Calm Parenting Podcast - Is Giving Consequences “Threatening” Your Child? Better Ways to Discipline

Episode Date: October 22, 2023

Is Giving Consequences “Threatening” Your Child? Better Ways to Discipline In this episode, Kirk answers this question, shows you how to use consequences when necessary AND also shares effective alternatives to consequences. Discipline means to TEACH and good discipline will lead to a closer, more trusting relationship with your child so those are our end goals. Suggested program to listen to in the Calm Parenting Package: Discipline That Works When Consequences Don’t. Learn more at https://celebratecalm.com. Want to finally stop the power struggles AND enjoy your strong-willed child? Kirk shows you exactly how with 30+ hours of content delivered directly to your phone, iPad or laptop. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/products to purchase the Get Everything Package. Kirk is available for Phone Consultations. Click here to learn more. This episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast is brought to you by Hello Fresh. Go to https://www.hellofresh.com and use code 50calm for 50% off plus FREE shipping. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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don't work that well with strong-willed kids. But I do want to show you how to use them when necessary. I want to show you some alternatives and answer this question we've been hearing a lot. Isn't giving my child a consequence threatening them? So that's what we're going to address on today's episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin, founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to our son, Casey.

He gets this because he was always kind of struggling with behavior when he was a little kid, right? It wasn't until I learned how to control my own behavior and my own emotions that he learned how to control his. Kind of interesting, isn't it? But if you need some help, reach out to Casey at C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your kids, whether they're ages. What are you struggling with? We get together as a family. We discuss it.

We reply back to you, usually pretty quickly, with some very practical tools to help you because that's what we do. If you need help with any of our programs, booking, training, just reach out to Casey. Remember, discipline, I don't want to forget to say this, discipline means to teach, right? This literally means to Casey. Remember, discipline, I don't want to forget to say this, discipline means to teach, right? This literally means to teach. And good discipline over time will lead to a closer, more trusting relationship with your child. So those are our end goals as we dive into this,

right? And if you want a suggested program to listen to in the Calm Parenting Podcast, it would be one that's called this. The title is Discipline That Works When Consequences Don't. And you can find that at CelebrateCalm.com. So here's the question. Isn't giving consequences threatening my child? And so I want to address that first, and then we'll discuss the larger issue of whether consequences are effective and what are the alternatives. So my initial response to that question is twofold. One, bravo to our little kids who are like attorneys, cops, and judges all rolled into one for turning this around on their parents. Well done. Because you can hear it like, you're threatening me. Well done, kids. I know you're trying to manipulate your parents, right?

And my second question is, why are you allowing your child to manipulate you into thinking that? Right? These are really smart kids, but I don't want you to give in to that. So let me quickly address this. The answer to your question is no. Giving a consequence is not threatening your child. And I'll demonstrate shortly why it's not my favorite discipline tool. But you should also not be afraid to use it.

Why? Because in the course of your everyday life, you are faced with potential consequences from authority figures constantly in consequences which are really just, right? It's just you do something and there's either a positive response or a negative response, right? We don't even have to use the word consequences because that's so loaded with different meanings. But every day, throughout your day, you're going to have different choices you make, and it leads to either a positive outcome or a negative outcome. And it doesn't even always involve authority figures, right? Just think about this.

When you're driving to school or work, on every single road, there is a speed limit posted. Is the authority figure threatening you with a speeding ticket? No. They simply are saying, we care about public safety. So if you speed, we promise you will pay a hefty fine. And they draw distinctions as well. We also care about the safety of children and construction workers. So if you speed in a school or construction zone, your fine will be doubled. Am I indignant at their threat? No. It's just how life works, right? I just drove over 5,000 miles back and forth from where we live to Florida, Alabama, Mississippi for a work trip.

Look, I don't always like authority figures, and sometimes they do things because they're control freaks, but I took my chances going well above the speed limit on the wide open roads in Wyoming, Idaho, Nebraska, and parts of Missouri. I knew the consequences and I decided it was worth risking that in these places because I can make up a lot of time there, right? But I always went the speed limit in school and construction zones, partially because the fine was doubled and partially because I'm not that much of a selfish jerk, right? Right? If a police officer, okay, let's say when the police officer pulls me over, thankfully

not on this past trip, and says, I clocked you with radar going 12 miles above the speed limit, I'm going to give you a citation and bind for that. What if I said to him, are you threatening me, officer? Now, that would be absurd. He's simply keeping the promise given by the state, right? Look, Casey is now general manager of a large catering company. When a staff member doesn't show up on time for work routinely, guess what the natural consequence is? That person doesn't get paid for the full shift

