Natural Consequences

I had a conversation with a co-worker today while we monitored the lunch room. We're about the same age, but her son is approaching two and mine, eighteen. She told me from everything she's seen and heard from me about my son, he seems like he's a really good kid. It was a conversation evolving from chit chat about some of our students. And I told her he is a good kid. She then asked me if he ever really got in trouble. By today's standards and on account of the things we deal with at our school, no. My son has never really gotten into deep trouble. One day I'll write about the closest he came to real "trouble." That's a story for another day.

As we talked, I explained our style of "discipline." Neither my husband nor I have ever hit our son. He's been grounded a couple of times. But generally, we believe in the idea of natural consequences. A simple example of the principle is, you stay up too late and you're too tired to get going in the morning. Or, you don't do your laundry and you won't have clean clothes to wear the next day. Some psychologists will say kids may be too young to process the natural consequences of their behavior, and it would be then up to the parent to help the child understand. It has worked out well for us. Our son is exceptionally smart, and does a lot better with a rational conversation than with a random unrelated punishment. Not to say he never makes mistakes, and has always made the best choices, but no consequence is better than the natural one.

If you've read my blogs before or know me personally, you know how I feel about grades and learning. They are often incongruent. One does not always correlate directly with the other. School has been a challenge of my son. Lucky for him, he doesn't struggle like some with testing. But he does struggle to acknowledge the importance of daily tasks and assignments. As a result, he has great test scores and less than stellar grades. All of this by choice. We don't pay him for A's and we don't ground him for D's. He's making a choice. And the natural consequence of that is he may have fewer colleges to choose from when a smaller stack of acceptance letters arrives. This is an example of how we choose to parent. No fighting over grades, no power trippy punishments. Don't get me wrong, I do my share of nagging and checking in, but ultimately it is his choice.

Another example is how he earns and spends money. At sixteen, as soon as he got his license, he also got a job. Unlike some other parents (I do not judge, I'm just demonstrating comparison.), we do not take his paycheck. In fact, we never even see it. He has his own bank account, and he has a responsibility to make an agreed upon contribution to his car insurance and pay for his own gas. He makes a payment to us monthly, either in installments when he gets a check every two weeks, or once per month. We're flexible with him as long as he gives us the money. We still pay for parental things like haircuts and lunch for school days. And when his hours are low for a pay period due to reasons beyond his control, we may help with a few extra bucks, but that's it. So if he gets paid, spends a bunch of money going out with his friends or on the latest computer component he just has to have, that's his prerogative. But if he depletes his bank account before he gets paid again, and asks for money for non-necessities, well the answer from us is usually no. You spend all your money before you make more, you're out of luck. It's a natural consequence.

We decided early on, or maybe it just happened without decision.  We haven't and will never micro-manage our son. He needs to learn life lessons by living- taking risks, figuring stuff out, and yes- making mistakes. Allowing him to do all of this while still under our roof allows us to help him process it all and learn with our guidance and protection.  We process but we don't punish and we don't fix. Some would say we're too hands off, that we're not showing him the way. I've been accused of all kinds of parental no-no's. I guess it's all a matter of what you value.

I value my son's ability to learn to act instinctively and intrinsically. I believe he is growing up to be extraordinarily independent. Problems don't scare him, they challenge him. I feel pretty confident that no matter what life throws at him, he'll figure it out. I'm certain of it, in fact.

He never allows me to take photos. I forced him today!