WHAT ABOUT CONSEQUENCES? PART 2 - NATURAL CONSEQUENCES

Natural consequences are simple and very effective for learning. Children will learn naturally if parents resist the urge to punish or rescue. Children can learn about resilience and capability by experiencing natural consequences! Solution-base parenting focuses on teaching life skills, it is not rescuing.

1) Avoid lectures or saying ‘I told you so”.

2) Show empathy.

3) Be comforting without rescuing.

4) Validate feelings.

5) Natural consequences are not helpful if a child is in danger, if the natural consequences interfere with the rights of others, when the results of the child’s behaviour does not seem like a problem to them, and the natural consequences will adversely affect their health and well-being.

6) For natural consequences to be effective you need to deploy several other parenting tools including: take time for training, show faith, and seeing mistakes as an opportunity to learn.

7) After your child has experienced the natural consequence of their action (getting wet because they chose not to wear a raincoat), you can use curiosity questions to help the child be more aware of how they have more control over what happens based on their choices.

8) Another possible parenting tool to use instead is to ask your child if they would like to put a challenge on the family meeting agenda to help to brainstorm solutions.

9) Help them to explore the consequences of their choices by asking ‘what and ‘how’.