We know from the science of child development that consequences play a critical role in the use of discipline to nurture a child’s growth.
Yet, you may have noticed some (many) parenting influencers’ warnings against using consequences as if they are a sure-fire way to ruin your child. I want to scream every time I see this message’s misalignment with science and its unnecessary fear-mongering among already overwhelmed parents. This confusing messaging around consequences is the perfect example of parenting guidance gone awry.
If we discard consequences from the parenting toolbox, we risk permissive parenting (few rules and limits) that decades of parenting research have demonstrated leads to a range of negative outcomes for kids, such as poor self-regulation and worse behavior problems.1
As I have complained before,2 gentle parenting soundbites often confuse discipline with punishment. Discipline teaches; punishment induces fear and shame to instill a desired behavior. Discipline is key to effective parenting; punishment leads to more problems. But gentle parenting guidance often equates discipline strategies, such as consequences, with the word “punishment,” thereby discouraging them.
In my years working with parents, however, I have discovered at least one reason there may be confusion about consequences. When consequences are delivered in a moment of high emotions, it’s a fast track to feeling like they “don’t work” and/or may make things worse.
It may seem like consequences are to blame but it’s more likely the fit of the moment with the consequences that’s the problem.
“I Ruin Everything”
My friend heard guttural sobs from the basement and ran downstairs to check for blood and broken bones. Instead, she found her son bent over, his whole body heaving with upset. He wouldn’t talk but managed to point to the TV. Her stomach flipped when she saw the damage. Her 8-year-old had broken their huge basement television.
He gasped out an explanation between sobs: in a fit of anger, he threw the remote on the table which ricocheted (apparently with force) to the TV. He cried, “I ruin everything! The girls never break anything. It’s always me!”
It’s true that he had once proudly shown his mom a new way of shooting a soccer ball, only to have it shatter the den window in front of their eyes. That was pure accident, and many a child has broken a house window while trying to prove athletic prowess. But it’s also true that this child has intense emotions that can overwhelm him and he can act impulsively on those emotions, sometimes causing damage.
For parents with children wired to experience emotions with high sensitivity and intensity, you may have found yourself in the ineffective loop of giving consequences to emotions. Consequences may provide healthy limits, structure, and boundaries for children’s learning and growth, but they don’t work in the middle of emotional meltdowns. Even when those emotional meltdowns result in broken televisions.
What parent would not be moved to yell and discipline a child who just damaged an expensive appliance because they were mad? I completely understand the impulse, yet I’m suggesting we don’t yell and immediately discipline. Here’s why.
When a child who is already feeling weighed down by the heaviness of bad emotions is yelled at and given an immediate consequence, it doesn’t teach them to not make that mistake again, it amplifies the message they are already telling themselves that they are “bad.”
In these moments, we may be inadvertently shaming our child instead of teaching them.
The Role of Shame and Neurodivergence
Shame affects all humans of course, but as I’ve written about before,3 neurodivergent children are especially vulnerable. They often have a more intense experience of their emotions with less developed skills to regulate these emotions. Due to the nature of ADHD resulting in more impulsive behaviors and emotional outbursts, ADHDers likely get shamed and yelled at more than neurotypical children, whether from teachers, camp counselors, coaches, other kids, or their parents.
It’s no wonder the research shows that kids with ADHD have lower self-esteem. In their development of their sense of self in childhood, they get more input from their environments that they are “bad.” This input becomes internalized as true, which then makes them more sensitive to negative feedback. (Case in point: when a child screams “stop yelling at me” in response to an adult’s firm tone at a normal volume.)
In my personal and professional experience, this sensitivity to shame and negative feedback looks like argumentativeness and defiance. Does this sound familiar?
Parent: “Why did you do that?”
Child: “You’re the worst – I hate you!”
Parent: “Hey! Don’t talk to me like that!”
It makes no sense, of course. The parent is rightly addressing a problem and wants the child to explain it. Instead, the child lashes out at the parent, and they are officially trapped in a loop of anger and misunderstanding.
