To think natural consequences are frustratingly ineffective???

[Motherofrascals]

Or maybe I just have super resilient kids who give zero fucks?

I'm rather environmentally minded. I don't buy much and take care of what I have. I'm trying to teach my children the same values. They're still pretty little (KS1) and absolute whirlwinds with zero observation skills. I have no idea how they can step on stuff and not even seem to notice, I'd definitely be making a donation to the swear jar if I stepped on a hot wheels car barefooted.

Originally I liked the idea of 'natural consequences', ie if you break something and it can't be fixed then we don't have that thing anymore. If you refuse to put on your shoes you get cold feet (we've not ever had this, was just an example I read on here recently), if you delay and delay when I'm trying to get us out of the house then you miss your playdate. However, they genuinely do not care. When they break something through careless/reckless behaviour I don't replace it (example would be a self inflating whoopee cushion they got in a party bag. I said if they treat it too rough it'll break, it did, it went in the bin, noone was even slightly sad despite having played with it non stop for days and giggling like fools every time). If something is a genuine accident then that's a different conversation imo.

At the moment I feel like the only person affected by natural consequences is me. I dislike the waste from broken things, I'm them one uncomfortable being late or cancelling last minute, I wouldn't want them getting sick being outside with no shoes on or having to carry them

They're polite, imaginative, awesome little people in so many ways, and a huge part of me admires that they're so resilient/will make a toy or game out of anything. But this lack of caring about their things/even slightly regretting when something is broken is grating on me. We're not a well off family. We don't have a lot of stuff. I really thought that would mean someone would be motivated to care for what they do have but it doesn't seem to work that way at all.

Natural consequences only work if it makes sense to a child.

I let my dd go out of the house in bare feet because she would not wear socks or wellies. Once her bare foot touched the cold concrete, she turned around and asked for shoes. She never complained again because that moment of discomfort of cold feet is something that she never wanted to feel again.

Yabu to think that the kids would care about personalised mugs. My kids had favourite mugs and cups but if one broke, they’d be unbothered. (If their sibling had the cup then that’s a different matter)

Is it possible that you have more stuff than you think? There’s always people with more stuff so you might think that your kids don’t have much toys but with something like Hot Wheels, kids usually have multiple so the loss of one isn’t a big deal. This is especially true if that HW had been on the floor for a while or if it’s almost Christmas/birthday and assume that it’s likely to be replaced.

Whoopie cushions and party bags are usually designed for temporary pleasure and your kids are old enough to know this. It’s a matter of time before there’s another party and hopefully new laughs. It also takes time to miss something sometimes.

Surely the natural consequence of breaking someone else's stuff is that person being upset, and cross with the person who broke it? Not shrugging and going, "oh well, now I don't have a lamp"?

When my friends' giant dog (which they cannot control) knocked over and smashed my nice side table and bowl, I was upset and they paid for the damage.

Obviously the kids aren't going to learn to respect things and keep their home nice, if they learn that everything in it is dispensable and unimportant to the adults.

Just being alive is bad for the environment... If you feel strongly about doing your bit then just model this behaviour and talk to your children about environmentally friendly choices.
Stressing about a broken whoopee cushion or mug is pointless, won't help the environment and will make you miserable.

Why not simply don’t buy stuff that will break like ceramic mugs, use melamine until they are older. Buy as robust toys as you can get/afford, have fun making things with them that will naturally deteriorate, or fall apart after a few days/weeks/months. I applaud your natural consequences approach, but simply take it a stage further and buy for longevity, or get creative and make not having something for keeps actually fun. They are only small children, learning how to treasure something special won’t happen quickly, it takes a bit of time, but worth sowing the seeds early. Have fun😊

Just don’t look for short term results. Stay consistent, continue your policies, and hang in there. It takes a long, long time to imprint things on kids, but long term consistent application of the same strategies will, in the end, make it clear to them, and the things you are teaching them will be part of who they are for life.

I think you need to give some real consequences. They don't have to be massive they just need to be consistent and proportionate. They break a cheap whoopee cushion. You don't replace it. They break an item that belongs to you or an expensive toy through being silly or careless then the consequence might be no pocket money or stay in your room for half an hour to reflect before apologising or no treat on whatever day.

👏 👏 👏

Natural consequences are awesome, but you have to understand the problem. If you don’t want to be late, then you are the one with a problem. Kids don’t give a monkeys about being late. If you wants something to be nice, then you have to keep it nice. You can’t expect them to.

Natural consequences come when the child won’t like the consequence.

These ones worked brilliantly for me-

Be ready for school everyday, go to bed when you want. Be late for school and go to bed at 8pm. Still late for school? 7.30pm.

Spill food and drink in the lounge? All food and drink stays in the kitchen. Bring all empties back to the kitchen, pay attention so you don’t spill the drink? You can have snacks and drinks in the lounge.

Smash the nice mug? Go back to using plastic crockery until you are better at paying attention.

It’s your job to create an environment your dc thrive in. Giving them a china mug then nagging them relentlessly and getting upset when it breaks isn’t particularly productive.

You have young whirlwinds. Don’t buy things that need care. When they are ready to care for something, let them choose it. If they want special red gloves with furry trim, they show you they can keep hold of both gloves for a couple of weeks.

They will look after things they care about.

@myplace ,

‘Be ready for school everyday, go to bed when you want. Be late for school and go to bed at 8pm. Still late for school? 7.30pm.
Spill food and drink in the lounge? All food and drink stays in the kitchen. Bring all empties back to the kitchen, pay attention so you don’t spill the drink? You can have snacks and drinks in the lounge.
Smash the nice mug? Go back to using plastic crockery until you are better at paying attention.’

All very sensible consequences, but none of them natural.

