When Kids' Behavior Isn't Their Fault
Jul 16, 2024
Have you ever felt guilty disciplining your kid because you know their behavior isn’t their fault?
What if your toddler is hitting, but you know they’re hungry and tired?
What about a teen whose hormones make them slam doors in anger?
How about kids who are total trainwrecks around transitions?
Most of us were raised to see discipline as punishment, based on the idea that when someone behaves badly, they ARE bad. Punitive discipline assumes that a child behaving badly is doing so with bad intent. They are naughty.
Punishment <> Discipline
If we see discipline as punishment for naughtiness, it feels confusing and wrong to discipline a child whose misbehavior is ‘no fault of their own.’ Tired and hungry toddlers, hormonal teens, and sensitive kids aren’t bad, and they certainly don’t have bad intentions. If you think these kids don’t deserve punishment, I agree!
But they do need discipline.
Discipline and punishment are NOT the same.
Giving a child a loving, compassionate consequence for hitting is not a punishment. In fact, this is how we gently teach kids that even when we’re tired and hungry, it’s still not okay to hit people, and we can handle big emotions in other ways.
When we parent this way, our kids’ world is stable and makes sense - their behavior has predictable outcomes, and they can decide how to act accordingly. Modifying rules or consequences in tricky situations confuse kids when they’re already dealing with a lot. Being tired and hungry is hard for a toddler; adding a changing and unpredictable world to the mix only makes it worse, so it’s no surprise that when rules are all over the place, kids in these situations become even more dysregulated and poorly behaved. Who could blame them?
Feeling Murky About Punishment and Consequences
If you are feeling murky about when to give a consequence, which consequences to give, and how to make sure you’re not giving punishments, I can help. Set up a free Discovery Call, and let’s get to work!
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