An Alternative to Consequences: How to Change Behavior & Build A Closer Relationship

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[23] Do you struggle with finding the right or appropriate consequence for your child?

[24] Do you struggle because your kids largely don't care about consequence?

[25] it's hard isn't because it's kind of parenting 101 is well kid does something wrong and you give them a consequence because they have to learn that right from wrong and that when you do wrong or bad things you lose something so that's what we're going to talk about today on the call parenting podcast this is an impromptu podcast I hadn't planned this I just got a couple emails I did a phone consultation with some parents and I was going to post on Facebook but I'm not a huge fan of social media.

[26] And I thought, why don't I try to very quickly do a thought experiment with consequences.

[27] So we have this fear as parents, right, of like, well, if we don't give the right consequence, what are we going to teach our kids?

[28] And I want to think about it in a different way.

[29] Because look, think about this.

[30] If consequences really did work, you and I who were given lots of consequences when we were kids natural consequences consequences for our parents we grow up right because our generation we grew up the right way with our parents well if that really worked then doesn't it make sense doesn't it follow that we as adults wouldn't mess up so much and make so many bad decisions and yet we do right and so think about this probably this morning or last night you got frustrated and yelled at your child.

[31] What if I were to follow you around for a day?

[32] You'd hate me, but for a few hours, and give you and gave you a consequence for every single thing that you did wrong that hurt yourself or another person that was just wrong, right?

[33] And so you yelled at your child, and there I am.

[34] Sarah, you know, it's not nice to yell at your child, and you threatened your child.

[35] So tonight, no Netflix special for you.

[36] And by the way, I'm taking away your phone as well.

[37] Right?

[38] You're not going to be like, thank you for giving me a consequence.

[39] Because look, if I didn't get the consequence, I wouldn't have known that it was wrong to like yell at my child.

[40] No, you know it's wrong.

[41] You know it's not helpful.

[42] And yet you do it anyway.

[43] And it's not like me taking, giving you a consequence is all of a sudden going to open your eyes.

[44] what I really would do if I wanted to help you is to get to the root of why does your child frustrate you so much?

[45] Is your child too much like you or is it completely opposite of you?

[46] What's going on that you can't control yourself?

[47] Did you get that from your mom or your dad?

[48] What's causing your frustration under there?

[49] That's what we'll fix it.

[50] Just take this one.

[51] Some of you are just talking to a mom phone consultation.

[52] Talks too much.

[53] The kids get really upset.

[54] And what we found was that this mom, like most moms, has been, the analogy I use is you're like a drive -through that's open 24 -7 for the last 15 years and your kids can kind of just take advantage of you because you're always there doing everything for everyone else and your entire identity is wrapped up in being a mom.

[55] And that makes sense because, I mean, why wouldn't it be?

[56] And I get that.

[57] But this was a mom with some older kids.

[58] And I was like, you've got to transfer from being mommy of being there all the time, 24 -7, right, to do everything for them to just being their mother and having your own gifts and passions.

[59] And you know, it was really interesting as we talked.

[60] I said, you know what I think you need to do?

[61] And this was to the dad is to take your wife out and have a celebration and let her resign from being mommy and have a celebration and have them bring out a cake at the restaurant.

[62] and they're going to be like, well, is this for her birthday?

[63] No, it's just to celebrate her because she's been an awesome mommy and she raised two great kids.

[64] But now they're capable of taking care of themselves and they're awesome for X, Y, Z. But I wanted to celebrate what my wife has done.

[65] You know, this mom started crying.

[66] And I said, why are you crying?

[67] And she said, because I just like to be acknowledged.

[68] I just like to be acknowledged for all that I have done.

[69] Right.

[70] Is that not a beautiful thing?

[71] and it's not so hard, but we overlook it.

[72] And so, right?

[73] So if you're talking too much and lecturing too much and nagging your kids, it doesn't work.

[74] And so the root of it isn't to take away your Netflix tonight.

[75] It's to help release you from being overly responsible for other people.

[76] It's to release you from your anxiety that makes you believe that if you're not there, every second of every day, making sure that they're successful, that maybe you failed as a parent, or that they're going to end up homeless, or they're not going to be successful, right?

