Today I want to discuss with you how consequences and discipline change your child’s behavior. First, you need to understand why your child chronically misbehaves; that is, why he continually does certain things wrong.

The reason is very simple to understand. When a child misbehaves on a regular basis, it is because he finds what he is doing is working.

For example, let’s say you child has a problem with another child in school. The other child teases him. Your child can react many different ways. He can react is by smacking the other child, by beating him up, or by intimidating him.

Any of these approaches may insure that the child will not tease him again. If this happens, your child will learn that using intimidation or physical force can solve his problems.

What this means is that your child has stumbled upon a socially unacceptable way to solve a problem he is facing. If he gets away with behaving this way, your child may test the use of intimidation or physical force in other challenging situations. If he continues on this path he will adapt this approach for other problems and may eventually become a bully.

One thing you have to understand is people always choose the easiest path to solve problems. If your child is doing a bad behavior consistently, it is because that he finds it works to get him want he wants. You use consequences and discipline to change that.

What you have to do is use consequences as part of your child discipline strategy to show your child that there are better behavior options. You use consequences to make the appropriate behavior a better and easier option to follow.

For example, if your child curses or talks back, and this is a frequent problem, it is because he found talking back and cursing work for him in certain situations, like when he is angry. You use consequences to teach him that when he is angry it is a better option for him to go to his room and cool off.

That is how consequences are supposed to work. What usually happens is something quite different. Parents punish their children or give a consequence and either nothing happens or the child becomes resentful and behaves even worse. This is because you are using consequences incorrectly. If you do not use consequences correctly, you will not change your child’s behavior.

I have created a video for you that is going to explain to you why that is. In this video I discuss the #1 mistake parents make in giving consequences and what you can do to avoid this mistake.

Go now to:

#1 Child Discipline Mistake Video .

Today we are going to discuss what to do when your child uses foul language, bad language, or even curses you. Specifically, when you give a consequence, discipline or do something your child does not like, and they curse at you as a response.

You have to understand what your child is trying to achieve.

First of all you told them something he did not like. That means you are exerting your power and control over your child and his natural response is to:

(1) resent you and try to attack you, and

(2) try to show he has control over you in some aspect.

That is what the foul language, bad language, or cursing achieves.

It shows, first of all, that it expresses his anger in you. Second, he controls what comes out of his mouth and you don’t. It gives him an air of control where you have no control.

The way you handle this problem is to recognize what your child is trying to do and do not get sucked in. You do not get drawn into a battle. You do not respond at this point, and you do not let your child suck you into an argument or respond really in any way.

You want to maintain your dignity and control of the situation.

For example, let’s say your child comes home late and misses curfew, your consequence is for the next week, the next couple of days, or the next couple of times he has got to be home an hour earlier. He gets angry and curses at you. You say, “Nevertheless, for the next week, you have got to be home an hour early” and you walk away.

You do not get dragged into battle. You do not say, “How dare you curse at me.” You do not get involved in any way at all in what he said.

That does not mean you let it go. You can come back later at a different time and say, “You know you cursed at me yesterday, you cursed at me an hour ago, two hours ago. You are not allowed to do that and there is a consequence for that also” and then you give a consequence for cursing.

Do not let the cursing, the bad talk, the bad language, or the anger of your child get you off track. Your child’s goal is to exert his power, exert his control and to show you that he has something over you. Do not let him get away with it.

Stay in control, stay in focus, keep on topic, and at a later time when things are calm, go back and address the cursing or the bad language. Do not let it go. Do not say you are giving in. Don’t do anything other than stay on track now and make sure you address it later.

Today we are going to discuss the idea of showing your oppositional defiant disorder child love. This is actually a mistake that parents make, thinking that they are showing their children love. I will explain what I mean by that.

When our children are very infants and small babies, we do a lot to protect them from harm and from damaging themselves because they just lack understanding. The problem happens when children get older we, as parents, tend to continue protecting our children from the mistakes that they make.

As a result, what happens is our children become sheltered and it can become a problem in that your children will never learn to take responsibility for their actions. The proper way to show that you really love your child is to help them become a healthy, normal, and well functioning teenager and then adult.

Unfortunately, this requires your children to make mistakes and then take responsibility for those mistakes. Your children should learn to suffer the consequences of their mistakes.

We cannot keep sheltering our children as they get older. Our children have to learn to grow up, move on, and take care of themselves. They will not do this if we, as parents, pick up all of their mistakes and protect their actions. It is a mistake that all parents can make.

What you want to do is show your children responsible love. Teach your children that if they do something wrong that they have to pay the consequences.

Mistakes have consequences.

The best way for your child or anyone to learn from something is to make a mistake or do something wrong and feel the pain of the consequences. So this goes for small children as well as older children and teenagers too.

When your child is older, the consequences tend to be more severe. So for example, if your child is stealing, one of the worst things that you can do is to protect them from the police. Do not protect your children from their actions of stealing because they will never learn that stealing has very painful consequences.

On the other hand, if you really love your children and want what is best for them, if they do something very very wrong and you let them face the consequences themselves, they will learn that bad things have bad consequences.

By doing this, your children will learn that punishments are serious and that the world is a serious place. They will learn that if you do not behave yourself, bad things can happen to you.

Now it is counter-intuitive, because we want to protect our children. But sometimes protecting our children too much can be really detrimental for them. So it is a hard lesson that we as parents have to learn. We have to break away from protecting our children and change our whole way of thinking.

We have to let our children suffer their mistakes so that when they get older, they will learn to be much more careful and not make these mistakes, especially when the mistakes have serious consequences.

Because a child who gets into trouble at 15 years old is going to be in a different situation then a child who gets into trouble at 19 years of age. If a parent protects a child at age 15, that parent will protect their child at age 19 too. You, as the parent, do not want that to happen.