They are just normal consequences/punishments that most sensible parents use.

Children break toys sometimes, especially cheap crappy things like whoopee cushions. Chill out.

The natural consequence to them breaking the doors off the dolls house should have been that you removed this toy on the basis they arent ready to look after it properly. Not just leave it there for them to continue playing with

I was expecting you to describe some actual naughty behaviour! I would be absolutely exhausted if I was getting hung up on how to manage your examples. But my kids have SEN so we all have different challenges I suppose.

I kind of like the idea of natural consequences but it hard to think of any meaningful ones for the situations I have to manage. And of course we are told that ‘normal’ parenting doesn’t work for SEN kids.

Natural consequences do nothing for my older kid and likely won’t for a long time - he’s learning the theory but doesn’t have the executive function to halt the activity. For my youngest he understands a bit, but he’s 2.

They also only work if the kids care about the consequence. That’s the nice thing being an adult! I understand what happens if I eat too much cake and get a tummy ache and sometimes I do it anyway!

For breaking house stuff I would interupt the behaviour earlier - if they disregard the next warning about the cup, it gets taken away. If I’ve told you to stop climbing in the sink and flooding the house, you go in time out AND we brainstorm less destructive behaviours. For hitting you go in time out if you can’t remove yourself to calm down.

Watching cheap stuff break is hard for me bit like pp said, it’s the fault of the manufacturer and purchaser. I talk about the environment with my kids and our choices but I don’t expect it to sink in yet.

Activities are hard - like acting up in a restaurant we should remove them after one warning. But for leaving the house I try to start leaving sooner. I also talk to my kids about expectations now vs when they are bigger - like I did a big toy declutter (to store not throw out) yesterday and talked my older (5) son through it. He didn’t want it but I explained he is too small to put everything away and when he is bigger and keeps his toys put away I won’t do this, but for now we can only keep out the ones I can manage to put away.

I think a lot of gentle parenting stuff glosses over how to actual enforce boundaries and consequences.

When my son runs in the road I will grab him either gently or roughly however I can and I will yell. My youngest gets his snowsuit on backwards and socks over his mittens so he keeps it on. When my oldest touches a hot stove he gets yelled at. Yelling isn’t needed for spilling a drink, but it is okay for actual danger.

Do they have too much stuff?

My 3 year old is careful with his things and would be heartbroken if they broke. We don't have a lot of things.

They are young to get it now, but keep it going. I wish I had done it with my shiftless, entitled late teens. We are finally exposing them to it, instead of me fixing everything and it’s not pleasant.

You getting cross when they break your stuff is actually a natural consequence. It's what would happen with anyone else outside the family.

There's a middle ground between screaming at them.and not telling them off at all.

I think natural consequences are fine in situations that a) aren't urgent and b) don't matter a great deal in the wider scheme of things. They are valuable teaching moments about how the world works. I just think most people use them without labelling it as anything.

So for my son he knows the amount of time we have for bedtime stories is dependent on him getting into pyjamas and teeth brushed in time. Or that if he's not ready for nursery quickly in the morning we won't have time to go there on his scooter and we'll have to get in the car which he doesn't want to do. That sort of thing.

This is excellent advice.

You've articulated that a lot of the time there needs to be a parental intervention before a natural consequence.

Natural consequences are just one type of tool in parenting, it shouldnt be relied on as a whole

Some things just dont fit with natural consequences and there are other expectations in life about consequences that dont just affect the child/person, so a consequence sometimes has to take effect because you have hurt someone else or broken a law or rule or something.

Natural consequences only really work when they are old enough to make the link between x and y and when y matters to them enough. Until then adults need to set and reinforce boundaries, being consistent in their response.

So breaking the dolls house would either mean helping me fix it if the child is old enough or removing it and not replacing it, because breaking the doors leaves sharp edges. Not caring for a ceramic cup would mean the cup being removed, because letting them use it until it’s broken doesn’t teach them to care for their belongings, it teaches them that things are disposable. Hot wheels left on the floor get picked up at tidy up time.

I can’t think of a way of parenting that doesn’t mean imposing consequences at some point, and I do subscribe to therapeutic parenting because my kids are adopted and have early trauma in the mix. They still need clear boundaries.

I think natural consequences have a place, but for some of those little broken things that they actually don’t care about there’s not a lot of consequence there. I think all you can do is try to drill it into them to pick up toys once they’re done playing with them, and also to accept yourself that some of that stuff will inevitably get broken. For stuff like breaking other people’s things and leaving the house in time for social engagements I think it’s less a case of natural consequences and more of firm boundaries about how we treat other people, and a row here and there when deserved is absolutely fine.

Yep this.
Natural consequences are utterly impractical and it’s a bs concept

It takes time! You also have to accept that they are just less bothered than you about certain things. They have enough toys so they're not upset when something breaks.

I do think natural consequences are very important though. I've just had a quick look now and can't find it but I've seen research that suggests prisoners don't understand natural consequences and that illogical consequences (most punishments) in particular can lead to people just feeling like bad things inexplicably happen to them. Which is a vicious cycle of more antisocial behaviour.

You need to work with the child you've got. The natural consequence for us was more along the lines of helping to clear up the mess, helping to fix the problem rather than just binning the toy. They sound like nice kids to me. What DO they value if not stuff?

If there are a lot of breakages in your house, maybe the natural consequence (on you) has been the normalising of breakages!

I agree with egging up or manipulating the natural consequences. So recently one of mine threw something carelessly and it dented his sister’s guitar. Well it’s not reasonable for him to replace the guitar but he could afford to buy guitar strings for her. Vaguely related consequences was is as good as we could get.

But there’s a line between natural consequence and neglect eg wearing no shoes in the frost and getting frostbite is neglectful, nit a natural consequence