September 11, 2014　=========
☆ consequence　　結論
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The other day I listened to a tele-seminar about “positive parenting”. The main topic was how to get kids to listen without nagging or yelling. One of the important things she talked about was “consequences” and in particular, that to be effective, the consequences needed to be “related consequences”.
The idea is that the consequence for misbehavior must be related to that behavior. So for example, in Australia, to ride without a bike helmet is illegal, so children (and adults must wear them.) So if your kid screams, “I’m not wearing a helmet!!!!” (like mine does! Ha ha) then a related consequence is “then you are not allowed to ride your bike.” An unrelated consequence is “then you are not allowed to watch TV tonight.” If I said the first one, then my child can understand the punishment. However, if I said the second one, he would say, “That’s not fair!!!” And of course, he’s right. “No TV” is not a good consequence for not wearing a bike helmet.
Another example, if your child doesn’t want to brush their teeth, then “no sweets” is the consequence. Of course, all of this makes perfect sense to me now, but until I heard this tele-seminar, I always gave out unrelated consequences!! And as a consequence of that, my two boys always said, “That’s not fair!!” Well, now I know better, so hopefully a consequence of knowing better will mean I won’t have to listen to them saying, “It’s not fair!” anymore!!
Do you have kids? Have you ever heard of this idea of “related consequences”? What do you think of it?
Bye,
Chris