Consequencing Your Child

So what is a consequence? Well, quite simply a consequence is an outcome or a result. Consequences can be positive or negative. In behavioral psychology, a positive consequence is typically referred to as reward and a negative consequence is typically referred to as punishment. Here, I'm going to specifically talk about negative consequences.

There are two types of negative consequences: natural and logical.

Natural consequences are consequences that naturally occur in the world we live in. For example, if your teen gets caught speeding, a natural consequence would be getting a speeding ticket.

With the parents that I work with in my practice, I always encourage them to try to allow natural consequences to play out first since these consequences tend to have the most lasting impact on our children. It is literally teaching them what the world expects from them, which is our overall job as parents.

If natural consequences are ineffective, I then will work with parents to create logical consequences. Logical consequences are thus the consequences that parents may apply when natural consequences seem to be ineffective.

For example, if your teen continues to get speeding tickets, obviously they're not learning from the natural consequences. A parent will then need to apply their own set of logical consequences. This would usually be something like restricting their use of the family car.

So in terms of consequences, what I would like to highlight is the importance of knowing the difference between the two types of consequences (natural and logical) so that you may use each of them appropriately and effectively.