What's the Difference Between Limits and Consequences?

This was a MUST share article from Aha! Parenting.

"Dr. Laura, How do you set loving limits, when you do not give consequences? For example, my son's bouncing a soccer ball inside the house. I try to give him a choice: "You remember balls are for bouncing outside. You may take it in front of the house or into the backyard. The choice is yours." Sometimes it works...sometimes he ignores me and continues to bounce the ball...I repeat again, and he does not listen. Should I take the ball away? He did not listen and there should be a consequence, no?"

Mom sees behavior that is against the family rules. She sets a limit, in this case by giving her son a choice of two alternate, acceptable, options. He ignores her. She repeats herself. He ignores her. Shouldn't there be a "consequence"?

Let's take this a step at a time.

1. Your son is bouncing the ball in the house, which he knows is against the family rules. You're worried about the walls getting scuffed. You need to set a limit. 

If you're doing daily preventive maintenance -- connecting with warmth and empathy, spending one on one time -- your child will always be more cooperative. So you can usually just set a clear, kind limit: "Michael! Ball bouncing is for outside. Thank you!" and hold open the door, and he'll comply.

What do I mean by connecting with warmth and empathy? Your basic 24/7 response to him is seeing things from his perspective, with compassion. In other words, what comes out of your mouth sounds mostly like this (in a warm, heart-felt voice):

• "You don't want to stop playing and take a bath. I understand. I bet when you're a grownup, you'll never take a bath, will you?"
• "Sometimes it's really hard to share your parents."
• "You sound really mad!"

2. Do you need to give him a choice? 

Some younger kids feel overwhelmed by choices. But strong-willed kids, even more than the rest of us, react badly when they feel backed into a corner. I would generally recommend giving your child the choice of continuing his activity in an appropriate place, or finding a different activity.

"Michael! No ball playing in the house. You can bounce the ball outside, or you can find another activity."

3. He ignores you. 

Maybe he's not being defiant; he's just really focused on his ball skills and doesn't even hear you. Or maybe you haven't been connecting with him much lately, and this is your red flag that you need to spend some dedicated special time with him daily, starting tonight. Or maybe he knows from past experience that there's a good chance you'll give up and leave him alone. Or maybe he's just a strong-willed kid, who needs to push on a limit 100 times to see if it holds firm. So he ignores you.

Do you repeat yourself? No! 

If you've asked once and not gotten a response, don't just repeat yourself. You don't have your child's attention yet. Instead, you get in his face in a friendly way, so he gets that you mean it. 

So in this case, you walk over to your son and -- hopefully with a smile on your face, but at least with a neutral expression -- you intercept the soccer ball. You hold the ball in one arm, putting the other arm around his shoulder. He looks up at you, aggravated.

4. You connect before you correct.

How do you feel when someone implies that you're wrong? A little bristly? An urgent need to prove you're right, or to fight back? That's not exactly a recipe for cooperation.

You can avoid your child feeling that way by reconnecting. He's much more likely to really hear you, and to care what you want, which means he's more likely to cooperate. You do that by seeing his perspective, even as you set your limit.

"Hey, Buddy...I guess you were so focused on those ball skills that you didn't hear me. Your ball skills are looking good. AND where do we play with balls? Right! Outside!" 

As you speak, you are walking him towards the door. You open it, and as he goes out, you give him the ball, and a smile.

5. Find a win/win solution. Usually, that's the end of incident. You've enforced your limit. If you do this regularly, your son will skip the inside bouncing and head straight outdoors, because who wants their mom interrupting when they're practicing ball skills? 

But maybe you only have a lawn outside and the ball doesn't bounce there. Maybe your son needs a hard surface to bounce the ball. In that case, he will almost certainly keep using your hallway. Time for a win/win solution.

"Hmm...I hear you that the lawn isn't good for bouncing the ball....and bouncing it in the house doesn't work for me because it damages the wall....What can we do?....You think the blacktop at the school would work? Great idea! I can't go with you now, but if you help me chop these veggies, we can go over for half an hour before dinner. Let's work together." 

Notice your child has to delay gratification. That's not easy. But if you're maintaining a positive connection, he'll be a lot more motivated.

6. Should you take the ball away? If your child is using a toy in an unsafe way, and does not respond to your redirection, then of course you take the toy away. "Balls are not for bouncing in the house. I hear you really don't want to go outside, so let's put the ball away and find something you can do in the house. It looks like you need something active to do....Want to jump on the trampoline in the basement? Or throw your stuffed animals over the railing and then rescue them?" Notice this is not a punishment. You are simply redirecting your child's energy. 

7. Teach Your Child to Repair. Let's say you come upon your son bouncing his ball in the hall, and you notice scuff marks on the wall. You say say "Whoa! Look at that wall! We need to clean that up. Sweetie, let's go get the cleaning supplies, and I'll help you. You know we always clean up our own messes." If you do this cheerfully, without blame, from the time your child is little, he will comply. And he will also start taking the ball outside without your intervention, because who wants to clean the walls when they could be outside doing soccer drills?

