Parents talk about positive approaches to guiding children’s behaviour. Allowing children to make choices that are informed by natural consequences, supports them to take responsibility for the outcome of their choices.
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Transcript
Natural consequences versus these enforced consequences or punishment. The child taking responsibility and then if they don't, for example, take their water bottle to school, it's not about running to school with the water bottle and saving them.
It's about, well, you don't have your water bottle because you forgot your water bottle. So, the consequence of that is you have to use the drinking fountain at school. And so that means that they’ll remember the next time.
If they forget their sunhat, then they play inside and they've learned that tomorrow they may not lose their sunhat.
Rather than me getting upset about them being late, it kind of comes down to, “well, if you'd like me to spend time in the classroom with you in the morning and have a look at your things, for that to happen, we need to leave now.”
Even yesterday, he wanted that extra 10 minutes to keep playing at home I said, “Well, that's okay. But you realise when we get there, the school bell will be gone.”
So, it allowed him to kind of go “I'm willing to risk that.” We got to school and he heard that bell just as we're walking up to the classroom.
And he realised, well, “you can't stay, can you?” Giving those choices to them rather than making it a really negative situation. It's just pointing out to them what their options are, and then he has a bit more control over what the outcome is.
You can find out more information about positive approaches to guiding behaviour on the Parenting SA website.