One, of the challenges we face as parents is how to use natural and logical
consequences. Some of my answers might surprise you today. Natural and logical
consequences. That gets a lot of buzz in the parenting world
but I got to tell
You. You don't have to. You don't have to use natural and logical consequences.
Now, you can and it's a really good idea to use natural and logical consequences.
But the reason that I start with that is so that you don't tie your own hands as
a parent. You don't have to sit there thinking all day long about what are the
natural and logical consequences for my child.
In fact, by definition, you don't have to think about natural and logical
consequences. They happen naturally and logically. That's why we call them
natural and logical. Your main job as a parent when it comes to natural and
logical consequences is to not get in the way. And you don't have to wait for
natural and logical consequences. The reason I say that is because there are
times as a parent that we have to come up with some unnatural and may be
illogical consequences in order to teach our children something. School is a
really great example. There are natural and logical consequences for failing
school. And most of those come much later on in life
after you can do anything about it. All right, now having said that. Let's get to
the ways that we can use those natural and logical consequences best to teach
our children. The first tip that I would give you is to separate the emotion from
the discipline. Parents sometimes get more uptight about things than the kids
are. We want to make that as we are following through with
consequences or allowing them to happen in the case of natural consequences, that
we as parents are okay with them. Honestly, because we're doing our job
well... And what's our job? To love our kids no matter what and even if. If we're
doing our job, well, we really don't want them to have consequences because we
love them. And we don't want them to experience any kind of pain or
discomfort. Well that gets in our way as a parent. We need to separate our own
emotion from that which shifts the burden right back on to the shoulders
that it should be on. Our kids, so you're okay with the consequences. Now, secretly
you probably don't want your kids to suffer those consequences. But if you're
okay with them, then your kid has to do some more thinking about whether they're
okay with them. Think not fight. That's one of the mantras that we're always
going to practice as a parent. We want them to think not fight.
And if we're completely okay with the consequences, they have to do some more
thinking. As a parent, if you're more concerned about the consequences than
they are, they secretly trust that you are going to rescue them. And you
probably will too. That steals an opportunity from your child. We don't
want to rob our children of important learning opportunities. And that's why
it's so important to let those consequences happen. The second tip after
we separate the emotion from the discipline is to be consistent. You
probably already know this. And you've probably told yourself, "Oh, I need to be
more consistent as a parent." And probably you do. I think we all do. Consistency is
what helps children to start to learn the importance of their own choices. If
we're in consistent, a lot of times what happens is that our
children start to monitor our mood as the indicator as to whether there's
going to be a consequence or not. We don't want this to be tied to our mood.
We want it to be tied to their choices. So consistently, we follow through with
or allow consequences to happen. And this leads me right into my third tip for you
today. Which is to use empathy instead of anger. Remember, natural and logical
consequences aren't going to happen. Because they're natural and logical. All
we have to do is stay out of the way. A lot of times because we don't want our
kids to experience those consequences, we get angry. In fact, we go back to the
3 hours of parenting. Do you remember these? Rant, rave and rescue. Yeah, we bough
them out and bail them out. That never works very well and there's a lot of
psychological reasons why that's true. Instead of anger, we go to empathy. And
check it out. Why are you getting angry anyway? Because your child violated one
of your rules or standard or brought about a consequence in their own life.
And because you don't really want them to have the consequence, you bail them
out. But because you feel responsible as a parent to teach them something, you
ball them out too. Ball them out and bail them out. Rant, rave and rescue. It doesn't work.
All it teaches our children is that our mood is what matters. Not their choices.
And they have to put up with a little bit of noise but they're not really
going to get a consequence. Empathy is when we understand and care how someone
else feels. You already care. I know you do. You love
your child. And that's why you don't want them to have the consequence. But if you
bail them out from the consequence, you're going to feel like you have to ball
them out after that to make sure they learn their lesson. And it usually ends
with something like, "Eell next time, you make sure that...." Or
whatever, right? If you're saying next time, probably you just bail them out. How
about this time? Let the consequence happen. And then show empathy. You put
your arm around your little one. You pull them in tight and you say, "Oh, sweetie.
This is hard isn't it?" Not in a sarcastic i-told-you-so sort of a way. That's not
going to work. But with true empathy. Because you do
care about how they feel. This empathy reinforces in their mind the importance
of the choice that led them into the consequence in the first place. And
that's what we want them to learn. Use empathy instead of anger. Congratulations
for being such a conscious parent. I am so thrilled that you're here on this
channel watching these videos. If you want to really power-up your parenting,
Vicky and I have put together a course. It's called the parenting Power-Up. You
can connect to it right over there or there's a link down in the
description as well. You're going to get some resources that help you to feel
more confident as a parent. Hope to see you there.