Should children suffer the consequences if they don’t do what we tell them?
This question has come up a lot lately in light of the rise of gentle parenting.
Kind parenting emphasizes understanding and acknowledging children’s feelings and motivations, setting firm boundaries, giving choices and avoiding punishment.4
And yet this often does not lead to the desired result. We want our children to do the things we want them to do – like get dressed, get to meals quickly, sit at the table, do their homework, not fight with their siblings, etc. – and we struggle with how how we can achieve this.
And we don’t just want them to do these things when we tell them to; we also want them to learn to do these things without being told.
But there is more. We want our children to internalize good values. We want them to develop their own moral compass. By the time they are 9 or 10 years old, we want them to understand the importance of listening to others, following rules, treating others with respect and being honest, among other things.
And often we don’t know how to achieve this goal.
So what do we do? Talk to our children every time they do something we don’t like or when they don’t do something we want them to do? Offer consequences if they don’t do what we tell them? Or do we actually punish them – whether through a beating, deprivation of a privilege, or taking away a promised treat?
Physical punishment
Let’s start with physical punishment. That’s a no. Because we have known for a long time that physical punishment is not beneficial for children. In a review article on this topic, Anne B. Smith argues that although corporal punishment is often considered an effective and even necessary means of socializing children, research has shown that it is a predictor of a wide range of negative developmental outcomes for children. . There is broad agreement on this in all the recent research done in this area. Physical punishment is associated with increased child aggression, antisocial behavior, lower intellectual performance, poorer quality of parent-child relationships, mental health problems (such as depression), and reduced moral internalization.2
In a review of the literature on this topic, one researcher found that there was also widespread agreement among studies that physical punishment reduces the likelihood that children will internalize parents’ rules and values.2
Talking to our children
Now let’s move on to another alternative: talking to our children. Time and again it has been shown that this increases children’s insight into parents’ expectations and maintains the affective bond between parent and child.
But as we all know, talking is often not enough. While some advocates of gentle parenting may differ, what has been found to be more effective than just talking is setting clear expectations, instituting gentle punishments such as consequences for misbehavior, and being consistent.
This is called authoritative parenting.
Authoritative parenting
And the research on parenting is clear on this. In many studies of three types of parenting: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive, authoritative parenting has been found to be the most effective, as well as the style that produces the happiest children.
Authoritative parents are responsive to their children’s feelings and needs, and are more likely to be supportive than harsh to their children. This style of parenting is associated with talking to children about their behavior and setting mild punishments or consequences for misbehavior. Studies have shown that this type of parenting results in less depression and more school engagement in adolescents.3
Authoritarian parenting
Meanwhile, authoritarian parents are those who are unresponsive to their children, yet demanding of them. The authoritarian parenting style is associated with emphasizing obedience and conformity and expecting rules to be followed without explanation. Authoritarian parents exhibit low levels of trust and commitment toward their children, discourage open communication, and engage in strict control. And verbal hostility and psychological control have been found to be the most damaging forms of authoritarian parenting behavior. Adolescents from authoritarian families have been found to exhibit poor social skills, low self-esteem and high levels of depression.3
Essential reading on parenting
Permissive parenting
Permissive parenting is characterized by a high level of responsiveness to children, coupled with a low level of demandingness. Permissive parents affirm their children’s impulses, desires, and actions and consult with their children about decisions. The results, which may surprise you, show that adolescents from tolerant families report a higher frequency of substance use and misbehavior at school and are less engaged and less positively oriented at school compared to individuals from authoritative or authoritarian families. And permissive parenting is also linked to low self-esteem in children.
So back to the question: what is the best thing for parents to do?
Well, it seems to me that what some people call “gentle parenting” can end up looking a lot like the “tolerant parenting” I described above.
And according to the research, authoritative parenting appears to produce happier children and children who eventually internalize the rules.
So this means setting clear rules and boundaries for your children from an early age, talking to them about them, and setting clear, mild punishments, or what I call consequences, for when children don’t do what you tell them to do.
And notice, I use the words “what you told them” instead of what you “asked.”
It’s time to stop saying, “Okay?” after everything we tell our child to do. As a parent, it’s time we stop asking our children to do things we actually want them to do. It can be difficult to act as an authority towards our children, but generational boundaries are important. Our children need to know that we, as parents, are ultimately in charge.
As parents, we are often afraid to set boundaries or give consequences. We are afraid of making our children unhappy or angry. We fear meltdowns – both in public (embarrassing) and at home (frustrating).
But we must understand that we must be able to tolerate our children being upset, disappointed, sad or even angry with us if we want them to learn to do what we want them to do and if we want them, ultimately, to live the values that we to internalize being dear.
So let’s start setting consequences, be consistent and make the consequences fit the misbehavior. These are often called logical consequences and make sense to you and your child. For example, if your child doesn’t put on her pajamas in time for book reading on a certain evening, the story will have to wait until tomorrow.
