Today I would like to talk a little about logical consequences. I have so often seen parents take away all sorts of things in order to punish a child for misbehavior or non-compliance. I understand the desire to make a consequence have a strong effect but I really believe that the greatest impact and likelihood of learning to make better choices in future can be achieved best by using logical consequences rather that arbitrary punishment. Please keep in mind that I always support the belief that discipline is about teaching and not about punishment.

Lets take a look at a common example of non-compliant behavior in a young child.

You have asked your child to please clean up his toy cars. When you return to the family room a few minutes later, the cars are still on the floor and he is playing with other toys. You feel frustrated by the noncompliance. You take him and put him in his room to think about things and tell him there will be no movie that night.

In the above situation, the consequence seems fairly stern and you might expect that the child will learn his lesson. I would ask that we take a closer look at the whole situation. What is the behavior that you want the child to display? What is the skill that you want him to learn? Is this a one time behavior or is it something you want your child to do consistently? Making a connection between two unrelated things requires a fairly sophisticated level of thought and logic. Is your child’s level of development mature enough to make that connection.

The thing that was frustrating was that the child did not follow the direction he was given. He did not pick up the toys. You will likely ask him to do similar things many times. The hope is that he will learn to comply with your directions. The most practical way to encourage him to learn to comply is to make the consequence as closely related to the offence as possible. Taking away an evening movie may be upsetting to the child but he may not make the connection between picking up his toys and losing movie time on another day. What do movies and picking up toys have to do with each other in this situation? A consequence more likely to be effective would be to remove his toys for a short time with a short conversation to explain why you are taking them away. Explain to him that when he is asked to clean something up and he chooses no to, it results in the toys being taken away for (a set short time). It is very important to give him a chance to show you that he is able and willing to make a better choice a short time later. Be sure that you are clear in what you are asking him to do and that he understands that if he chooses not to pick up the toys, they will be taken away for a longer period next time. By making the consequence directly relate to the offence, it can create a pattern that will help your child to learn to choose behavior that serves him. You can help to generalize that learning by commenting on his choices. For example: “ You picked up your toys as Mommy asked. That was lovely, thank you.” You may choose to give a small reward and tell him that when he does as Mommy asks, it makes her very happy. Giving attention to and reinforcing the positive behavior is so very important. It is also super important to be very specific about the action that gains the attention or reward. Simply saying things like “Good job” or “Well done” without adding the specific action may be confusing to your child. It is simple to add “Good job, thanks for picking up your cars” to your statement to make sure your child understands the behavior that you want to see. As always, it is important to allow your child to practice the skill and choice again. Adding a reminder about rewards and/or logical consequences to your specific request will help support the learning and help your child to practice choice making logic. “ Please put your toy cars in the toybox. Remember when you chose not to do that, Mommy put your cars away for a while and you couldn’t play with them? Remember that Mommy felt happy and said “thank you” when you did as you were asked?” Taking the time for this short conversation can make all the difference in the choices your child makes when you ask them to do something. I call this proactive parenting. It does take some preparation and forethought, but it is very worth the effort.