Parenting, cause & effects

There are and always will be a cause and effect to everything. This is something that we can always rely on to be true no matter the situation but especially with behaviors or attitudes. I heard something similar to this a lot when I was younger. Growing up it was almost on cue that a classmate or sibling would ask "do I have to do that?". My dad would almost always answer with "No, You do not have to do anything in this life, except accept the consequences." I quickly picked up that consequences are the effect of what we do or do not do. Lately I have added that the effect could also be from receiving what we need versus our needs not being met. Well I think that leads us perfectly into what we are talking about today. That being that it is part of an adult's responsibility to find the cause behind a child's behaviors and it is our responsibility to teach, and learn if we haven't yet, how to respond.

Recently I was able to learn about an equation that helped break down a very important role of parents or even just adults. It is that choices plus consequences equal response ability. Meaning that when we fully understand choices and consequences we have the ability to respond in a healthy way. It also allows you to be aware of who and what your response will or could affect. We can teach this by directing children to decisions that have safer natural consequences rather than just telling the child "NO". Now before you all start saying that your child is too stubborn to listen to redirection please just try it. Redirection does not need to be to a completely different activity it can simply be to a safer way to the child's idea.

I said it before and I will say it again let your child experience natural consequences. This is healthy and will teach them how to problem solve and how to get back up on their feet. However this does not mean that you have to or should let you child or someone else's test the limits of something that could seriously hurt them or another person or an animal. It is an adults responsibility to know when to step in and provide redirection and some extra guidance. There are three main reasons for why someone should step up and prevent natural consequences. These are when the natural consequences are one, too dangerous, second, that the consequence is too far in the future, and the third, it hurts others. This means that it is on us to be able to accurately predict the natural consequences and to teach children how to do so.

How do we know when to redirect and if the natural consequences are within the boarders of safe to learn from? Well, we do this by making parenting intentional, meaning by listening and watching. As the adult it is our role to watch over and protect the young whether or not it is our child. Yes I know we can not change other peoples parenting ways and we can not tell a child not to do something that their parent already said was okay. But we can provide guidance to our children and their friends, or to the children whose parents give us the okay to.

Redirection is something that does not stop natural consequences, meaning the child is left with a lesson and they also are able to notice that you are not the bad guy telling them "NO" but that you are there to protect them. If there are ever two consistent thing in every child it is that they need a challenge and that they need protection. By doing all of these things we are better able to fill the child's needs and to provide them with an adult whom they trust.