Consequences

When I was working on my postgraduate degree several years ago, I wrote a research paper on the subject of punishment. Experience has proven the conclusions of the articles I read then to be quite valid.

Delivering consequences to a misbehaving child can produce various results. The child may strive to avoid the offending behavior in the future because the child fears further punishment. This motivation is weak, though, because the child can find ways to avoid the consequences or to make them less painful. For example, if the child is confined to a room, the child can find something interesting to do, or even fall asleep. Punishments meted out with anger also produce negative results because the child is very likely to resist and to produce worse behavior in the future. Adults in our society are often over stressed. It's all too easy to use a child as a lightning rod to carry away negative feelings produced at work or within a floundering marriage. Upsetting a child with angry punishments may feel good at the moment, but such action makes every other problem worse.

Another way that punishment can produce unwanted results is in a situation where the child doesn't understand what behavior needs to be changed, or how to change it. Bedwetting, for instance, has a large physical component that usually isn't under the control of the child. Addressing bedwetting with punishment usually causes the child to feel unworthy and makes the problem worse. In fact, any person who is pressured to perform impossible or incomprehensible tasks will tend to resist.

Consequences that lead to negative results cause the child to fear and dislike the person who does the punishing. Thus, the over punished child is in a position of both needing and fearing the same person. Over punished children experience great emotional pain that needs to be healed. Many inmates at the jail suffered from angry, unfair punishments as children.

Although there are many downsides to delivering consequences for inappropriate behavior, failing to correct a child is even worse. Parents who just allow their children to do whatever they feel like doing end up with children they dislike. Very few other people like them either. These children experience constant rejection. They are often abandoned to babysitters and the TV set.

The challenge then becomes learning to correct children effectively. The research that I read long ago pointed out that children who responded to consequences by changing their behavior believed that the punishment was fair and for their own good. They understood that they were acting badly and needed to stop. They viewed the consequences as helping them to cease the unwanted behavior. Thus, successful correction all comes down to meeting the child's needs. The goal is to make it clear to the child that a poor choice has been made, and that the child needs to make a better one. It's very helpful to make the poor choice difficult and the better choice easier.

If a toddler opens a drawer and begins emptying the contents onto the floor, the adult can say, "No-no" and make that choice impossible by removing the child from that area of the room and not allowing the child to return to it for a while. If the child returns and repeats the behavior, the adult removes the child again. After several tries, the child will usually give up and find something else to do, especially if someone helps the child to discover something interesting to do.

When an older child neglects a chore, the adult can make sure that the child doesn't do anything else until the chore is done. Then the adult can make the job easier by showing the child how to do it more quickly and efficiently. A sincere "Thank you" after the chore is done will make the child more eager to do it again.

When a teenage driver fails to arrive home on time, that choice can be made more difficult by removing the car keys until the teen demonstrates more responsible behavior in other ways. The better choice can be made easier by discussing the reasons for the failure and ways of getting home on time.

I learned long ago that showing anger and impatience myself when trying to correct a child invariably made the child's behavior worse. Every time I failed to remember that conclusion I would think about how my behavior made the situation even more negative and resolved to do better the next time. Now I'm pretty patient most of the time, not because I was born that way, but because experience has shown me that patient correction pays big dividends. The child becomes cooperative and pleasant to have around. Love increases, and that makes everybody happy.

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor