Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome to another episode of Parenting with Impact. I am so psyched to have a conversation with you because there's so much Parenting with Impact. I have mine, too.

Diane Dempster: Parenting with Impact. Here we are.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There's so much going on in this space and there's this topic we really want to talk about and share with people.

Diane Dempster: And it's funny because I reached out to you the other day, and I was listening to a podcast, and I was listening to another parenting expert talk.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Which shall be unnamed.

Diane Dempster: Unnamed, no judgment. Everybody's got good stuff. Everybody's great.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Everybody's got their stuff.

Diane Dempster: Everybody's got their stuff. It's this sort of thing. And it really hit a nerve with me because I hear parents in our community all the time coming to us and saying, okay, so they told me to do this thing, and it totally didn't work. And I don't know what to do. And I feel like I'm judging myself because I must have done it wrong because these other experts said it'll work. Just do it. Just be consistent. Just whatever, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. You know, in my world, consistent is a four-letter word.

Diane Dempster: Oh, yeah, no kidding.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I hate the word consistent. 

Diane Dempster: And that was part of what I kind of wrestled with because they're like, you got to do this, and you've got to do it consistently. And I'm like, I'm-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's a yes end.

Diane Dempster: It's a yes end. Even for me, things are hard to do consistently, and there's lots of reasons.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And sometimes consistently may not be like you and I talked about flexible structure. Structure is really important but if it doesn't have a bend to it, the bridge is going to fall down. You have to be able to dance to what's happening at the moment.

Diane Dempster: So the bottom line, part of this conversation that I really want to talk about is consequences and we talked about the difference between consequences and punishments, and the importance of consequences, and all of these sorts of things. So I want to kind of have us riff a little bit on this because, absolutely, consequences are a powerful tool that you can use when supporting your kids and changing their behavior. But I can't tell you how many parents all the time are like, I've taken away everything, and they're not changing their behavior.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I know. It breaks my heart. So I was listening to a podcast, and what they were saying that I really liked was, she said, when you have a consequence, the consequences assume something's already gone wrong. Maybe natural consequences if we can look to what goes well or what doesn't, but a consequence starts to assume that there's a problem. And really, what you just said, Diane, what we really want is to be able to support our kids. So if we anticipate and we set expectations in advance, then we're in a place of agreement in navigating with each other instead of is it another word for a punishment?

Diane Dempster: And so let's start there for a second the difference between a punishment and a consequence in our language. A consequence is something that's agreed to in advance and is clearly understood by you and by your kid.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: A consequence, I would say, is something that you that's agreed to in advance, but it's it's an outcome. It's something that happens as a response to something else.

Diane Dempster: And there could be a positive consequence, and there could be a not-so-favorable consequence. Wait, I used positive but not negative, but you know what I mean. I was trying to be nice.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I like that language. That was nice. Not so favorable was a nice way to put it.

Diane Dempster: Not so favorable. A favorable consequence and an unfavorable consequence.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I love that.

Diane Dempster: And I think that that's one of the things to think about is we call it the carrot or the stick. Some of these kids respond better to the carrot than they do to the stick, so you want to-

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Especially if they've been part of identifying what that carrot is. I mean, that's another important piece.

Diane Dempster: When you finish your homework, you can get some ice cream is a consequence, in this instance, I just gave was one that the parent put forward rather than agreed to by the kid. A collaborative one might be what do you want to do to celebrate when you finish your homework, and the two of you agree together that there's a consequence at the end. That's a positive consequence.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And because some people react to the sugar of the ice cream, I remember one time when my daughter negotiated with her school teacher that after she finished writing assignment, she got to do a Sudoku in class because that was a reward to her.

Diane Dempster: And so just know, and we could talk for hours on this topic, but what we're keying into is motivation and it's this these kids need to be genuinely interested in something in order to change a behavior or do an action, or whatever else. And so constant favorable consequences as motivators are things that you can use to help your kid to change their behavior. Now, let's shift a little bit and talk about unfavorable consequences because that's really what I was on my rant about and the difference between a consequence and a punishment. So we said if the child knows in advance, and I said specifically, they understand it. They understand what's going to happen.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So I wouldn't go there real quick before we go to the other piece because that's what's so key is that it's when you set an expectation in advance, and you communicate it so that you both understand, and that's the piece. Often, we may have an expectation that their kids may not be really clear what we expect, or they know the expectation, but we haven't communicated and said, okay, here's what's going to happen, and here's what the result will be. So part of the appropriateness of consequences or punishments, whatever we're going to get to start before the event ever happens. It starts with prepping for it before you're reacting to it.

Diane Dempster: And I think the other piece of it is not just did they know it in advance, but are they aware of it in the moment. And then a lot of times, we expect, oh, last week, they said that they would do it, and we expect our kids with working memory challenges to remember, which doesn't often happen.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But a reminder at that point to something they already have an awareness of is way more effective than in the moment saying, if you don't do this, then that's going to happen because that comes a threat.

Diane Dempster: Right. And I think that that's an important piece of it because that minute, we use it as a threat to, hey, you better behave or I'm going to take your phone away. I mean, it throws us into a trigger. And so then you're dealing with a triggered kid. We're already having kids that are having a hard time executing agreements. So there's so many, there's so many moving pieces here. Wait, hang on a second. [overlapping]

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There are. I know. 

Diane Dempster: So consequences agreements. So parents say all the time, I have a tech agreement. My kid has agreed to go to bed at nine o'clock. Get off the computer.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Have they really agreed? 

Diane Dempster: Maybe they even agreed. Maybe you even have buy-in, but that doesn't mean they have the executive function to follow through on the agreement. So many times, parents put agreements in place or consequences in place. And we're setting our kids up because how many 10-year-old kids do you know that are hot in the middle of watching some video on YouTube can just go, oh, wait, okay, it's nine o'clock. Mama, was that you that called? Let's get off the computer. It just doesn't happen. They need help to change their behavior. They don't just need an agreement. They need more than that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And we'll do another conversation about agreements because you touched on buy-in, and that's a whole other deep wealth of information.

Diane Dempster: So that's the thing. So they say yes to consequences but agreed to in advance. So you've got to make sure that it's not just, hey, me threatening you and the kid being like that's not fair, and they need help to follow through with the consequences. And I think that the piece that we tend to miss is just saying, yeah, I'll do this, mom is not enough.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Is not sufficient, and then we move into what I was alluding to earlier, which is the consequence really a consequence, or is it a punishment in disguise?

Diane Dempster: So to talk about a punishment? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: A punishment means you should learn your lesson from this. You did wrong; you need to know you did wrong, and you have to pay a penalty for it in some way. We punish people in the grown-up world by putting them in jail or finding them money. It is something you did wrong. You have to pay recompense for it.

Diane Dempster: I was going to say the other thing I heard you say is that a lot of times, we dole out punishments in the heat of the moment, so there's surprises to our kids. I got a client the other day, two boys. They were having a hard time keeping their hands to themselves, and mom was trying very calmly to get them separated and talk to them nicely. And she said, if you don't leave your brother alone, I'm taking your phone away for the week. And I was like, whoa, wait a second. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Where did that come from? 

Diane Dempster: Where did that come from? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So that's a punishment. Now, here's how it could be a consequence because it's a great example. If you've had the conversation in advance about how important it is to keep your hands to yourself, maybe morning time before school is a rough time when everybody's agitated, so maybe sitting in different spaces. Whatever your arrangements are, you've set the expectation you're going to keep your hands to yourself and not bother your brother. And if you do, here's the rewards you're going to get for it. And if you don't, you'll get X number of reminders, whatever your negotiation is depending on the age.

Diane Dempster: Say that again. Here's how I'm going to help you make sure you can do it. I'll be there, I'll give you a few reminders.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We can help you strategies to help you manage it. And if I have to stop you, then let's talk about what you think would be a fair consequence.

Diane Dempster: And that's a great thing. It's like involving your kid, and what the consequences could be is an important piece of it. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And usually, they're much more punitive than we are.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, that's very true.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: They're much harder around themselves than we are. So if you involve them, then you can say, if the agreement is you're going to lose your phone for the day, which might be more reasonable than the week in a fraction like that.

Diane Dempster: I'll get to that in a minute. That was one thing that this person said that I really liked, but keep going.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So if the agreement is you're going to lose the phone, then when you're given the reminder, it's like reminder I know you want to keep your phone this afternoon, and I really want to help you be successful in that. What you need to do to keep your hands off your brother is very different from keeping your hands off your brother or you're losing your phone.

