Perhaps one of the greatest things that a parent can bestow upon his or her children is the value of taking responsibility for their own actions. While still at a young age, parents should already start inculcating the value of respecting consequences to their kids. And the best place to teach this is at home.
In teaching your kids the concept of dealing with consequences of their actions, you should first let them understand what exactly responsibility is. Doing this prepares a child to enter adulthood under a responsible disposition, which consequently allows a child to become a successful part of the society. As parents, it is your job to guide your kids using positive means while making sure that you also set reasonable limits at the same time.
When a child takes natural consequences seriously, he will be more careful with his actions. If your son has left your sweater on the washing machine running under the wrong program because he did not pay attention to your instructions, the natural consequence is for the sweater to be ruined.
When this happens, the way you explain the situation to your child is crucial - tell him that you are not just upset because it was a nice sweater or that he was not paying attention to you, but also because a sweater is something expensive, and you do not have the luxury to buy a sweater whenever you want.
It is more effective if you use practical and real-life examples when you teach your kids the seriousness of natural consequences. So if your daughter told you to feed the dog the whole week yet forgets about it, tell her that the issue is not because of the dog going to starve, but because the dog is her responsibility and she cannot just neglect her responsibility and leave the dog when she feels like it.
But even when there are actually no natural consequences, you still need to make sure that you explain to your child the reality that as they grow older their responsibilities will get bigger and more challenging, and they are not allowed to just drop everything and take off - there will be times that they have to do what they have to do. Make your child understand that there will always be a reaction to their every action, and they better make it a positive one.
Although implementing punishments seems a logical way to emphasize the value of natural consequences, most of the time it is ineffective. In fact, it is more likely for the child to continue the bad behavior just to tick the parent off.
One of the most effective ways to teach children to be responsible for their own actions is to not let them trivialize the consequences that follow. If you let your kids grow believing that it is "not that bad," he will more likely take the concept of consequences lightly.
More Information:
Author Katherine Thompson would love to share more about
conduct and ODD disorder. Learn how to be a more effective parent by visiting her website about
my problem child.
Categories
