Natural consequences when toddler doesn't care?

[Cindy1802]

Looking for some advice from mamas who have walked this path. My LB has just turned 3, and is very bright, interactive, his speech is amazing, and has endless energy - he will literally run up and down the hallway and round the kitchen table in laps doing his "gym" or "parkrun". He is also very physical - he pretends he is a rugby player or gladiator and scrum us out of nowhere. He is an amazing little boy, great company and a lot of fun, but has always been a bit of a handful!

Anyway back to the real question. He's got to the age where we discipline and boundaries is really needing to come into play. I have been reading up on respectful parenting, and the use of natural consequences rather than punishment. I can see how it works in some instances, e.g. throwing a toy, take it away if it doesn't stop (he is a thrower so this is a relevant example!). However in a lot of instances I don't know what the natural consequence would be, and therefore how I work the situation. A few examples;

1. Brushing his teeth. Sometimes he just refuses because he would rather run around and avoid bedtime. I don't necessarily agree with just letting him say no, as surely he will just remember that he doesn't have to brush his teeth whenever he fancies? What is the natural consequence here - we've explained its important to look after teeth etc, but he doesn't care that his teeth might rot?! He just looks me square in the eye and says no , and sometimes throws his toothbrush. The throwing bit I am almost sure he does cos he knows he isn't meant to. But if I then remove the toothbrush, that's the perfect end for him?

1. Kicking and hitting. He sometimes does this mid tantrum if it's a big one, but I can handle those instances. I know that's an impulse he can't control and he is getting out a frustration. But he sometimes does it out of badness if we're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want to do, e.g. get ready for bed, I can almost see the cogs in his brain turning and it's a conscious decision to hit, again cos he knows he shouldn't. What's the natural consequence here?! If I remove myself from the situation, then I'm walking away from him which I've read I shouldn't do - I shouldn't abandon him when he's being challenging.

1. Getting dressed. He is awful at getting dressed in the morning, he has so much energy he is bouncing on the bed, running around upstairs, playing with his toys, we have to wrestle him into his clothes which I am trying to stop doing. But when he says no, the natural consquence would be that we can't go to the park, soft play, to see nana etc. But not going isn't very often an option?! We go places as a family, I might be meeting a friend for a play date, or quite simply, he has so much energy he can't be cooped up all day as he would be climbing the walls and I HATE days like those, all I do is wish the day away because he is so hard to entertain all day in the house.

I want to handle these scenarios in the best way, with setting sensible boundaries. I don't want him to rule the household, but I'm not sure I know what I'm doing some of the time.

For toothbrushing I'd lock myself in the bathroom with him and say we have to brush our teeth or they will go black and fall out. Show him age appropriate videos about this and talk about it with him. Brush your teeth too so that he's always seeing that it's something everyone has to do.

I'd sit in the bathroom, toothbrush at the ready and say "we're not leaving here until we've brushed your teeth. We can put a fun song on while we brush if you'd like." I have a YouTube playlist of toothbrushing songs and 2.5 year old son chooses which song he'd like to listen to.

Kicking/hitting/biting at his age now need actual consequences and punishments. Pick something that matters to him and use that as a punishment for hurting other people.

For getting dressed you can wait til he asks for something he wants. "Can I have an apple juice/watch such-and-such/go to the park?" "Yes as soon as you're dressed." You shouldn't be waiting long, there's always something they want. I do this with my 2.5 year old old the time. "I want a snack" "we can have a snack once we've tidied these toys away"... and he does.

Well that's exactly my point, the tooth decay threat is hardly going to work so i havent used it, hence why I was looking for suggestions. What would the actual consequences be that you would suggest?

For the toothbrushing thing, try showing him a picture on your phone of a child with rotting teeth ' Woah! This little boy didn't ever brush his teeth, so they've gone all yukky and black and broken, look! Let's brush yours super-well so that doesn't happen to you!' He might be a bit little yet, but it's been extremely effective with children of 5 or so who I've babysat for. You can give it a go!