Diane Dempster: That's subtle language staying out of that threat. And I think the other piece again, so we said punishments were surprises, but then you said something about sending a message. And what I want to talk about is the fact that with consequences or punishments, there's two parts of it that we secretly want. One of them is that we want to send a message and say what you did was wrong and not okay. And the other piece of it is changing our kid's behavior. And parents get kind of caught up and try to do them both at once. And so we think if I take your phone away from that for the week, or for the day, or whatever you end up doing, then suddenly, miraculously, that's going to make it easier for your child to change his behavior the next time, and this is a kid who's having a hard time.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Which is not likely, and he's probably developmentally struggling with the executive function of doing that behavior, especially if he doesn't have a good reason to.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. So yes, send a message. It's sort of if you've got a kid who's hitting his little sister, some agreed consequence to send the message that hitting is not okay. There is nothing wrong with that. And if you're expecting that to be what changes his behavior or her behavior, is not enough. They're going to need help and so I think that that's the piece of it is that we get stuck as parents. We think, okay, got to make the consequences even worse, and worse, and worse and worse, hoping that suddenly, if it's terrible enough. So let me segue on that for a minute. One of the things I really liked about this is we tend to put a consequence in place that's long. It's sort of taking your phone away for the week. And what this person was talking about was the fact that if the phone is your leverage, it's the one thing that they're hanging on to, and you can use it as a reward or a consequence, and suddenly, it's gone for a week, a lot of times you lose your leverage. And so it's like this: you're stuck without a tool to help your child change their behavior. For most of these kids, taking their phone away for a week is not going to be much more dramatic for them than it would be for taking away for three hours or for 24 hours or for the next day.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The truth is that first few hours of the time, they're going to be really, really miffed about it.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. And they always say consequences should be, what's the word, equal? It should equal the crime. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Commensurate with the problem.

Diane Dempster: Commensurate, that's the word. And the reality is that what's the goal in commensurate? What are you really trying to do?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What you're trying to do is make a clear connection in a kid's brain as to how important this problem is, how big a problem is this is what we mean by commensurate. So if you know, if I find weed or vaping, and in a teenage kid's room, the consequence for that is going to be much more severe or where the impact of that is going to be greater than if I if he's sneaking candy from the Halloween bag or something. You really want to make sure it matches the problem.

Diane Dempster: And again, if we're so if we're hell-bent, for lack of a better word, on getting the consequence to help them change their behavior, we're going to be looking at it very differently than if we're going okay, I want to send a message here. Parents will say,  if I do this for the candy bag, they're going to go back for the candy bag again. They're lumping them together.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That's where we go back into this issue. Is it a consequence and punishment? So the best consequences, by far, are the natural consequences, and we often don't get to those really until kids become teenagers.

Diane Dempster: And not only that, but we also expect that the natural consequences are going to change the behavior. It's sort of how many times do parents say, should I just let my kid fail his classes, and then he'll then he'll figure it out? 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: If he knew how to figure it out, he probably wouldn't have failed his class.

Diane Dempster: Yes, exactly. So the natural consequences are, again, two parts: sending a message and changing the behavior. So natural consequences may be really good at sending a message because it's something that happens automatically or outside of us. And they still may need help, and it might be enough to get their buy-in to go, whoa, I don't want this to happen again. Mom, will you help me? Dad, will you help me? That sort of that thing.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I'm thinking about a client I worked with a number of years ago. We were working on how to do this, and she had a teenage child. I can't remember if it's even a boy or girl, and they only lived a mile away from school. And the problem was getting to school and having to drive, and I can't remember all the details of it. But what happened was there was this one day, they had an agreement communicated in advance, everybody was bought into it. And the kid didn't get up and out the door, and mom wasn't home and mom was like, guess you're going to have to walk to school today. And it wasn't a punitive thing. It was just, I'm really sorry this happened to you. The mom stayed in a place of compassion and understanding. And it was enough to help that kid figure out what I need to do to get up and out the door because they didn't want to miss school. That creates this whole other cascade of challenges, but when the mom stopped rescuing the kid, the kid was able to take some accountability and start working with the mom to change the behavior.

Diane Dempster: I was going to say working with a mom and changing the behavior versus just expecting the mom to take care of it all, which is different. It's not like they magically started getting up on their own every day for the rest of their life. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But that goes back to what I was saying earlier, which is it's really about support. Our job is to support them in learning how to manage themselves. And so we want to do that in a constructive way that empowers them to want to manage themselves, and not in a way that makes them feel like it doesn't matter what I do, I'm always going to get in trouble, and it's never going to make a difference.

Diane Dempster: So let's go that direction for a second because the other thing that I noticed with parents is the interplay between consequences and triggers. And how many times do we, as parents, want to punish our kids or have consequences for triggered behavior? And I go back to the same parent who, whose kid couldn't keep their hands to themselves, really was upset with their brother. And it was like if you can't stop being triggered if you can stop being upset, then you're going to be punished. It was clearly a punishment sort of thing. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So back to the other podcast I was listening to, they made the distinction between tantrums and meltdowns. And I went, oh, yeah. What you're describing is this is a not misbehavior. This is a reactive behavior, and that's different. And reactive behavior needs support, not punishment.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. And I think that that's the piece of it is that how many times do we, when our kid is triggered, try to put a consequence in place to try to get them to unravel from their trigger? This is a kid who's super upset. Stop yelling at me. You can't call me that name. If you yell at me again, you're going to lose a privilege. It's when somebody is triggered like that, their ability to calm down from a threat is going to be completely different than if they are supported and calming down, and then you have a calm conversation about why the behavior wasn't okay.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So I had a really interesting example last week, a client of a teenage boy 13, 14, who's got some explosive behavior challenges. Really complex, kid, really difficult communication dynamics. And the mom was working with her therapist, who said it's time to put boundaries in place. You have to put boundaries in place. And so the therapist gave the mom something to say, and the mom came to me and said, if I say this, he's going to blow. It's not going to make it get better. And it really could have unraveled a year and a half of work that we've done slowly moving the needle, improving the dynamic, changing the tone of the home. And so we had a conversation about, yes, it's appropriate to put a boundary here. Let's talk about how to put this boundary in place. Let's talk about how you communicate with him. Where's the collaboration? What are the expectations? What are the consequences and let him be part of it so that he has a sense of control or agency in it instead of just throwing the solution at them, and here's the consequence where it gives them this feeling of being out of control. Our kids, particularly if your kids have executive function challenges, we feel out of control. And so what we as parents need to do is to help our kids begin to feel the goodness of what it feels like to exercise control or agency instead of just constantly giving them another opportunity to feel out of control because that's where they get depressed or dismayed.