8. Shouldn't there be a "consequence"? Of course! Look at all the consequences of what happened here! Your son has learned:

• When mom tells me to do something, she means it. There's no point in trying to ignore her.
• Bouncing the ball in the house scuffs the wall and I'm responsible to help clean up the scuff marks...I'd rather just go outside with the ball.
• I make mistakes, but Mom always understands.
• I repair my mistakes and clean up my own messes.
• My mom really cares about what I want. So I care about what she wants.
• If I don't like what Mom tells me to do, she listens and tries to find a good solution for both of us.
• I'm good at finding solutions.
• If I use a toy unsafely, I have to find another activity.
• I don't always get what I want, but I get something better -- a mom who understands.
• Everyone in our family takes our family rules seriously. The most important one is treating each other with respect and kindness.

By contrast, if you had punished him -- which is what parents usually mean by "consequences" -- what would he have learned? 

• She's always yelling and punishing me. Why should I do what she wants?
• When I bounce the ball in the house, she takes it away and punishes me. But not until she's yelling. So I don't have to listen until she yells and takes the ball away. I know just how far to push it before I get a consequence.
• She took my ball. I'm going to annoy my sister. In fact, I'm going to make this afternoon miserable for everyone.
• When she's not here, I'll bounce the ball in the house as much as I want. 
• No, I don't know who made those scuff marks. I'm getting good at lying.
• She can't make me.

The truth is, we can't make another human being do what we want. We can only help them WANT to. Loving guidance and empathic limits help your child WANT to follow your guidance, so those good habits become part of who he is, whether you're there or not. "Consequences" that are designed to punish? Just the opposite.

The difference between loving limits and consequences is that there's no room for punishment in loving limits. If you'd like to learn more you can find this article here.

Six Ways to Allow Your Child to Become a Responsible Adult

Lately there seem to be many parents yelling about how much they hate our current generation of entitled children or young adults who can’t function on their own and don’t take responsibility for their actions. They seem to argue that it’s parents who are responsive that are a problem, something I’ve heard first hand (because didn’t you know that letting my child breastfeed at 2 means she’ll be a spoiled, rotten brat??). They often push for things like bullying being okay or leaving your child to cry because the real world is harsh: The problem is that we just haven’t been harsh enough with our kids and that’s why they can’t cope. I think it’s bullshit. You want to raise responsible adults? Here are six things you should allow your child to do if you want them to grow into adults who understand responsibility, will work hard, and be self-motivated…

Allow your baby to be totally dependent on you. Our society focuses far too much on trying to make babies independent but quite simply, it won’t work. Think of your child as a house or tree, without the right foundation or roots, you will have problems. Attachment is absolutely necessary to children’s well-being. Although historical or evolutionary practices are very easy ways to get this attachment (because of the constant proximity between baby and a caregiver – typically mom but certainly not always given the high prevalence of alloparenting in these societies), as written about before it’s really all about responsiveness. Whereas leaving your baby to cry or refusing to feed or comfort at certain points is non-responsive, you simply cannot spoil a baby with too much love and you will not create “bad habits” or “clingy children” by responding to them. You just won’t. In fact, you’ll raise children who feel secure enough to go out and explore the world on their own, knowing they have a safe place to return to if necessary.

Allow your child to grow into his/her independence. You see, we have it backwards. We force independence in babies and then restrict it as our children develop and are yearning for independence. Does this mean we hand our 2 year old a knife and wish them luck? No, it means that we allow them to explore. In the younger years, it may be as simple as just letting them climb on the play structure themselves. In the older years, it’ll be letting them go on bike rides or walks to friends’ houses by themselves. You can always make sure your child is doing something as safely as possible but if you remove the chances for them to practice their independence out of fear of anything happening, you will stunt them.

If they have the secure foundation of responsive parenting in their early years, they know they can come to you if they run into problems and they most likely will. They may face problems that you wish they didn’t, but you’ll be there to see them through it, from cuts and broken bones to broken hearts and lost dreams. Remember that each child will grow into their independence in their own time – you can’t actually force independence. You can force independent-like behaviour, but if a child isn’t ready, it will be done with extreme anxiety which is not good for future exploration. (Also remember that a child who is set on being independent will find ways and if you make it too difficult for them, expect them to start doing it behind your back and probably not in the safest or sanest of ways.)

Allow your child to play, and play rough (if she/he wants). Until the age of around 6 or 7, children should spend most of their time playing (and still a lot of time after that). Outdoors when possible, but at least playing. In our world of daycare and preschool and kindergarten readiness tests, we are so focused on trying to teach our children, I’m not sure that there’s any room for them to learn. Will they memorize things? Sure. But are they learning about their interests, the world around them, and how to engage with it? I don’t think so. Play is key to this process of learning and we need to allow them to cultivate it far more than we currently do.