Thanks all, some really helpful comments. I do think I have been over thinking it. I don't think full on gentle parenting is for me, but I want to ultimately ensure he is always comfortable talking to us and coming to us - my parents ruled with an iron fist and I never had the confidence to confide in them when I had done wrong. So I'm trying to find a balance somewhere. But I think a lot of the responses have shown me my gut instinct isn't wrong and I don't need to over think it.

For those who think natural consequences are a fad, please do suggest what you would do rather than just telling me its rubbish? And I don't mean that argumentally, I genuinely am looking for suggestions - I am new to this natural consequences and having issues with it workkng in all scenarios, hence my post!!

I think if you read more around gentle parenting, you'll see quite a bit about when "natural consequences" are not appropriate. Safety is one of these - would you let your toddler run out into the road for the natural consequences of not holding your hand? No you wouldn't, you'd make him hold your hand and if he refused and it was unsafe you'd carry him to keep him safe. Ditto safety of others - hitting is not ok because it hurts other people, if you can't stop hitting then I will have to remove myself/you/your sibling to keep everyone safe. Long term health is another - e.g teeth brushing.

I don't know what a natural consequence is supposed to be. I can give examples of how I've dealt with certain behaviour in this past week. We're all just winging it and doing our best so I agree with PPs that sometimes you need to not overthink it. Be firm but fair.

Son threw his toy hard and it smashed irreparably. "Daddy can fix it" he said. I showed him that it was too broken for daddy to fix and was also sharp and dangerous now and had him put it in the bin. He was sad so I cuddled him and said what a shame it was. "We don't throw toys because it's dangerous and they break." I would never bin a toy as a punishment for something unrelated but perhaps this is what you mean by natural consequence. The toy was now sharp and dangerous and I wanted him to be part of the process of it being thrown away. If I did it when he wasn't looking how would he learn?

Son hit his friend at a play date. Continued to do so after being told firmly no and removed. So we called it a day and left the play date, agreeing to meet up again another day at the park. The kids are young and sometimes it's too much for them in their own homes to share toys. We do better on "neutral ground". We'll take a break from play dates and try again in a couple of months.

Watching telly on the couch with him and cuddling. All lovely till he got a bit giddy and made to bite me on my cheek. I moved him away from me, stood up and switched the programme off. I said "I do not want to watch telly with someone trying to bite me." That one got a "sorry" from him and a cuddle and we resumed watching in peace and quiet.

Tipped toys all over his bedroom. Fine, I ignored it and left him to his playing. When he came to me later and asked me to play with him and build something with his magnet tiles I said "we can do that when all of these toys are tidied away. Then we'll have space to play". He started tidying and I helped him. High five afterwards for a job well done.

Yes, I would and I have. My dd was the most stubborn child in the world and if she didn’t want to get dressed she would just sit, doing nothing, and refuse. Fighting with her to put clothes on wasn’t ever a battle I thought worth having. I usually just waited it out and she eventually got dressed by herself. I was lucky that I was a sahp in those days, and didn’t often have anywhere to be urgently.

The term is new but probably the concept is as old as time. Do something and there is a negative or positive consequence.

Don't eat your dinner go to bed hungry or don't get pudding. Eat your dinner get pudding. Have parents putting this into practice over the last 100+ years called this natural consequences? Absolutely not.
Also very few parents throughout history would say you didn't get dressed this morning so you go to bed without dinner. There has always been some natural order to the rhythm of the day and an action has a consequence to come thing that comes next.

The term natural consequences is relatively new to me and I have applied it retrospectively to the examples I gave. Gentle parenting gets a mixed response but there are very few parents that start the day wanting to shout at their kids. Most people start wanting to have good moments with their kids where they listen and do what asked. It doesn't happen for all of the day but if you can approach parenting in a calm gentle and compassionate way for most of the day. Be firm when needed, be measured and proportional when things don't go to plan. At the end of the day critique your parenting in a calm gentle and compassionate way you can't get it right all of the time but you won't have got it wrong all of the time either. There are definitely times when reflectively I missed a cue and because of that we ended in a pickle or I had said something that was ammunition to the fire not water. I try to repeat these two slips too often but I don't use it to beat myself either. Try to not name every thing parenting wise it ties you up in knots about if you are doing it "right"

Great post, well said.