What are some consequences you give to your child that actually work?

[TherapyAndChips]

I work with lots of parents who feel stuck when their child doesn’t listen, especially around behaviour like saying “no” or ignoring instructions. I'm a children's wellbeing practitioner and often talk with parents about natural consequences, but I’d love to hear from other parents about what consequences have actually worked for your child. Sometimes I find that consequences are either too severe which causes more of an argument/tantrum, or not severe enough so the child doesn't care when they have to face that consequence. Any advice would be really valuable!

None.

My kids can't think 30 seconds ahead, no threat of withholding future stuff has any effect at all. 😡

Green, it’s the same here. DS takes no notice of anything like withholding treats etc… Be just screams louder when hears that.

I would love advice from you though, TandC. I feel like whether it’s “talking” or “threats” I’m just not getting it right…

Natural consequences all the way and these tend to be very low impact tbh. Example: if you don’t wear your coat, you’ll have to carry it and you might get cold and have to put it on.

I’m all for real discipline which means ‘to make a disciple/follower of’ - it’s about connecting with the child emotionally, understanding what they need and what’s driving them, and addressing the need calms them and brings them into connection with you. Then they naturally want to follow your lead because it feels good to them, and all these bothersome things like kids saying no or hitting or whatever just don’t ever occur.

Natural consequences have worked well in my experience of working with parents. Eg. "Not coming down for dinner when asked = food gets cold". The more logical consequences though are harder to get right and seem to cause further conflict sometimes. I encourage parents to give their child a choice, such as, "If you're not off your device by 8pm, you don't get to use it tomorrow night at all", so then it's up to the child to decide. Parents must stick to the consequence though the next day for that to be successful. Encouraging the family to create some family rules has always worked well in my practice. Eg. "No devices after 8pm / at the dinner table". But I wonder if anyone has anything else that works well?

I encourage parents to give their child a choice, such as, "If you're not off your device by 8pm, you don't get to use it tomorrow night at all", so then it's up to the child to decide.

I wouldn’t use choice in this kind of scenario tbh (and it isn’t even a choice - you’re telling the child what’s going to happen) but think it’s probably age/development dependent. With a younger child/tween this could come off as a threat and sets things up as a conflict - it doesn’t create safety in the relationship, and it makes the child work hard beyond their years (having to look out for their needs before they’re really capable of that). I think a better way to use choice for children/tweens is when you as the parent are okay with either outcome e.g. ‘do you want cucumber or carrots with dinner?’

What works with devices in my house (tween age) is saying something like, ‘we need to switch off devices as you’ll be tired for school tomorrow morning if we don’t. So please wrap up your game and we’ll switch off in 5 minutes.’ And then enforce that. It gives them notice (time for the nervous system to adjust), it’s reasonable (the same boundary you’d hold for yourself as an adult) and the child is held in the safety of a transparent boundary and the emotional rest of an adult taking charge and caring for their needs.

Mine will readily switch off when he’s told now as he’s learned that when we don’t (and I’ve held my hands up that that was my lack of enforcement rather than him doing anything wrong) he feels sleepy for school the next day. So natural consequences of us not getting it right together mean he’s learned how to treat himself well.

You have to work out what motivates the child. Two of my kids screen time does not work as an incentive or a disincentive because screen time is not what motivates them. Screen time is the filler between more interesting things, but fun activities outside the home work better. Eg. If you tidy your room we can go bowling. For my other child, who hates going out, then that wouldn’t work, because not being allowed to come on an outing would feel like a reward (the reward of screen time at home!) but then you can use screen time as an incentive or a disincentive. So it is individual to the child. But people will still say to me “why don’t you limit screen time with those two?” Because I don’t need to. Honestly, sometimes I actively promote screen time. Because a movie and some popcorn is a great indoor activity on an a rainy or low energy day, and I can’t maintain the level of activity they want. It’s easier in the summer, with parks to go to, but in the winter it’s so expensive rotating between soft play, cinema, bowling, etc. sometimes I wish they would watch a screen for more than 10 minutes! But then my other child, we have to find some limits together or it takes over, and the work is around encouraging more time out and about

None for my ND children. They misbehave because they’ve forgotten rules or they’re dysregulated.

What works is

• saying their name before giving instructions
• giving short direct instructions
• reminding them of behaviour expectations before every situtation/activity
• making sure they get enough proporceptive input

You don’t tell them the consequences in advance, you just tell them there will be one if they don’t do/stop x by the time you count to 3. Then they don’t get to decide whether the bad behaviour is worth the consequences or not.
It also gives you time to think of a consequence rather than thinking of one in the spot and then later regretting it.
I also used to say “well we were going to do x, but now we are not” when I had no intention of doing it in the first place. But they thought they’d had a consequence.

If you always follow through after counting to 3, they know you mean it. You’ll have to reinforce it occasionally, but it doesn’t take many consequences for the message to get through again.