One more thing, many kids (yes, girls included) will want to play rough – toy swords, toy knives, wrestling – and we should let them. Every bit of play is learning, including roughhousing, and from it they can learn a lot about safety, respect for others, and the appropriate ways to use tools. I know many people panic when their child shows an interest in rough play, especially those that identify as “gentle parents”. Remember: Gentle parenting is not about restricting play to gentle play, it’s about how you respond as a parent to your child.

Allow your child to take responsibility for his/her actions. There are two different problems in our society in this realm. Either parents, in an effort to avoid seeing their child in pain or suffering any type of punishment, cover for them or they offer harsh punishments that don’t fit “the crime”. In more traditional societies where groups are small and people have to work together, it is common for people to know how to make amends and if they don’t, allow the group or the elder to decide what actions should be taken while all accept the outcome to move forward. As we don’t have such small groups, we’re not used to that type of awareness of how our actions influence or affect other people, thus parents are used to either doling out punishments or hiding their child from responsibility.

What does taking responsibility look like? Well, at the basic level it’s letting your child take part in figuring out how to make amends if they’ve hurt someone, fix something they’ve done “wrong”, own up to any behaviour that hurt someone, or accept the natural consequences of their own behaviours. It’s bringing them into the fold and having them come up with solutions with you (to help guide them, but not tell them what to do). You should also be giving them things to be responsible for, whether it be a chore in the house, cleaning up after themselves, or being in charge of whatever toys they bring out in public. If they don’t have ways to practice responsibility, they can never learn it. Children as young as 2 or 3 can help come up with ideas and the more they do, the better they get at it and the more they learn to be responsible for themselves.

Allowing responsibility does not mean never helping them when they ask for it out of fear that they will not learn to be responsible. You also want to teach them to help others if they can and when the request is reasonable, so be prepared to do the same for them. It does not mean covering for them or fixing their problems without their input and work or helping when the request is not reasonable.

[My own personal take is that when we instill this, we are helping reduce bullying. If you are consistently aware of how your actions affect other people and become used to having to take responsibility for that, you don’t intentionally hurt others and certain apologize when you do.]

Allow your child to say “no”. If you were to actually step back for a day and observe your interactions with your child, how often do you think you’d allow them to say “no” to you? How often do you allow yourself to say “no” to them? It’s inherently going to be unequal, but in our society it is so skewed that we might as well be honest that we seem to have the primary goal of obedience, not raising children to think for themselves. Sometimes allowing them to do what they want will lead to failure for them (something I know we hate seeing) and that’s okay. They need to fail. We all do. With failure we learn: We learn what doesn’t work and we learn we need to change our plan if we want to reach our goal.

We also need to allow them to say no to develop their own voice. If they can’t feel safe saying “no” to a parent and having it be respected at least once in a while, how can we expect them to feel confident saying it to someone else? We worry about our kids running off with the wrong “crowd”, doing drugs or drinking too much, saying “yes” to sex when they aren’t feeling truly ready themselves. Although these behaviours stem from a multitude of issues, part of it comes down to kids who just don’t believe their “no” has a voice. It’s up to us as parents to give that “no” a voice.

One last thought on it: how can we expect them to respect our “no” when we don’t respect theirs?

Allow your child to be a child out in public. I have to qualify this by being clear that I’m not talking about all places, as there are areas where we need to be aware of how we all act and kids need to learn that too; however, we seem to look askew at anyone with a child who is being a child anywhere. Folks, public is public and it’s for everyone, children included. I don’t like the behaviours of many of the adults around me, but I acknowledge their right to behave that way in these spaces. My child has the same rights to behave like a child (arguably more because they don’t have the neurological capacity to always behave as others’ might like). That may mean being a bit too loud, running around, squealing with delight, and yes, sometimes breaking down. These are all normal behaviours. It’s how we handle things when they go too far that we must be aware of.

A child who is screaming at the top of her lungs should be reminded that it hurts other people’s ears and to be quieter or to find a place where that won’t bother people. Running around and crashing into people without regard is also something children need to learn not to do. And breaking down often requires gently removing a child from the situation until he or she is calm and figuring out what happened while offering comfort and understanding. Adults in our society need to be exposed to children as children are. Children need the exposure to public places and adults to learn how to behave, while also being allowed to be themselves in a respectful way. When we hide them from it or force them to behave in ways that aren’t aligned with their developmental level, we are making it harder and harder for them to learn to consider others (because they’re too focused on their own behaviour) or to take responsibility and learn about thinking of others. It also tells them that they are not worthy of respect (but others are) and frankly that’s not a lesson that’s going to serve anyone well if we want them to grow up to feel confident and secure in themselves.

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There we have it. Six things you can allow your child to do that will help them be responsible, independent, caring grown-ups. You don’t need to force them to toughen up or even force them to be independent because they’ll get there on their own. The problem isn’t that we haven’t been “harsh” enough, the problem is that we’ve been harsh when we should be gentle, permissive when we should encourage responsibility, and driven by fear to restrict our children’s growth into independent beings. Let’s end that. If you'd like to learn more on the topic you can click here.