interact with the brother!).
Punishments also risk escalating the situation or behaviour further. It puts the child into a stress response, aka fight/flight.
And one of the most important points for me personally, is that punishing our child creates disconnect, detachment, feelings of shame and can even lead the child to draw conclusions about themselves as a person, rather than seeing their actions or behaviour as unwanted. I have seen so many kids with such negative self-talk around being naughty, being the worst kid, useless and just plain bad.
OK, SO I SHOULDN’T HAVE CONSEQUENCES, PUNISHMENTS, OR BOUNDARIES??
No, that’s not what I’m saying! (Although it’s a clear NO on punishments!)
With this article, I urge all of us to take a few moments to really deeply reflect on how you manage your child’s challenging or unwanted behaviour. I am NOT advocating for having no boundaries, limits or rules at home – these are critical for a child’s healthy development. There are many ways in which we can set healthy boundaries to help our child learn appropriate, safe behaviour vs inappropriate, dangerous, hurtful behaviour. And also many ways to help them listen to us! But at times, because we are beautifully human, we can get carried away by some of the things I mentioned above.
If this is something you would like support on, reach out and let’s do this together. Zero judgement as we have all been there – it’s about making the choice to change and be better for our children, now and for their future.