Today I want to discuss a common child discipline mistake parents make when giving consequences. This is the mistake of negotiating limits with your child.

Let us take for example a curfew violation. Your child is supposed to be home at 9:00 p.m. on weekday nights. Your child comes in at 10:00 p.m. You start giving your consequence and your child says, “It’s not fair. All my friends come home at 10:00 and I have to come in at 9:00. It’s not fair. I am already 16.”

Then you start defending yourself and why your curfew is fair.

Well…is it true or not true? Are you being fair? Maybe your child should be able to stay out later. But here is the problem.

Consequences are limits. The limit was set at 9:00 p.m. When your child starts negotiating with you about the time, and you start defending your choice, you ignore the fact that your child went over the limit that was set.

There is a time to negotiate curfew or any other limit, but it is not when a violation of that limit has occurred. Also, you don’t change curfew time when your child is out and calls home for permission to stay out later. That is not the time to change limits.

You can and should negotiate limits. You do this when you can have a conversation with your child about that limit. But when a child has violated the limit, that is not the time to talk about it.

The only issue at hand is that a limit was in place, and fair or not fair, your child just violated that limit. You can discuss what is fair at a different time.

This is a common mistake that parents make. They get sidetracked with other issues. They get sucked into discussions of what is fair or not fair and the fact that a limit has been violated gets diluted.

Limits have to be enforced. When your child breaks a limit, your job is to enforce limits, not to negotiate.

This is only one of the mistakes parents make when giving limits and consequences to discipline their children or teens.

I have a video which will show you the #1 mistake parents make in child discipline and when giving consequences. This mistake is the main reason why consequences and discipline do not work.

If you are having trouble with child discipline, you should see this video right away, because it will show you quickly how to change that problem.

The free video is located at http://ccparenting.com/discipline

Today I want to discuss with you child discipline and using consequences to set and enforce limits.

Children need limits. It is very clear they need limits. First of all, children are not mature enough to handle themselves properly in the world. That is why they live at home with you.

A child needs to be told what to do and when to do it, until he develops the maturity to keep himself safe in certain situations.

A child without limits will go out and stay out all night. He will go to dangerous places. He will get involved in dangerous things.

Your job as a parent is to protect your child and keep him out of trouble. One of the ways you do that is by using limits. How do you enforce these limits? You use child discipline. Consequences are part of an overall child discipline strategy to help you to enforce limits that you set.

Your child will try to test your limits. Believe me, this is normal. Every child tests limits. It is part of growing up.

You need to have a consequence in place to discourage your child from testing your limit and to let him know that your limit is a real barrier.

It is critical your child understands their limits, because the world is full of limits. It is full of things he cannot do. There are rules and boundaries.

For example, your child can’t go onto someone’s property, because he wants something. He can’t take something from other people, because he wants it. He can’t speed in his car, because he wants to. There are limits. It is part of living in society.

Your child has to learn that limits are real, limits are important, and limits are part of getting along with everybody else in the world. You use consequences to teach this lesson.

Many parents find that their consequences are not effective. Often their children don’t seem to care. I made for you which shows the #1 mistake that parents make when giving consequences. This mistake is the main reason their consequences are not effective.

You can see this video right now. Go to http://ccparenting.com/discipline and get access to the video right away!

Today I want to discuss child discipline using consequences; specifically what child discipline or consequences can accomplish.

Let’s differentiate between child discipline and punishment. Punishment does not change behavior. You cannot punish your child into behaving better. We see that in our prison system.

Effective child discipline though consequences accomplishes a change in behavior. The advantage that child discipline has over punishment is that a consequence includes a teaching experience. Children act out and misbehave because they don’t know how to handle the situation they are in.

When that happens you need to teach your child how to respond to the situation differently. You can do this through child discipline, specifically through the effective use of consequences. You use child discipline to encourage your child to improve his behavior in the future.

For example, if your child is angry, he will strike at somebody, he will yell, or he may say a curse word. That is the best response he can come up with when he is upset.

By assigning a consequence as part of your child discipline intervention, you teach your child a new response.

“When you are feeling angry or upset and you want to curse, go to your room and don’t curse.”

If he does not go to his room, you give a consequence for cursing. This gives your child a choice. He can stick with his old inappropriate behavior, i. e. cursing, and get the consequence. Or he can incorporate the new behavior and avoid the consequence.

When the situation comes up again, he can either reflexively curse or he can go to his room and cool off. Your child discipline through the consequence encourages him to do the latter and to improve his behavior and make a permanent behavioral change.

For effective child discipline, your consequence must include with it a teaching experience to show your child how to behave better. Failure to do this is one of the mistakes that parents make when trying to correct their child’s behavior. Thus, most parents approach child discipline by giving a negative reinforcement, which is so many parents have trouble getting their children to behave better.

Again, if you just learn these secrets of how to give consequences effectively, you will find it is quite easy and quite effective, and you will have your house turned around in no time.

Today we have a special video for you that you can get to help reveal to you the #1 mistake that parents are making when giving consequences and it is free for you today.

Just go to http://ccparenting.com/discipline and you will get that video right away and you’ll find the #1 mistake parents make.