I got this question recently from one of the parents engaged in our coaching programs.
What if my child just doesn't care about consequences? As a clinical psychologist, it's a little hard for
me to believe that your child really doesn't care about the consequences. But I think there's four
possibilities of why they're saying that all four are important, let's consider all of them.
-One possibility for your child acting like they don't care
about the consequences is they're trying to get you off course from holding to the consequences.
-It's like they're trying to let the air out of your balloon. -Yeah, this is especially true
sometimes when you come you haven't maybe been sticking to your guns with your consequences
and now you're you're recommitted and you've set up those consequences and they're trying to see
if they can, "Wait... I don't want mom to have control of this. I'm going to see if I can just
show I don't care and set her off course." -So that might come across as, I don't care
about that. -I don't care if you take that away -Or the more common one, whatever. -Don't forget the eye
roll you got it. -I'm not even sure what that means, whatever. They're trying to
derail the whole discipline process, that's only a possibility. We've got three other possibilities
we'll talk about. But if this is what you suspect is going on with your child. I think one of the
most powerful things that you can do is call their bluff. -So, what do you mean? -So for example, if you're
a teenager let's say, that you got a 12-13-year-old and the consequence that you're going to use
is restriction from a video game system, alright. That's a pretty common scenario and they say,
"I don't care... about that game anyway or whatever." Okay, they're trying to throw you off then
your response is, "Oh good, I was afraid you'd be really upset about it, That makes it easier for me",
-And then you follow through right -And right you do not remove the consequence. You call their
bluff and then you're like, "Oh good... I was afraid you'd be really upset about it. But
this is better", and then there it's back on their shoulders. -And you're not buying into their
I don't careness right? You're just going with it. -That's why I called it a bluff. If you're
calling their bluff, you're identifying it as oh okay, you're saying that for other reasons and
then you move forward at face value that's how you call the bluff. Here's another possibility.
Sometimes kids get into a position where they feel discouraged or helpless.
Like nothing that they do matters anyway. -And that whatever might be a little whatever.
Because they feel like maybe they don't have any control at all about any of their outcomes and
this might be a trigger for you to take a good look at your parenting style. Maybe some of the
things you've been doing. Have you been following through? Have you been setting clear limits
and then sticking to them? -The consistency like you pointed out Vicky, this is really important for
them to start to understand, "Oh, the consequences get tied up with the behaviors, I get it." If it's
been inconsistent they might not feel that their behavior even matters. Maybe it's up to mom's mood.
-That's a really tricky thing. So yeah, that's why you're going to look at your parenting. But there's
another really important thing is, have they been getting credit for the good things that they do?
-Right, we get into a trap sometimes as parents especially with our older kids and our teens
of constantly disciplining them. Have you ever felt like that? Like everything that you're doing is
correcting their behavior. Well, guess what? They're feeling it too and that's not all that's
happening. That's just what gets your attention. It's kind of like pain, I sprained my little finger
several months ago and I remember lying there in bed and thinking, "Oh, I'm in so much pain."
Really? I'm in this much pain. It's like one inch of my body and everything else is fine.
But I don't notice all of that because of the pain and we have that pain factor kick in sometimes.
We notice the misbehavior and we pay attention to it. So one way to correct that is to start becoming a
radar for good behavior you're looking for it. You're trying to catch them doing the things that
you want them to do. Doing the things that are appropriate the things that you approve of
and give them some positive feedback about that. -Again, we're just trying to bring back
let them know that what they do does matter. -And then, your consequences become more effective too.
They will care about those consequences when they have something to compare it to.
Back to the topic really soon. Before we do that, you've got five seconds to click on that subscribe
button to become a more positive parent 4, 3, 2, 1. It's related to what we've already
brought up. So there's different possibilities why your kids are giving you the message that
they don't care about the consequences. One of the possibilities is that they don't believe you.
They simply don't believe you. Vicky, you kind of referred to this earlier.
This has to do with our consistency and think about this for a moment. There are two kinds of
machines that can can illustrate different styles of parenting. Slot machine, alright. We went on
a trip to Las Vegas, you can't go anywhere in Las Vegas without seeing slot machines and
people are feeding their money or swiping their card or whatever and playing these slot machines
and what typically happens when they play the slot machine? -Nothing, so what do they do? -They do
it again. -Right, do it again still nothing. But every once in a while...
it pays off right and everybody's like, "Whoa, what's going on? They actually pump
sound into those casinos of that happening to keep you playing, but that's another video.
So, the slot machine pays off sometimes but not every time and people will play that forever.
What about a vending machine? You put your money in the vending machine push the button what happens?
-You get your drink .-Right, you get your drink or your pastry or whatever it is
that you paid for, it comes out. What if it doesn't? -You don't put another quarter in.
-Right, you don't keep feeding the vending machine money. You go complain to the management. -Oh, this
must be broke", have another dollar. You're gonna take care of it right? -If you complain to the
management of the casino that the slot machine didn't pay off. What do you think this is? But
a vending machine you expect it to pay off every time and if it doesn't you know something's wrong
and you don't keep playing it. Sometimes kids keep playing their parents because of the inconsistency.
What we want to do is turn from a slot machine into a vending machine and really what we're
asking you to do in your parenting style is be willing to look at your own parenting style,
be curious, "My kid doesn't seem to care about the consequence", and be curious is that, "Something going
on with him or could it be something going on with my parenting?". -There's a lot of possibilities of
what might be going on. I saved this last possibility for last because I want to have a
serious conversation for a minute about something else that could be happening. Now, the others are
probably more likely. So consider those three possibilities the other possibility is that
your child is dealing with some depression and I'm using that as a clinical term right now. As a
as a clinical psychologist, I know that depression sometimes takes away your interest
in things that you normally would be interested in. Its not always sadness okay and for kids a
lot of times it's more related to irritability or sometimes behavioral issues. Then it is to
the way we typically would think about depression. It gets into their thinking and it can affect how
they respond to your consequences. -If you have an inkling that this could be what's going on
look at the rest of their life too. Are they showing some apathy about activities that they
have generally enjoyed doing. Have they stopped wanting to engage in those activities or hang out
with those people that they used to find joy with? -And that's my experience too Vicky, I think it's
not limited to, "Oh my kid doesn't care about the consequences, I'm bringing up."
You're going to see a decline in school performance. You're going to see them withdrawing from
some of their regular social connections. Like you said other activities that they're normally
engaged in. So, take a step back and look at the bigger picture and that's going to give
you some clues as to which of these possibilities might be the most likely for your child. If you
begin to suspect or you have some clear indicators that it's this last possibility that there's
some depression going on jump on that. There are professionals in most communities, you look around
your community. There are psychologists and social workers and therapists and counselors and coaches
that can help you to help your child. Don't hesitate to access those professional services
if it's needed. That could go a long way toward helping with this and other concerns that are
coming up for your kid. All of this talk about consequences and how it relates to our kids
might have you wanting some more information about that. We've got five powerful secrets for teaching
kids responsibility. That video is up next, go watch that one and we'll take you another step forward.