and doesn't get asked to work at other events. What if that employee marched up to Casey and said, are you threatening me with consequences? You'd hopefully kind of laugh at that and say, well, it's kind of an entitled employee, right? The employee should have the humility to say, I have proven that I am unreliable. Therefore, it makes sense that my employer would not entrust me with future shifts, right? Stop blaming this on everybody else, right? What an employer says is, if you show up for work on time and perform with just basic competence, I promise I will pay you. Or you could say, your consequence is that you get paid. See, there are positive consequences as well. They also say, if you show up early every time and go above and beyond, then your

consequence is that you will probably earn more and be given more hours because we can trust you. Look, it's fifth ball season. If an NFL linebacker hits the quarterback illegally, that linebacker will cost his team lost yardage, right, with the penalty and face a fine, a possible suspension. Is the NFL commissioner threatening football players with a fine? No. They're saying we value keeping our quarterbacks safe because that's how we get higher ratings. So if you do anything that could remotely injure our star players, the consequence for both your team and you individually will be severe. And it tends to work.

Now, I'll demonstrate one more just to show the absurdity of this question. What if your doctor said, well, you have high blood pressure in your family. If you continue to eat fatty foods from bad sources, if you consume a lot of fried foods and don't get any exercise, you will experience negative consequences with your heart, your immune system, with your health, right? Now, is a patient going to say like, are you threatening me, doctor? No, he's telling you how life and the human body works. Watch this so you can have clarity and feel empowered to make different choices so that you can be successful with your health and in your life. Think about that. When you're very clear, when you keep your promises with no drama, and I'm going to show you how, you're providing clarity

about expectations in your home. See, when you don't keep your promise, then you're confusing your child. You're also empowering your child when you give him or her tools to make different choices that will lead to a more positive outcome in life. The appropriate thing for my son to do in his catering job is to teach these younger people, he's pretty young himself, but to teach them what I taught him, which is, hey, I want to show you how to be successful here. Here's what I value. When you show up on time, and I don't have to worry about you showing up,

and when I can trust you with more responsibility, man, I'm going to pay you more, and you're going to get more hours. See, he's providing clarity. And when he also says, look, when you don't show up on time, I can't trust you. So I'm not going to schedule you anymore. And that's going to hurt your paycheck. He's providing clarity. He's not threatening them. He's showing them. And it's actually a very loving thing to do of, I want you to be successful in this world. Here's how to do that. I'm showing you, teaching you how to succeed in either a positive or a negative outcome. Consequences aren't always negative. They're often very positive, right? If it helps you feel better and helps your child receive it better,

stop using the word consequence so much because that's a trigger word, right? You just say like, hey, this is just how life works. This is how we roll in our home. Now, on to more important concepts. So I've said a thousand times, probably thousands of times, that consequences don't work that well with strong willed kids. They simply don't care. And usually consequences don't address the root of the issue, right? Sometimes it might be anxiety, right? And they don't always teach the child a different way to handle the situation the next time. We just take away something for misbehavior, which lets them know this is wrong, but they already know what they're doing is wrong, which is why they lie so often. They lie to avoid

the consequence, the negative one. But the tragic part is that we associate consequences with discipline. But discipline means to teach. And sending a child to his room or taking away his screens doesn't teach him how to make a different choice next time. You're merely trying to persuade him to do it differently so he doesn't lose something he likes. That's not the greatest motivation. It's kind of like saying, well, if you don't do this, you go to hell. Well, that completely negates the idea of a relationship and actually wanting to be with someone. Instead, we're saying, here's a harsh consequence.

Well, that hasn't worked all that well either. So consequences have limited value and effectiveness. There are better ways to discipline. See, you can actually teach and show your child a different way. One of my favorite things to do with younger kids is to role play situations, which in itself is kind of a brutal punishment, right? Because nobody wants to role play. But it's extremely effective. Very quickly, I wasn't going to do this, but this is off our Discipline at Works program, right? With little kids, they mess up, they walk into a room, they mess up. I say, hey, two options here. He wants a negative consequence, or we can rewind and replay. And what happens is younger child has to rewind, which means they walk backwardly, backward, backwardly. They work backwards right out of the room, which is kind of fun for a little kid. They work backwards. And then I role play and show them here is a different way to handle that situation.

With our little kids, we had so many kids, we had 1,500 kids come in our home and they would almost every day they would mess up something, right? And I'd hear them come in, come into the room and they take someone else's Legos. And obviously that didn't work well for them. So I said, okay, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna practice this. I'm gonna be building with Legos on the floor. Here's how I want you to do it. Instead of coming in and grabbing my Legos, right?

