The majority of parents and teachers feel the emotional and intellectual pull to punish children when they act impulsively or “misbehave,” with imposed consequences, such as Time-Out, or the withdrawal of children’s possessions or privileges. This is quite a natural reaction to have when a child does something we do not like. Many people might be able to relate to the following statement:
“How is my child going to learn how to behave or how to listen, if they do not experience something unwanted or painful following their misbehavior? It is my job to teach the child how to behave and that there are consequences for behavior. If I do not punish or consequence my child I am not doing my job as a parent. If my child is punished they will think twice next time before acting like that.”
This is the orthodox or mainstream way of thinking about how to change unwanted behavior that our children exhibit. On first approach, it makes logical sense that we have to do something the child does not like in order to get him or her to change. But the problem is, what if this approach does not work, or actually can make the child feel worse or make his or her behavior worse instead of better? This has been my experience of the potential effect of punishment after talking to children and parents in my therapy practice. The logic of punishment makes intellectual sense, and most parents feel obligated to punish even if it does not work at alleviating unwanted behavior, but emotionally, psychologically, and developmentally, it is quite true that punishment, or imposed consequences, can actually make the situation worse and get in the way of a child’s healthy emotional development.
The Problem with Imposed Consequences
Children often misbehave because they are temporarily unable to control their behavior, or they act impulsively without thinking. They are often experiencing a feeling, caused by an event or situation in their environment, that they cannot really think about and understand. Feeling leads to action before thought can interrupt and manage the feeling. Children are naturally impulsive, and only with time and with the help of their parents from the beginning of life do they learn how to manage their feelings and control their behavior. In other words, children learn how to think from their parents, including learning how to think about feelings.
When children behave impulsively, or act without thinking, they are essentially saying that they are not able to process what they are feeling, and they require our help as wiser adults to calm them down and become curious and thoughtful about what the child is feeling and what might have caused them to feel this way. Misbehaviour or impulsivity is therefore a child’s communication of a developmental/psychological limitation or deficit, and not primarily designed to provoke parents. Therefore, when we punish misbehavior, we are punishing the child because they lack a capacity, and it is a capacity or skill that they can only learn from us as their parents.
The next question is: if it is our job as parents to teach our children how to manage and understand their feelings better, so they do not necessarily become actions, what is the best way to do this? If we isolate a child in Time-Out, we are actually doing the opposite of what the child needs, which is to stay with us, in our presence, in order to learn from us how to manage and understand feelings better. Isolating a child because they lack a skill therefore teaches them only that their feelings are equally incomprehensible to us - that we can’t manage the child’s feelings either. Children often feel very “bad” in their rooms or in Time-Out, and over time they may come to the conclusion that they are “bad” children. Time-Out can also make children feel more angry and prone to act out their feelings, since they have not learned from us what the feelings mean and where they come from. Time-Out can create very unwanted effects in children, even if it is used with the best intentions by caring and devoted parents.
In my experience, Time-Out often does not work at making a child less impulsive, but even if it does work, we must ask ourselves why it works: does it work because the child has become more mature, mindful and self-controlled as the result of understanding themselves better? Or does it work because the child is afraid of the consequences (i.e. isolation/abandonment), and therefore complies with the parents without ever being the wiser about where their feelings came from? Do we want a fearful, compliant child, or a psychologically mature child who can think and manage their feelings?
So, the problem with imposed consequences is that
a) They can make the situation worse as children often do not “think about it” in their rooms or following a punishment. They often lack the capacity to think about their actions and feelings, and they can only learn this from talking to their parents, not through punishment.
b) Time-out and removing possessions or privileges may (or may not) make the child comply, but it can lead to an angrier, more impulsive child who then may feel that being punished is a new reason to retaliate or “up the ante.”
c) Imposed consequences can quite easily make the child feel rejected, misunderstood, and as if their parent is an opponent and not an ally.
d) Consider the ineffectiveness of punishment as a general idea through the analogy of punishing adults through incarceration and removal of their possessions and privileges. Most often, impulsive adults repeat their crimes due to their continued impulsivity, and they can continue to struggle to understand and control their feelings and actions. The threat of punishment frequently has no effect on future behaviour, or the person’s capacity to control themselves.
The Natural Consequence of Behaving Badly: Guilt
The main consequence for behaving irrationally, impulsively, aggressively, and so on, is that our parents do not like or condone this behavior, and for most children, this simple fact by itself should be the main reason to want to stay in our parent’s “good books” most of the time. That is, the child’s natural guilt and remorse about their behavior, and their strong love for their parents and desire to please them (and not be rejected, isolated, etc), are the natural consequences a child experiences for behaving badly, and are the only deterrent needed for alleviating the behavior in the future. Parents often may not be aware that their child feels bad when they misbehave, but almost all children feel guilty after displeasing their parents, even if the child does not appear remorseful, or may even tell you they are not sorry.
Instead of imposing consequences, parents can try to let the natural consequences of misbehaving “kick in” by remaining calm, accepting the child’s feelings, and speaking to them about what they are feeling and why (this is a “time-in”). As a parent you can say that it is not okay what the child is doing, but that you can see the child is feeling something they can’t control and he needs you to help him understand it better. Maybe if you can both calm down you can put your heads together and think about what happened to make the child feel that way, and how that feeling led the child to act out. As a parent you accept that your child is feeling something, and you don’t want them to feel too bad about themselves for being “bad”, since you know the child is really not bad. Instead of your child acting in a way that he or she will feel bad about, and causing conflict with you, maybe you can just talk about it and no one needs to feel bad (no misbehavior, no retaliating by punishing them).
Once your child understands that you are not angry with him, and you are not going to punish him, but you only want to get to the bottom of what he's going through, it's likely your child will calm down and strongly desire to find common ground with you as their loved and needed parent. This is a relationship-building intervention, compared to punishment, which can be considered relationship-weakening. Time-in’s not only build relationships, but they actually build the child’s mind and brain and help it mature and develop more sophisticated and less impulsive and immature qualities. Time-in’s occur from the beginning of life with our infants, when they “misbehave” by crying non-stop, refusing to go to sleep, and “getting into everything” when they start to crawl. Instead of punishing an infant with Time-Out, most of us tried to help and soothe the baby by holding it and talking to it calmly. I am suggesting that if we can begin to behave in a more soothing, non-punitive and verbal way with our misbehaving children, then we may see more change in the child, as well as a more intelligent, mature and self-regulated child who can enjoy stronger, closer relationships with his parents.
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