Page 73 - The Intentional Parent

this is that if your threats do not deter your kids from behaving badly, don’t threaten, just act.
For whatever it’s worth most parents need to “do less talking and do more doing.” I have seen too many parenting experts extoll the virtues of “counting to three” before taking action. I think parents should simply show kids that there are consequences to their actions. I don’t know of too many bank robbers who are given a count of three to return the money to avoid going to jail.
Make Certain the Consequences are Reasonable and Enforceable
In order for you to be able to accomplish the goal of encouraging better behavior and teaching the relationship between behavior and outcome, the consequences you set forth have to be reasonable and enforceable. If you can’t follow through on the consequences or if you follow through inconsistently, you might encourage your child to be ignore you more frequently in the future.
For instance, if you tell your child that as a result of bad behavior they cannot go to a friend’s party, but then relent because recent behavior was better, you are not teaching your child the value of good judgment. Instead you are teaching that previous consequences can be avoided by better future behavior. “What’s wrong with that,” you might say? It’s not a question of right and wrong, it’s more a question of whether that is a good model of how life works outside the context of the family environment, and good leaders aim to teach kids how to operate better in the real world. If I speed and get a ticket that ticket does not go away if between
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 73