Instead, come sit down next to me. Sitting next to people doesn't provoke a defensive response and you could say, hey, your Legos are really cool. Could we play with them together? Or could I use some of them myself? I want to build an airport. Or do you want to build something with me? And I'd physically have them do and say that. So instead of saying, hey, cut it out or else, I'm showing them how to do it, right? That's role-playing. That's teaching. So whenever I hear from parents that

their kids are always in trouble or they're on red on the behavior chart at school, that means we're failing that child, right? If your kid's always on red on the behavior chart, by the way, I've done a podcast on that recently and I hope you will look that one up to help teachers in school, but that there's red, yellow, and green behavior charts don't work because your child begins to internalize, I'm never getting to green. And if I'm going to be on red anyway, I may as well double down and make it a really bad day. It just reinforces failure, right? So we're actually setting our kids up for failure, right? Because we know this child, this student, your child struggles in a certain area, and yet we simply say, don't do that or else, right? Then we act mystified when the child's behavior doesn't change. But what if instead of punishing a child continually for failing, because that's what we're

doing, if you keep doing this thing wrong, you get a punishment. What if instead of punishing a child for failure, we actually gave the child tools to succeed? We proactively came along and said, I know this child struggles with blurting out or he struggles to sit still in his seat for 45 minutes. What if we showed the child how to succeed in different situations, right? And I pulled that child aside and I said, man, I could really use your help. Man, when I'm teaching, my mouth gets really dry and I know you need to move a little bit Why because you got a lot of energy and that energy is gonna serve you well in life by right It's gonna serve you well in life my friend, but in our class you're gonna have to sit

But here's what we're gonna do. I need some help I need you to refill my water bottle So you and I're gonna have a secret signal when I touch my ear like this when I give you a certain look I want you to get up out of your seat You'd get my water bottle take to the back of the room. You refill it. You bring it back up, sit it on my desk. Man, that would really help me out. You up for that? And now I begin to give that child an opportunity to do a specific job helping me. It only takes them 23 seconds to do it. It's specific and concrete. And at the end of that 23 seconds, when he sits that bottle

down on my desk, I could say, hey, nice job. Thank you. I just created a success. And I can start teaching that child, hey, this week, really good helper, my friend. This next week, I believe you're capable of sitting for 29 minutes in my class before you get the secret signal, right? I'm beginning to teach him and show him impulse control so I create a success instead of one more admonishment that gets internalized into I'm a bad kid, right? The other thing we say over and over again is relationships and connection change the human heart. Connection changes behavior and fosters more cooperation, right? Humility breaks down walls and leads to contrition instead of a forced apology, right? For those of you who are people of faith, it is the goodness of God that leads people to change their trajectory in life, not the threat of punishment. And I don't know why

it's so hard for us to throw off that medieval mindset of prisons and torturing people in dungeons. It didn't work in 1542 and it doesn't work in 2023. So that's, look, I'm going to show you how to do consequence in a minute, okay? I'd rather do all these other things first. But that said, consequences are necessary to let a child and an adult know there are boundaries. I don't like speed limits. I'm 57. I'm pretty aware of what an appropriate speed limit is in a different zone based on 40 years of driving. That said, there are boundaries on how fast I can go, except out west. So while giving consequences is not my preferred go-to, sometimes they're, and there's nothing wrong with that. Now, when I do give consequences, I'll just be honest. Mine are meaningful.

I don't mess around. I don't do them often. I did not do a lot of consequences with Casey. But when I did them, I didn't mess around. They were meaningful. When I do give consequences, I'm not angry. I'm not harsh. I'm not making it personal. You know, you never listen. If you, right, I don't do shame. You know, if you would learn to listen better, if you would have done what I said, you wouldn't be

losing this. All those things, I don't have to go there. I'm simply letting you know this is a huge important boundary that you should recognize and respect for your own good. And as in real life, when you ignore important boundaries, the natural consequences can be pretty severe. So I just want you to know that. Now, I'll use this example. It's maybe not even the best example, but it popped into my head and I like it. So it was leaving for school on time, right? Because there was a period of time

where I'd drop Casey off at school, then I would go to my corporate job. And if he was late, that had a huge impact on my day. And look, for many of you, that's reality, right? You got to get to work and you can't always be like, well, I know my child struggles like this. And so it's okay if he's late. No, it's not okay if he's late. This is important. So I instituted this at one point.

