Parents as Coaches | Transforming Family Relationships

Consequences or Punishment?

Written by Don Nenninger Monday, 14 November 2011 10:54

The difference between consequences and punishment

For many parents the primary tool they have to get their children to comply with their wishes are threats and often these threats are described as consequences as in the statement "if you don't stop that right now they'll be consequences for that." You can see right away that the idea of consequences really means punishment. There is a better way to handle these situations where the child has misbehaved, forgetful, or been irritating you.

One unfortunate byproduct of this type of punishment is that the child learns that they can never have the freedom to be normal or imperfect. In other words if they forget their lunch, or they need something dropped off at the school, or any other minor life issue if they haven't remembered then there are the impending "consequences of doom." It doesn't have to be like this. The lesson the child learns in this punishment scenario is that they feel unsupported, undervalued, not important, and many other "lessons" that are unintentionally life demeaning.

Yet, we want our child to learn that there are natural repercussions and consequences for certain behaviors. These provide valuable lessons for the child's socialization and acceptable behavior. We cannot have kids hitting each other with no repercussion or consequences. We cannot have children running our lives or classrooms either. They simply because don't have the complete brain development necessary to do so. So, where is the fine line between a natural and normal consequence used as a teaching opportunity and the use of a "consequences" as a tool for punishment that is used to intimidate and manipulate the child? That's the line that each of us has to decide as parents for ourselves.

Nicole and I are parents to 4 wonderful children and in each case we have to consciously decide how we want to handle the situation and what life lesson we want to give to our children. This lesson is not spoken-this lesson is modeled. When you are deciding what kind of lesson you want your child to be learning think about teaching them the lessons of how the world supports them, how they are capable of growing, how they do not have to be perfect to be loved, and how they can find and contribute to positive solutions.

Many parents hold their children to an unspoken set of standards that the parent themselves could not meet. Part of this is societal where we often become societally conditioned to have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. Let's break that cycle and build the family system that is mutually supportive, does not use "consequences" as punishment, and develops a system of support for the entire family unit.