Timestamps:
00:14 Our job as parents is to prepare our children for independence and happiness for the rest of their lives.
01:33 Children often resent our teaching.
02:44 Applying consequences prepares them for the real world.
05:13 What to say when a child claims your consequences aren't fair.
09:47 The second purpose of consequences.
12:56 The reason you are teaching them with consequences.
13:39 You must address "attitude" every time or you're not preparing them.
15:28 The consequences in life are harder than you could ever impose.
17:56 We are here to teach our children to feel loved.
Transcription:
Parenting often seems like an endless series of administrative tasks, like administrating rules, applying consequences, monitoring behavior, giving answers to questions, fulfilling requests, and on and on.
The Purposes of Parenting
Sometimes, because of that long list of things to do, we forget what we're here to do as parents, which is one, to loveandteach; and two, prepare our children for independence and happiness for the rest of their lives.
It's an almost unthinkably responsible task. We human beings tend not to think ahead very far, and that's understandable, since the present is right in our faces. There's so much going on, like, right here, electronically, with people, that we focus right in front of us.
When we’re hot and tired and sweaty, for example, our natural impulse is to stop and rest and cool down. Only a few of us have the ability to look ahead and see that the efforts of education and training and being hot and sweaty and uncomfortable in the present can yield very important, even life-changing or life-saving results in the future.
As we teach our children, even with love, they often resent it, anything difficult, especially if we forget why we're teaching them, and so we back off and avoid the resentment.
As we teach our children, however, about cleaning their room, being on time, completing tasks as directed, being respectful, being kind, being forgiving, not arguing, not whining, and on and on, we're teaching them how to be happy for the rest of their lives.
Children often form the misconception that we require certain behaviors and attitudes for our own benefit. In some cases, we might actually be selfish and teaching them for our benefit. Pretty important not to do that. We have to eliminate our selfishness before we begin to expect that they will see that we're teaching them for them, because even selflessly, when we teach selflessly, sometimes, they feel like we're making them do it for us.
Consequences Prepare Them For the Real World
One purpose of consequences in teaching them is to make the wrong behavior — unloving, unproductive behavior — sufficiently inconvenient or unpleasant that a child will make wiser choices.
There's another reason to apply consequences to a child: to prepare them for what consequences will be like in the real world. I haven't talked as much about that, so we’re talking about it now.
Applying Consequences
Let's look at just one example. Suppose you have a child who diligently, and they really can be diligent about some things, puts off doing homework — that they can work harder at avoiding homework than they will at actually getting it done — with the inevitable slide of their grades.
You've loved and taught the child. We’ll just assume that, but the behavior still doesn't change. We've discussed possible consequences for that in the parenting training, but now we're adding an additional purpose for consequences. So, you remove all electronics, screen privileges, and physically remove the child's bed from the room so he can sleep on the floor. You do whatever it takes to get the child's attention, so that doing the homework becomes more attractive so that they can get their privileges back.
And no, if you take your child's bed out so they can sleep on the floor, you're not abusing your child. At least a billion children in the world would eagerly trade their living arrangements for the floor of your home.
The Child is Choosing the Consequences
Now you have an additional teaching tool as you apply these consequences. Inevitably, a child will ask some version of this question: “This isn't fair” — when you apply consequence — “Why are you doing this to me?” And they say that with such a tone of voice that I don't care to duplicate exactly, because we all know it, and none of us like it very much.
How do you respond? Well, I'll give you an example. There are lots of ways to do it, but this one works. You say, “Actually, I'm not doing this. You are choosing this. I don't care if you fail to do your homework. It doesn't affect me in the least. None. If you don't do your homework, I'm still healthy and happy. I'm going to enjoy dinner and the people that I talk to. Doesn't affect me a bit. But up to this point I have foolishly protected you from your choices affecting you.”
It's a really important sentence. “Up to this point, I've been foolish, I've allowed your choices to not affect you so much. I'm finally allowing you to experience what it will be like if you continue on your present course.
Life Consequences
"You see, if you continue on your present course, you're going to be really surprised when you can't find a job and you're sleeping in a car or under a bridge or in a gutter or between two buildings. You're going to find that very shocking. But that's where you're headed. If you don't study, your grades will suffer, you’ll make it harder to get into a college you'd like.
"You might be eligible only for a community college. I'm certainly not diminishing community colleges, but if somebody's goal is a major university, then that's usually for a specific reason, for specific training that's available only at a major university. You may not be able to get in, so you'll have to spend a year or two at a community college, elevating your grades. Many employers, in fact, will consider your going to a community college as less than going to a major university. Actually, nearly every employer will. Precisely because you couldn't qualify for a better-quality school, you will make less money.
"Yes, there are a few crazy talented entrepreneurs, who dropped out of school early, and they did very well. That number is so tiny, is so much less than 1% as in 0.001%. You really want to bet that you're going to be one of those? As opposed to the kids who do graduate from a major university, whose chances of success go up hugely.
"So you will make less money. You'll do less well. Almost certainly. Happiness — money is not happiness, but it is still necessary. Your landlord will not find it sufficient for you to pay your rent or your mortgage, if you bought a home, with notes just telling him that you really love him.