Diane Dempster: And I think that that's the piece of it is, again, it's just our ability to self-regulate. I mean, most of us, let alone our kids, when we're really upset if somebody comes and says if I was really upset, which is a tantrum meltdown, I was having a meltdown. And somebody said, Diane, if you don't stop melting down right now, I'm going to take away your computer but I can't control my meltdown. I don't know how to control my meltdown. You're offering the kid to do it. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It's not reasonable expectation.

Diane Dempster: Right. It's not a realistic expectation. And on top of it, so many times, we as parents are doing it when we're triggered. We're yelling at them that they have to stop yelling at us, or they're going to get in trouble. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And then that's when there's no way it's anything but punitive. If you are reacting, I'm going to take everything out of your room. I remember somebody coming to me and saying, there's nothing left in this kid's room but a bed. That's not how we want our kids to be in the world. He can't destroy anything. What might be not important for him? What if he does destroy some things while he's learning to not? 

Diane Dempster: Or how do you give him other things to do when he's upset? I have this picture in my mind of one of the PowerPoint slides we have. It's like the kid ripping the book because he's so frustrated. He's ripping the paper. Get a 50-cent notebook and let him go to it. Have that be his go-to when he's frustrated.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Breaking down the recycling was one of my big ones because you got to break down those boxes. And sometimes there might have been a baseball bat involved and safely supervised. Okay, so we need to start wrapping the conversation. What have we not hit that you want to make sure we talked about?

Diane Dempster: We've hit the differences between consequences and punishments. We talked about the difference between sending a message and helping your child to change their behavior. Sometimes, you want to do one, but don't expect the consequence to just magically change your kid's behavior. They need help to change their behavior. We talked about giving consequences for triggered behavior and, you know, the fact that's probably not going to go the direction that you want them to go because they're going to then feel like they don't have any control over the thing you're asking them to control. And it's going to probably throw them even more over the deep end, which is what often happens, and we talked about giving, not giving consequences in the heat of the moment when you're upset.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was looking up. I knew there was a section of the book that says say no to punishment disguised as consequences. And we didn't really go into that in length but I would encourage people, if you want to find out more about this and how this all ties in, there's a whole chapter and section in the Essential Guide that can be really useful for you.

Diane Dempster: Wait, so you asked what we didn't talk about.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Got to watch your time. 

Diane Dempster: Yeah. So the last thing is to stop participating in the argument with your child about the consequence. If they're upset because they're sitting there going, but no, I don't want to lose my this. I don't want to lose my that and then you've agreed that that's what the consequences are going to be, and you had their buy-in follow through with a consequence. And then the next day, say, okay, wait, it sounds like you're really upset with the agreed to consequence. What do we need to do to change that so that you understand that I'm not going to my mind?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So here's what I would add to that is that if they're upset about the consequence, instead of getting defensive and saying, this is what we agree to. That's your chance to get on their team and come to them with compassion. The beauty of setting a consequence in advance, I often say you get to learn the system, be the bad guy, and you get to be the compassionate member of their team. So it's like, I'm so sorry that you have to leave your phone today. I know that's really disappointing for you. And I know you can do it better tomorrow, and I'm going to work with you to help you be successful. It's a whole different approach from standing there with your hands on your hips, saying, if you had only done what you said you were going to do, you'd have your phone. One comes out as being on the same team and building relationships and really helping them learn accountability and one just gives them an opportunity to make you the bad guy.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. Cool. Lots of good stuff. Thanks for the call. 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Fun conversation, Di. Talk to you soon. Thanks for being here, everybody. Thanks for what you're doing. You make a difference.

 

Helpful Links:

-Parent Expectations: 2 Steps to Success 

-Parenting is Leadership Guide