So case from now on, here's how it works. We will leave at exactly 7.27 every morning. I always use the interesting time limits because it sticks in the child's brain a little bit. And it says, this is specific and meaningful. Okay. So we leave at 7.27 every morning. I only have one goal for you every morning, Case. Be in that car at 7.27. I don't care what you look like. I don't care what you smell like. I don't care what's in your stomach. Right? If you want to sleep in the clothes you're going to wear to school the next day,

I don't care. It's brilliant. Sleep until 7.26. Grab that Pop-Tart you hid under your bed because I knew you heard food up there. You can roll half asleep into my car at 7.27. You can even leave your shoes in here the night before. I don't care. If it's motivating, I'll hide your breakfast in the backyard and you can forge for it in the morning. I don't care. See, a little side note.

I'm giving my child tools to get ready in the morning, trying to create a success, right? For some of your younger kids, it's, and I did a whole podcast on morning routine on this. It's creating that treasure hunt in the morning to get them out of bed. It's having connection with my son in the morning of listening to a certain type of music that he loves if he's ready on time. There's connection. And I'm also giving him ownership over how he gets ready. See, there are tools. It's not just, you know what,

I leave at 727. If you're not ready, there's going to be heck to pay for that. Right? I'm not just saying that. I'm giving tools in addition to that. But this is part of it. And so here's what it is. Be in the car at 727. If, however, you are late, here's what is going to happen. See, I'm avoiding using the word, here's the consequence. Here's what's going to happen. For every minute you choose to be late, important language there, because he's choosing to be late. He is choosing that, right? Now, I know, I say you're not triggered. I know that many of our kids with ADHD and other issues, it's not always just a choice.

It's that they do struggle with time management. They do struggle, and that's why I'm giving them lots of tools, okay? But for every minute you're late, that is a minute you have stolen from my day and my time is important. So you will have chosen to forfeit 10 minutes of your screen time that night. So basically, every minute you're late, you forfeit 10 minutes of screen times, right?

At times, I use this language. If you choose to be late, I promise you will lose 10 minutes of your screen time because I like the word promises. So his response was obvious. Well, that's not fair. And my response was equally obvious. I don't play fair. I play to win. And my time is more important to yours because it was. Look, I know this is going to rub some of you the wrong way, but stop acting like your kids, like everything is equal, right? That you're just equal. Look, your kids are deserving of an equal amount of dignity and respect and kindness,

but they don't treat them as equal to me in every way. I am the leader and I do have more wisdom and I do have more responsibility. So I do set the ground rules. And in our society, sometimes we're breaking that down where it's all equal. You know, if you've listened to our podcast, I do a lot of problem solving with kids. I listen. I'm curious. I try to find out what's going on and I try to be compassionate and patient and understanding and give them tools. But if you do not have certain ground rules and you do not take a leadership position in your home, that child is going to feel rudderless like who's running the home listen I have no problem saying I'm the leader in the home my wife and I are leaders in the home why we have more wisdom

and we have more responsibility so I do set the the ground rules not as a harsh dictator maybe that's where some of you are getting caught up, is that I'm not doing the old school thing. I hate that thing like, well, this is a dictatorship. Well, I've been to former communist countries and countries where they had dictatorships. Guess what? It didn't work all that well.

So I don't walk around with that old school, well, I'm the dad in the home, I'm the dictator. No, that's just immature, right? I don't think God, for those who are religious, walks around, well, I created the universe, I'm the dictator. I think what draws people to God is the humility that is expressed, right? It is the patience and the compassion, right? I have no problem being the authority figure in my home. It's just that my concept of what a good authority figure has changed from what I learned from my dad, which was my way or the highway, fear and intimidation to. No, I lead with humility and compassion, right? But think about this, as a wise guardian of our family's life, right? I do have boundaries. I do have very clear

expectations. And I don't mean this to sound flippant, but if you're not comfortable with that role, then please don't be a parent because it is not fair and it is not kind to kids to not let them know about guardrails in life. So the first morning after this, he rolled into the car at 7.30. I held up my phone to show him the time. It was three minutes late. And here's what he said. Seriously, dad, I'm only three minutes late. That's good for me. And I said, well, that's progress, son. But you just chose to lose 30 minutes of your screen time tonight. And what was his response? Dad, thank you for being consistent and following through so I can count on you. It makes me feel safe as a child. Yeah,

