How do I identify natural consequences?

Julie Greenlee: It s really important when we are dealing with difficult kids and really with any kid that we are using natural consequences. A lot of the times, parents rely on what we were raised on, where you get grounded for just about doing anything, a really bad, going to bed early, go in to your room is real common techniques used when kids are defiant or non-compliant. What we want to remember is that there is consequences that are already built in to most of the things that these kids have done. Take for example, if the kid chooses not to eat. Then natural consequence of that is that he is going to have hungry tummy later and we hope that he does, we pray that he feels how hungry he is, because he chose not to eat what we made. There is many, many examples of this. If a child punches another child or assaults another kids, some how at the playground, the natural consequences for that is that he wouldn t go back to the playground until he can prove that he can be a safe member of the group that he is with, of his classmates and maybe even of his siblings that we would just separate him from other kids.

A lot of the times, parents feel as though we have to implement some sort of punishments, some sort of consequence so that we can teach our child. What we want to do is to have the consequences of that child s action, teach the lesson, not us. We want to stay the good guy; we want those, the child s bad choices to leave him feeling bad.