Have you heard of LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES?
Children often need external rewards to encourage positive behavior and consequences to discourage negative behavior.
It is only recently that I learned that consequences are different from punishment.
We punish a child when we take away his iPad or television time as a result of not finishing his meal. We punish a child when we do not allow him to play with his friends because he back-answered an adult. We punish a child when we give him a consequence that has nothing to do with his behavior.
Well, unfortunately, that does not eradicate negative behavior.
A child needs logical consequences. Consequences that are RELATED to the behavior of the child.
It is important that we give children a choice between getting a logical consequence or stopping their misbehavior. The consequence must be REASONABLE. It is also imperative that we talk to the child about his logical consequence in private and not in front of his siblings or peers, so we are RESPECTFUL to the child. The language used to speak to the child should not disrespectful or humiliating. We must talk to the child and not at the child.
A logical consequence is not an angry response to a behavior. It is a responsible action to help rather than hurt. We as parents or teachers need to ask ourselves the purpose of the consequence. Is it hurt or punish the child or to help him correct and learn the appropriate behavior. A consequence must be HELPFUL.
Children must know that all we have privileges and they will be taken away if we do not value or respect them. Before we do that, we must give them a choice of correcting his behavior. Trust that he can decide well.
U tell the child:
You break it. You fix it.
Take a break
You lose a previlege.
Do you need situations to understand better? Send me situations that you have come across with your children or students. We will come up with logical consequences for each situation.