"You have to survive with money. Everything becomes harder when you haven't prepared for it, and preparing for it is what you're doing right now, you're preparing for life. If you don't prepare, it's going to be more difficult. I'm preparing you for at least some of that by having you sleep on the floor.”
Now, stay with me here, because it really falls together. No electronics, limited recreation funds. Why? Not just to motivate you to study. No.
The Second Purpose for Consequences
Here's the second reason, the second purpose for consequences that I didn't discuss in the parent training, “because that is what life will be like for you. I'm preparing you for that."
In the Military, they train the recruits under really difficult circumstances, crawling through the mud, with live fire bullets shooting over their heads. They make it really difficult. Why? Because they're mean? Because out in battle, that's what it's like. In fact, they can't simulate how bad it's going to be in battle. Everybody who's been in battle says, I'm glad I had basic training, and this is way worse. If I hadn't had it, I would have just fallen on the ground and frozen, cried.
You continue. “I'm preparing you now for how you will live if you continue not studying and being responsible. That's my job, to prepare you. I do it because I love you.” The ultimate evidence that you love them, and you tell them this.
If you just give them chocolate cake and they love you, well, so what? But when you teach them the hard things, you know they're not going to like them, but you persist because you love them.
You Are Preparing Your Children for Life
Back to the troops. And they get them muddy and they get them exhausted and they deprive them of sleep and they shoot bullets over their head and they, well, sometimes frighten them to death, to prepare them, to literally save their lives, and we're doing the same.
We have to prepare our children for life, which often is like a battle. We're not doing something ugly, not trying to make them afraid. And I'm not trying to make you afraid. This is just how life is. So I'm going to say it again: everything that you're teaching them to prepare them for the difficulties of life, is because you love them. You're not mean.
Any drill instructor who says to his troops, “Aw, just sleep in. This is hard work." Because he, the drill instructor, has to go through all of the drills too. He runs every mile they run. It would be easier for the drill instructor to just sleep in. And then all the troops would sleep in, and the drill instructor would be arrested. But he goes through all the stuff that they go through, no kidding. Because he cares about them, and because it's his job, many of the drill instructors have been in battle. They know what they're preparing them for. They don't want to send them out into battle unprepared, and neither do we.
Addressing "Attitude" and the Consequences
When a child exhibits attitude, you teach them that the reason you're teaching them is because if they show the same sort of snotty, resentful attitude at work, they’ll be fired. You're trying to help them prevent that, ’cause they're really going to hate being fired and having to start all over again looking for a job.
If they’re with a partner, a partner they value, a partner that they at least claim to love, and they show this attitude, their partner is just going to walk out, and then they get to start over looking for a partner that they like. You're saving their life.
Their behavior and attitude at home, like resistance, snottyness, sniffyness, anything other than complete cooperation, anything half-hearted. That's what I mean by attitude. We have to address it every time, or we're not preparing them.
What are the consequences at home of that attitude? First, we require the child to explain what they're doing. We sit there and wait. You may help them with words or hints until the child says, “I'm being snotty and resistant and difficult.”
Until they say it, they don't get it. ’Cuz if you say they're being snotty, it just goes over the shoulder. They don't care. You may have them say it, or — some children really hate saying it in the beginning — you have them write it.
We’ve talked about this. Two hundred words. You just walk away, and you wait for the 200 words, and they can't do anything until they've completed, the 200 words or 300 or 150 or whatever. And then eventually you just say, “Go ahead and tell me.” And the child, ”Phew, at least I don't have to write an essay.”
You take something away, like the phone, or loss of some desirable activity, again, to motivate them so that their lives are saved. The same behavior and attitude in life that they're demonstrating as children is going to persist, and they're going to pay for their resistance.
Real Live Consequences are Harsh
The consequences in life are way harder than you could ever impose. You’re saving them. It’s a hard subject. Sounds harsh. Saving lives is harsh. If you’ve ever pulled somebody out of the water as a lifeguard, it's harsh. They struggle and scream and kick, and given the opportunity, will drag you down to your death.
The consequences in life are no promotions or fired, people avoid them. I know people who are avoided by everyone. Why? Because their parents never taught them how to socially interact. They have no friends. Their partners are angry, or they leave. They feel alone.
And then the worst disaster, they have children. So picture these completely unprepared children raising children. Might be the worst nightmare of all. You're affecting generations, as you teach your children. Your job is to show them where their present behavior will lead and how to avoid that.
It's a guarantee that if they're being snotty and irresponsible, they're going to end up snotty and irresponsible. Life is governed by laws. If I drop a ball, I know what's going to happen to it. I'm not a prophet, not a wizard. If I'm on a planet where there's gravity and I drop the ball, the ball is going to drop. If I don't work, I won't get paid.
But it's more than that. We're here to teach them to feel loved. That's our job. That's the first thing. Don't leap right into taking things from them and administering consequences. Loved. We’re here to teach them to be loving and responsible so they can be truly happy.
For more about this, read The Real Education and Giving Children a Life Education.