We don’t do time outs or anything like that, I just make it clear that we have to give and take with each other. If he says “I don’t want to brush my teeth!” I’ll say to him “I can’t be bothered brushing my teeth either but I do it because I like having cake and chocolate and ice cream sometimes and I want my teeth to stay strong and healthy so I can keep eating these things. If you don’t brush your teeth we can’t bake cakes together tomorrow like you asked because your teeth won’t be strong enough to eat sugary cakes.” If he still moans I’d say, “If you waste time arguing with me about it we’ll not have enough time for bedtime stories, the moon is nearly on your Yoto.”

He responds to things being fair. There’s always some way that I can explain things as being teamwork. I always say “you help me, I help you.”

For us, if it's something that has to get done it gets done.

So e.g. not putting shoes on when asked, the consequence is that we go together to the shoes and I put them on for her. Same with brushing teeth. It gets done, screaming and crying if necessary.

Not turning the TV off when asked, I'll give her one opportunity by asking if she wants to press the button or I should, usually then she just does it.

We also immediately reward good behaviour with a star for her jar

She's only 4 so 'you won't/will get XYZ later' doesn't work

It really depends on the child. They're all motivated by different things, and also have different levels of general "agreeableness"! ( @Yourethebeerthief I think you got lucky!).

I generally try to stick with "natural consequences" but sometimes you need to go for the nuclear option. E.g. when mine was about 3 she ran out into the road 😱. I picked her up, took her straight home, kicking and screaming (we had been heading to the park), and said no TV for the rest of the day (she's a screen fiend). It was a miserable evening for all of us but since then she has been really pretty good at not running out (obviously touching wood here, and recognising that she's still a child and can't be fully relied on with anything, least of all road safety!).

They need to know that you're serious and will follow through!

I don’t know. I have a 3 year old and it’s chaos half the time so I know I dont have the answers.

We do a combo of lots above.

Giving options and Informing of the decisions and the 5 minute countdown similar to @FloraBotticelli

Also similar to @Brokenforsummer sometimes. The prepping and the direct instruction is easier to follow for a 3 year old. My son does react well to these broken down simple tasks and pre explanation of boundaries.

@4forksache ‘s countdown works very well for me. Son moves straight away before or on first number. My partner does it and he doesn’t listen at all. He is not consistent with the consequence.

And also Story telling like @Yourethebeerthief . I think that is my strength actually. I am very quick at these and my son is 3 so has no idea I’m pretty much lieing. Although I do try to link it to reality also. So it’s not a full lie.

Ie. You have to drink water/ put on this sunscreen or you will dehydrate like a raisin. And I explain that a raisin is a grape who didn’t wear sunscreen / drink water.

Or when he was being really naughty I told him about the police. And how they come and collect people who are being naughty and send them to permanent bedtime. He didn’t believe me so I showed him the police cells online with the cell bed and said but your not a naughty boy so you won’t go there but you need to stop this behaviour because this is what naughty boys do do and the police men might get confused. That did work and he did turn a corner after a rough patch. He told everyone about the baddies and the police and bedtime for a while 😂

Must brush teeth because otherwise you won’t be allowed to eat biscuits and the dentist will tell you off.

Various other stories. So yes I am lying sometimes but I am also not IYSWIM. It’s metaphorical.

Hi I used to work on a 3 strikes rule and tech would be lost. We only ever really got to 2. I am probably super old fashioned but I started early on with discipline and my ds is now nearly 18 and I’m told has lovely manners and more. I was strict about things but progressive in other ways as showed my ds I would stick to what I said. I once was working with a barrister who took her son’s plug for the games machine to court with her in her bag! The most important thing my ds loved was football so the thought of losing that was the deal breaker. In other words whatever is the most important thing is the one that is potentially lost. It worked. Banning/ grounding never worked. Sometimes I gave a choice of what would be lost if a behaviour continued and that worked too. Good luck ☺️

Devices get charged on Mondays. If you go on it every night it will run out before the weekend.

If you aren’t ready for school on time in the morning, we’ll do lights out ten minutes earlier tonight so you get more rest.

I think it’s just about finding what motivates them as you say, and following through every time.

Mine can kick up a fuss like any child can, but if he’s told “brush your teeth now or there will be no time for bedtime stories” he’ll brush his teeth, because he doesn’t want to go straight to bed without bedtime stories. And he will be put straight to bed, and he knows it. No need for shouting or drama, he knows the deal.

After being told the reasons why we brush our teeth, and being told that he’d waste his time for stories if he doesn’t brush his teeth now, if he still refused… well he’d be in bed with no stories and the next day when he asked for a biscuit at some point I’d say “ah but remember you didn’t brush your teeth last night…” This has happened once before and never again. I don’t need to shout or pin him down to brush his teeth. He learns that he has to come and go with us to have the things he likes in life- he learns that we all need to work together.

I put in a lot of hard work teaching him the effects of his behaviour and not working with us as a team. It’s far more than simple luck. If I was lucky he would do as he’s told all the time but he’s a fiery 4 year old. Of course it takes hard work to teach him these things.

I don’t invent stories to get my son to behave, I tell him the truth. I would exercise caution telling him that the police lock up naughty children. Personally, I don’t think that’s a good approach with a 3 year old.

@Nchangeo Showing pictures of police cells is a novel idea that made me smile; much more easily done now than when we were children. I’m not sure about the idea of turning the police into the enemy, though. Maybe showing prison cells and saying “this is where adults end up who didn’t learn to be good children” can work. I remember being shocked as a child to learn that prison was real; I thought it was a fairytale thing. (There’s always the story of the children’s prison in Jacob Two Two meets the hooded fang.)

If DS (6) doesn't follow instructions, he's not allowed to mop the floors.
If he doesn't put things away, he's not allowed to spray the kitchen worktops.

I have a weird child.

No don’t worry I didn’t say the police were enemy. He loves the police and says they keep us safe and catch baddies.

He was most outraged at the idea of permanent bedtime! That’s literally his probably worst imagined consequence as a 3 yo.

PP seems annoyed at my story telling inventions. Well in a way it is the truth. Without getting into a conversation about personal liberty and deprivation of such rights I think permanent bedtime sums it up quite nicely.

Totally depends on the child!

One of mine is very sensitive and literal, one time he was really upset if he missed cleaning his teeth then his teeth would fall out (presumably from being told at school) but getting him to actually do things like cleaning teeth, eating, getting dressed etc you have to follow him around and do the consequences calmly set timers and nothing too left field otherwise it's counter productive. And every consequences will be tested every time to the nth degree. And everything will be rushed at the last minute like literally stuffing his face in the last few minutes of a 40 minute meal time. Everything is an argument for the longest possible time and I have to have a predictable escalation path.

Nothing "works" it's just the least worst option and I'm hoping one day things will improve.

The other child, as long as he knows what's required and he's calm he just gets on with it straight away. I never really have to think about consequences with him as it never really comes up.

I'm not saying you don't work hard, but you are also lucky. They don't all respond in the same way. Hopefully your next child is the same but bear in mind that they might well not be.

I taught mine that choices have consequences, and the choice they make means that they're choosing the consequences too, good or bad. It taught them to think about what they were doing. Simple stuff when they were little such as saying please and thank you meant they got the treat they'd asked for, or no manners and they went without.

My son has autism, I mostly manage his environment and try to pre empt stuff before it happens. I also find routine helps so when he got his games console he was allowed 1 hour a day and we never changed from that initially he pushed for more but then he accepted it.
The behaviour we struggle with is messing about during tasks he doesn’t enjoy - bath/ getting dressed etc we do stuff like set timers or sing songs to distract but if a behaviour is unacceptable he gets told he will lose ten minutes of his hour of switch time. That’s normally enough to make him stop.

Mine have ADHD. Natural consequences rarely work. So if you don't take your coat you'll get wet and cold. So they get wet and cold. They won't equate that to needing to take a coat next time OR they'll enjoy getting wet. They do what pleases them in the moment.

The only thing that works with them is a countdown. If I want them to do anything I have to 5, 4, 3,... I've never ever had to get to 1 (and dc1 is 10) They've never questioned what will happen if I do. It's magic. It just gets them off their arses like there is suddenly the time pressure I feel but they don't if we need to get out of the house.

I just wish I could automate it for the school run. "Socks on in 5, 4, 3..." But Alexa can't do it properly.

One trick I used with the kids when younger around TV which could be seen as a natural consequence (?), was that if they were unable to come off the TV and then unable to accept that it was time to finish (after a reasonable timing warning/ end of this programme etc) they were showing me they weren’t old enough to watch that programme/ go on that Nintendo game. And then scaling this up to “have your first smart phone.” But then cushioned within wider discussions at other times, when they’re in a listening mood, about health and screens and sleep etc.

“how to talk to kids so they’ll listen and how to listen so they’ll talk” has useful tips on how to frame things. In there they’d wait till the next time something the child wanted to have/ do and they’d say “oh I’m sorry, you showed me you were unable to do xyz responsibly last time. Maybe next time though.”

I’ve been trying to frame it as something they can take responsibility for and are activities that need a level of self regulation and maturity. Obviously the phone conversations have heavily involved this .

navigating this currently with a soon to be yr 8; I would have preferred later, and a few of his friends still don’t have one (rare these days) but we’ve decided this summer is a time to set the boundaries and expectations. Partly due to middle school system. Next summer will be pre high school. I’d prefer to have got the boundaries sorted this coming year.