[77] We have to get to the root of it.

[78] Let me do a couple more.

[79] Let's say, here's one, some of us, you gossip.

[80] So a friend called to tell you about a friend, and then you're like, oh, yeah, well, you know, you know how that works.

[81] And so, again, do you need a consequence for doing that?

[82] Or do we need to really delve in and think, how does that serve you?

[83] Why do you need to feel important, right?

[84] A lot of it is I need to feel important, so I'm going to talk about other people.

[85] and it makes me feel better about myself knowing that Jim and Susie have issues like that.

[86] I don't need to give you a consequence.

[87] What we need to do is start practicing a different response, right?

[88] When someone calls us like that and says, yeah, man, you know what?

[89] If situation were different for me, I could see myself doing the same thing.

[90] Now that's not quite as much fun as it is to talk badly about other people and make yourself feel superior.

[91] But when you humble yourself and say, you know what, I could be in the same position.

[92] So you know what, maybe we should pray for them or maybe we should serve them somehow and see if we can take the pressure off of them, right?

[93] If you practice that and you started doing that and you saw and felt how good it feels to be gracious and humble like that, that will stop it, not giving you a consequence.

[94] By the way, it'll cause certain people not to call you anymore because they just, make the rounds and guess what when they're calling talk about jim jim and susy guess what later on today they're probably calling jim and susy to talk about you and your spouse and your family and your weird or difficult strong -willed child right so let me give do one more and then i'll tie this up let's say um you know today you were undisciplined and you ate something you shouldn't have eaten that wasn't good for your body or let's say that you're um struggling um with alcohol or some kind of of addiction, right?

[95] Do you need a consequence or don't you already know that you're literally doing things that are destroying your body and destroying your life?

[96] You don't need a consequence.

[97] You need someone to come in and help you to feel whatever it is, the root of that is, to not feel so much emotional or physical pain that drives you to do that or to consider yourself, right?

[98] A lot of you don't consider yourself worthy of things going well in your life.

[99] or if other people treating you well.

[100] And it ends up, it's a worthiness issue.

[101] It's not about a consequence.

[102] So I want you to think about that a little bit.

[103] This is just an extra podcast that I threw in because we go to consequence.

[104] Every phone consultation that I do, everything, what's the consequence that we do for that?

[105] I've got a child who is adopted or was in foster care and he gets really, really upset and throws things, gets upset.

[106] Should we calm things down before we give the consequence?

[107] And I'm like, he already knows throwing things is wrong, where I want to spend the energy is giving him tools to deal with the frustration.

[108] So as I close this up, I encourage you for the next week, instead of always talking about with your spouse or within your own head, like, well, what consequence is going to get through?

[109] By the way, if a consequence we're going to get through, you wouldn't be listening to this and you wouldn't need this, right?

[110] Because we're all good at throwing out stuff, especially men.

[111] You don't get to eat or play video games for the next week.

[112] Right?

[113] We give consequences.

[114] is we can't keep.

[115] And the harder work, the hard work, but the work that's going to make a difference is when we dig down underneath the root and we think, why is that child doing it?

[116] Why is that child stealing?

[117] Maybe he steals things at night because it's stimulating for his brain and he, and he's like strategy and figuring things out.

[118] And it's a challenge for him.

[119] And maybe your child lies, not because he's a sociopath and a liar, but because he's ashamed of his behavior and he doesn't have a lot of impulse control and he's tired of getting in trouble so he ends up lying and so you get to the root of it and then you give the child tools to succeed so please write that phrase down in school that's why behavior charts in school don't work you may as well just tell the child hey for the rest of the year you're going to be on red until we spend some time and energy showing giving the child tools to succeed because once he succeeds now he knows what to do right so So let's work on that this week.

[120] If we can help you, just reach out to Casey.

[121] That's our son, C -A -S -E -Y at Celebrate Calm .com.

[122] And we'd be glad to help you with any of our resources.

[123] We can make it work within your budget.

[124] We can help you.

[125] We'll just write to us, email us.

[126] We want to help, and we want this to be different so we don't go down 15 years of consequences that don't work.

[127] Love you all.

[128] Thanks for listening.

[129] Bye -bye.