Confident Consequences

While boundaries and expectations help to provide our children with a sense of safety, predictability, and to foster an attached relationship with us, consequences provide learning opportunities through experience.

Natural consequences are unrelated to parental action. What if, after being asked to leave it at home, your child took a toy from the house and it was lost? What if they chose not to study for a test and received low marks? Natural consequences would include not replacing the toy, and not phoning the teacher to request a make-up opportunity. Allow your child the time and space to cope with the results of their choices.

Logical consequences require more of a proactive response from us, because we get to choose a follow-up that’s directly related to our child’s action. When children exceed a limit or break a rule, parents can respond in a way that teaches a connection between their choice and the resulting ripple effects. What if your child left an established neighborhood boundary without first checking in with you? What if they snuck more time on a digital device after their daily time allocation was finished? Logical consequences might include temporarily limiting boundaries to the yard or the street until trust can be re-established, and temporarily losing digital device privileges--again, until trust can be re-established.

With older children especially, situations that involve logical consequences can be wonderful opportunities to begin collaborative conversations around behavior and problem solving, especially during family meetings, where we ask for our child’s input on what they think appropriate consequences should be for exceeding agreed-upon family limits.

Both types of consequences, natural and logical, are directly connected to behavior. We must expect our children to make mistakes, time and time again, because this is the work of childhood and of learning. Part of our job is to have clear boundaries and expectations in place, to communicate these to our children, and to focus on the teaching that can come from the mistakes. Remember, we’re in this for the long game.