that's not what he said. Of course not. He went right for the jugular because that's who my strong-willed son is. This is stupidest thing I've ever heard of. You're supposed to be a parenting expert. Why would anybody listen to you or buy your stupid programs? Yeah, he was awesome like that. So guess what? The car ride to school that day? Not so pleasant. When we got to a school, did he hug me or tell me to have a good day? No. He slammed the door and stomped off, knowing that was a big trigger of mine. And then I couldn't react because the headmaster was right out in the carpool line and I was supposed to be the calm guy. So look the truth is I didn't react on the entire car ride. Did I have a right to react when he was

saying disrespectful things to me? Of course I had the right to, but I also know this. He wasn't mad at me. He was mad at himself. And part of what I wanted to do was show him how to be responsible and successful at this, not beat him up or have himself beat himself up. And here's the other point. I'm also a grown adult. He's a kid. He's venting because he was held accountable. So I expected him to be upset. He knew it was wrong to say those things. And I'm also mature enough not to take the bait from a frustrated kid and escalate things. So stop taking everything so personally, right? And chill a little bit. So that night, I get home. I remind him with a concise, even language, hey, just wanted to remind you, turn off your screens 30 minutes early. And I walked out of his room. Why? So I didn't have to hear his grumbling so loud. And for him saying, seriously, seriously, you know how your kids see

that in a disrespectful way? Makes you want to twist their mouth off their face, right? Seriously. By the way, quick side note. So Casey owns his own home now. And so when he was a kid, his room was a disaster. He was not that neat and clean. If you come to Casey's house, guess what you have to do? You have to take off your shoes when you enter his house. Why? Because he doesn't want dirt tracked in. Why does he care about now? Because he owns his own home.

And ownership is a big deal for Strongwell kids. So the first time he told me that, Dad, you got to take off your shoes, you know what I said? Seriously? Seriously? In the same tone. Why? Because he's a grown kid now. He's a young man and we have fun with it, but it's kind of fun.

Anyway, so my son got the point. He got the point. Later that night, I walked in and I asked him about something he was interested in. Why? Because that's connection, right? And I offered another tool for the morning, right? Totally up to you, but if you want to load up your stuff in the car tonight, it might help you in the morning. And we actually discussed some different ways to get ready more quickly in the morning. So we ended the night bonding over something he enjoyed.

We ended up problem solving instead of it just being ending the night. You know what, kid? Remember, 727 tomorrow morning. If you're not ready on time, you're gonna lose, right? So pretty quickly, he learned this. The 727 rule was just set in stone. He learned that I keep my promises and he can count on me to keep my word without drama,

without lectures, without making it a huge deal, without making it worse. And I think for some of you, that's the huge key is not talking so much, not lecturing. When I discipline, it's short and sweet. There's no drama. I'm not making it into a bigger deal than it needs to be. I'm not projecting into the future. You know what? If you can't learn how to be on time in the morning when you're seven or nine or 12,

you're never going to be able to keep a job. Stop all that stuff, right? If you listen to that Discipline That Works program, you're going to get this main point, and it's this. When using this tool for discipline, i.e. consequences, right, you are teaching your child a couple valuable things. I simply do what I said I was going to do. See, that makes me trustworthy. And I never make it personal. I'm not angry or mad. I'm just very clear. And I change the language, right?

The traditional thing is like, you need to enforce consequences too. I'm just keeping my promises to you. See, I promised you if this happened, this would be the result. And I promise if you handle it this way, this would be the result. Right? So you're keeping a promise you made to your child.

See, it's the kind thing to do. It's the trustworthy thing to do. And when you discipline this way, you're teaching your child how to succeed in your home and in life. You're providing clarity so your child knows what to expect, and you're being trustworthy and reliable, and you're actually empowering your child to succeed with different tools and different choices. But know that consequences are not usually the most effective tool. I'd rather give my child tools to turn off their video games on time, right? I'd actually practice teaching self-control in different ways. See, that's true discipline

because you're actually teaching. And discipline means to teach. And good discipline will lead to a closer, more trusting relationship with your child. Remember, those are our end goals. So no, consequences are not threatening your child. Don't allow yourself to be manipulated by your kids. And please do remember that consequences are not the most effective or the only tool. I do prefer teaching, role-playing, creating successes, and connecting over consequences. Go through, as you go through the Calm Parenting Program, and you get it right on this easy to listen to app that you can share with your spouse. I don't care. You can share it with teachers, that would be very helpful too. As you do that, you're going to learn so many different tools

that go beyond the traditional approach that actually work with a strong willed child. If you need help with that, reach out to Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. He'll help you out if you need to find help financially, or just go to the website, get the get everything package, because then you have everything that we've ever created. It will change your family. So thank you for listening. Thanks for sharing the podcast. Hope to talk to you soon. Bye-bye.