How Using Natural Consequences Can Help You Parent | Dad University

[@giocastro8492]

My daughter just turned one and I've been struggling to find the best way to discipline her / teach her what is bad and what is good. I love the teaching of natural consequences. If she drops something and it makes a loud noise and startles her she'll know not to drop stuff. If she throws her food out of her feeding chair and wants more food she'll know that she shouldn't throw food.

[@CristysTappingMusicMeditation]

And do some tapping for yourself if you fibd yourself overwhelemed

[@Kelly_Mae]

Haha that will not teach a one year old not to throw food. Wish it would work like that. But they will keep throwing it until you take their food away and say “if you want your food then you eat it. If your throw your food then you are done with it and I take it away.” With a serious tone and face.

[@cheetolalito]

I'm 100% for natural consequences. I struggle to apply it to my 8yr old daughter. Works pretty well with my 6yr old son. Both are adopted. Daughter was 4 and son was 2 when they came to our home. My daughter doesn't care about anything. She's not motivated by reward, she's not motivated by discipline. She's extremely messy and unorganized. She's not on par with her 8yr old peers. She's not mentally handicapped but she just rolls with the punches. For example, she loves arts and crafts but leaves her markers, glue, etc open... They dry out and she just doesn't care. I explain to her that she now doesn't have a working purple marker because she didn't put it away and let it dry out. She just moves on from there without another word. I'm to the point where I make it a point she uses her own money to go buy replacements so that she feels more natural consequences but she also doesn't care about her chores so her money doesn't add up and if she runs out of money she just doesn't care. She'll perform the chore but never mark it complete on her chore chart. We used to coach her making sure she marks her chart so she can get paid and she will if we remind her but we got to the point where we also used natural consequences with the charts. "if you don't mark it, I can't pay you for that chore." Her charts are always half filled out. She doesn't give a shit. She internalizes the disappointment and moves on about her day. We make it a point to communicate and connect the dots and she can verbalize that she understands and can even map out how her actions led her to the consequences. I'm at a complete loss with her. It's a big point of contention between her and my wife. She loves screen time (as we all do) because it's easy and fun. So we take away screen time and she can earn it with chores and daily routine etc and she just doesn't care. On the weekends my kids like to have sleep overs in each others rooms. I tell her "sorry, your brother can't sleep in your room because there is no room for his bean bag bed." She's visibly upset and then moves on. I can of course force her to clean her room and have to often but she just does not grasp personal responsibility. I often think... maybe I'm looking for results to quickly but I also fear that if I just leave her mess alone she'll just learn to live in a mess. She grew up in a mess. The state of her bio parents home at removal were atrocious. A large population lives this way. I work construction and often enter strangers homes for work and I'm not even appalled anymore at how filthy some people live. I don't want that for her. I want to teach her the virtue of cleanliness and I want her to want that but she just does not. I use cleanliness as an example but she has this mindset many other aspects of her life. She didn't have "normal" early childhood development. She's not autistic. She's not diagnosed with RAD. She was diagnosed with DSED and has come lightyears from her actions/reactions when she was 4 so I hold to fact that she can do better. She's intelligent. She reads fine, her math is great. She's sweet and kind. She loves to cook and bake and craft. Her motor skills are impressing. She has grit and moxy in a lot of things but she is a tough cookie to crack when it comes to other behavioral issues. Logic seems to not be her strong suit.

[@meirgoldenberg5638]

Have you come up with anything?

[@cheetolalito]

​@@meirgoldenberg5638 Not really. I hold on to she's come so far so from where she was 2yrs ago in other aspects so this has to improve too. We're fostering a 5month old now and she really has impressed me with her attitude toward being the "big sister." She's genuinely a big help. We've tossed and turned about what do do with school and ultimately decided to homeschool my kids this next year. I often scoff at senseless ADHD information I see online but I'm beginning to realize some people may actually suffer from it. That might sound ridiculous to just now discover this but it's similar to how everyone claims they're OCD when they're just orderly and then there is a real people who live with trauma-induced OCD and don't operate like the rest of us. ADHD is often thrown around for every little thing meanwhile there's probably very few that actually fit the true diagnosis. Regardless... she has to function in this world and bosses and coworkers aren't going to go out of their way to appease her needs aside from everyone else.

[@DoctorMitnaul]

There is some timidity about allowing reasonable natural consequences. I think that can hamper our success as parents - especially because parents can feel overly pressured to compensate. Great topic and discussion

[@CristysTappingMusicMeditation]

What consequences or strategy do you use when the action has to do with brushing teeth, (that is part of their well being), or cleaning their room? Do we allow them to get as dirty as it can be? My daughter is sleeping with her brother because her room is so messy that she cannot sleep there. Would you make her sleep in there to have her consequence?

[@DadUniversity]

How old is your daughter?

[@CristysTappingMusicMeditation]

@@DadUniversity she is 7, What I decided is to talk to her about the rules in the house. That is, after cleaning we get to enjoy. What is fair for everybody, like each of us clean our own room. There can be insects hiding behind toys, and its important to keep it clean for hygiene. And I explained that the consequence in the house for not cleaning the room is to not have privileges like watching tv, that after cleaning she can enjoy. Is not the natural consequence but it has important foundation.

[@DadUniversity]

@@CristysTappingMusicMeditation That sounds pretty good. We do have to keep in mind our own expectations of clean vs a child. Also, with children, it can be effective to clean together, trying to make it fun (or at least tolerable) rather than a pain. Even making it a game can lighten the mood.

[@CristysTappingMusicMeditation]

@@DadUniversity Thank you for your time! Great advice! And Yes! I play and we put music, but sometimes I ask her to do it alone…🤷‍♀️

[@yesteryearr]

Amazing video. More people need to see this!!! Great tips!

[@nataliez822]

Help! I know this video is old but maybe I'll still get a response- my teenager is getting very poor grades and when i tak to him about them he says he'll get his grades up by the end of the 9 week grading period, so no big deal if he has zeros right now. Should i let him deal with natural consequences of scrambling at the last minute to get his grades up? Or should i set standards at home to make sure he's studying every night/ working on hw, and then apply logical consequences if he doesn't do it?

[@DadUniversity]

This is not a quick fix. He ultimately needs to want to get good grades for himself, not you. So many parents pushing achievement for their own ego. Yes they want their child to do well but your child has to care. They do that by years of teaching them to do things for themselves. Having a conversation about what he expects/wants the outcome to be may be helpful. You can ask him how you could best support him and what he needs to do better.

[@MorphBall1]

What about rewards? Like "if you do your homework, you can watch a movie" or something like that? Or am I teaching them to only work if they get a reward that way?

[@DadUniversity]

Correct, do not use rewards like that. What happens when you have no reward to give? They won't do it.

[@janalgos]

What's a natural consequence for bullying a younger sibling?

[@DadUniversity]

There isn't. In that scenario it's logical consequences.

[@Kelly_Mae]

@@DadUniversitywhat are the logical consequences for that?

[@DadUniversity]

@@Kelly_Mae You get to decide. Here is a good article: www.positivediscipline.com/articles/logical-consequences

[@mihaiemilian5330]

Why are the people at 2:10 dressed after drinking all night? :(