Smart Love - How to Teach Consequences to Children

Written by Martha Heineman Pieper, Ph.D. and William Joseph Pieper, M.D

A common situation in which parents might be advised to let "natural consequences" teach teens a lesson involves teenagers' difficulties getting out of bed on school days. Parents are often told to let their adolescent experience the results of her tardiness, such as detention, a lowered grade, or extra work. What they don't realize is that their child will believe that her parents are letting her down out of indifference or dislike. A more effective approach is to have a discussion with your teen the night before about the difficulty of waking her up. You can ask your adolescent to suggest effective methods to help her get going. One teen we know decided that the only arrangement certain to arouse her would be a cold washcloth placed on her face, and, in fact, this proved an effective wake-up call. If, despite your best efforts, you cannot wake your child, you can at least spare her the disappointment that you knowingly let her harm herself.

Parents sometimes say, "But she is practically an adult. If I keep performing these basic functions for her, how will she ever learn to take care of herself?" The smart love response is that, just as she needed you to get milk for her when she was a hungry six-month-old, she needs you now. We cannot overemphasize that adolescence is a developmental phase. Your adolescent still requires your responsive love and affection, and she will not be helped to grow up by your "tough love" or disapproval.

Afterword

Smart Love: Your Companion on Your Child's journey to Adulthood

In most areas of our lives we make momentous decisions only after much deliberation, and even then we may experiment a bit to make sure we have chosen the correct path. Parents, however, are faced every day with a multitude of vital decisions that come thick and fast. Because parents can't see the final result of their choices until their children have reached adulthood, they find it difficult to evaluate the quality of their responses and they worry about whether they are making the right choices. Some examples of the dilemmas parents face on a daily basis are: Do we feed our baby whenever she wants or put her on a schedule? Do we make our toddler share and stop her from grabbing, or do we let her outgrow these tendencies on her own? Do we discipline our child when she is disobedient or destructive, or is there a kinder method to guide her? Do we impose consequences on children who don't do their homework or pick up their room, or do we help them do chores and homework? Should we respond to the difficult adolescent with tough love or tender love?

We wrote Smart Love to help you with the thousand and one decisions you have to make as parents. Because smart love principles remain the same whether you are parenting a newborn or an adolescent, Smart Love can be your companion and helpmate at every step on your child's journey to adulthood.

The choices parents make are particularly tough at moments when their child is difficult or unhappy and, especially, if their child is chronically difficult or unhappy. If you have a problematic child of any age, we have also written this book for you. By following smart love principles you can help your child recapture her birthright of inner happiness.

By using the smart love guidelines you can provide your child with a reliable, enduring core happiness that is unwavering even in the face of life's unavoidable disappointments and misfortunes. We emphasize that this accomplishment is made possible by establishing a pleasurable relationship and not by frustrating your child's needs or depriving her of your attention. Your child's inner well-being rests on her certain knowledge that she has caused you to love caring for her. Of all the gifts you can give your child, this is the most important, because it is the foundation of all happiness and goodness and the shield against self-caused unhappiness.

If you choose to use the principles of smart love, you will have more confidence that you know what to do every day and every year to sustain and nurture your child's emotional well-being. One reason that you can rely on smart love to guide your daily decisions about your child is that smart love considers childhood from your child's point of view. In fact the entire smart love approach is built on this unique perspective. Smart love establishes a more realistic, less pressured timetable for your child's emotional development; introduces you to new developmental milestones and shows you how to help your child reach them; and offers you a way to shield your child from the consequences of her immaturity without resorting to permissiveness, disciplinary measures, or rewards--all of which are counterproductive. With the help of smart love guidelines, you can raise a successful, well-regulated, and, most important, a truly happy child while loving and enjoying her to your heart's content.

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Excerpt reprinted with permission from foxcontent.com

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