Page 77 - The Intentional Parent

disconnect and take a time out when you are in the car for instance! (Just a little joke there). Mostly, you will employ this at home.
Talk About Good Consequences Too
Finally, you can and should show your child the relationship between good behavior and good outcomes:
I have a part of my business in London, England and I recently heard a proper British mum tell her toddler aged child, “You will get a balloon if you eat the rest of your porridge.” When the mission was accomplished, the balloon was handed over. It was nice to see that incentivizing good behavior works on both sides of the pond! Our next chapter covers the very misunderstood concept of “rewarding a behavior,” which is just another way of expanding on the topic of providing “positive consequences.”
Summary
This chapter highlights the importance of the family leader’s job of helping children make connections between behavior and outcomes (consequences). Your home environment should aim to approximate the “real world” because when kids get old enough to establish themselves independently that is the only world that counts.
If your child has a stubborn, oppositional nature, then talking about consequences will probably provide very little deterrence from bad behavior. The more difficult a child is, the more you will have to do and that often means showing your child that many of the
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 77