Maybe you noticed what’s not happening: the parent and child aren’t working on the behavior. A child’s shame lurks in the corners, disguised by defiance. In the process, everyone feels bad and nobody is learning.
Lizard Brain
Whether or not your child is prone to shame and/or neurodivergent, all children have their lizard brain moments. Lizard brain refers to the activation of heightened emotion at a primal level that momentarily disables higher-order brain functions like logic, reason, and listening to a parent. The younger they are, the more likely a child slips in and out of lizard brain status with alarming speed.
When your kindergartener is writhing on the kitchen floor Monday morning because they simply can’t tolerate leaving their cozy home for boring school, their lizard brain is screaming “I don’t wanna I don’t wanna” like a record stuck on a track and can’t process your obvious logic, “But you love school!”
The young child years did not mesh well with my personality, and I often found myself attempting to inject reason into my children’s fall-aparts even as I was thinking, “this doesn’t work.” I get it! Sometimes we just want to say something rational aloud to keep ourselves grounded in a sensible reality instead of our toddler’s Dali-esque contortion of reality.
Alas, something I have observed working with parents is how not fully understanding the operation of lizard brain makes their parenting lives harder. When we give consequences to a child in lizard brain mode, we pour gasoline on the fire. Maybe there are occasions your tantruming child has snapped out of it the second you say, “stop screaming now or you’re going to your room,” but I’m betting that is the exception.
The norm is likely along the lines of this scene: the tantrum intensifies, you have to follow through with the consequence of sending the child to their room, which means you have to pick up the body that has assumed superpower strength to squirm and maybe smack their head into your chin, and then you’re both crying as you work to follow through on the “consequence.”
In my parent coaching, when I ask parents struggling with their child’s behavior if the consistent use of consequences is helping improve the behavior, they almost always say No. (That’s also why they’re at the point of meeting with me, of course.) When we zoom out to look at the pattern of behavior problems and ineffective consequences, I often find that consequences are delivered when the child’s emotions are behind the wheel.
Years of working as a child therapist and now parent coach has helped me understand that this dynamic has important emotional effects on the child: when they receive consequences in a moment when they are out of control of their emotions and behavior, they feel even more out of control and badly about themselves. Over the long-term, this perpetuates the difficult behaviors — and related emotions — in a frustrating cycle.
Fortunately, there’s a way to interrupt this cycle.
What to Do Instead
Here’s my controversial proposal: when your child acts out while not in control of their emotions, focus on the emotional upset before the behavior. Calm and support them first, and then talk about the behavior without lecturing, scolding, yelling, etc.
This may sound eerily close to the gentle parenting approach that I often oppose, but I’m not suggesting you don’t use consequences. I’m advising you to adjust your parenting lens to view consequences differently.
We have all learned that we are supposed to teach our children right from wrong. When they do something wrong, we are being good parents when we correct the wrong. Although true, this process unfolds more effectively if we don’t see this as a rigid sequence. We don’t have to always correct the behavior as soon as it happens.
In the case of an impulsive act that a child already feels badly about, we can see their emotional response as a consequence. If your child is upset with themselves and knows what they did was a mistake, they have learned the lesson. You don’t need to teach it — that just feels like kicking them when they’re down, even if you’re seeing this response as your parental duty.
In a moment when you can see the regret and shame, focus on their emotional well-being and the relationship first: “I don’t think you purposely broke the TV. It was an accident and it happened because you were so angry. You’re not a bad kid, you made a mistake like all of us do sometimes.”
Once they have calmed and the emotion brain is no longer flooded, then you can talk about next steps. In an autonomy-supportive move,4 collaborate with your child on appropriate consequences: “This new TV will cost $300. How much do you think you should contribute?” Then they can help set up the new TV, participating in each step of correcting the situation. Without the shame.
Sounds Good in Theory . . .
I have worked with parents long enough to see many furrowed brows among you, with the thought bubbles “What about when my kid doesn’t feel regret or shame and needs me to teach the lesson?” or “Sounds good in theory but that will never work with my kid.”
To address the first question, if your child is completely calm after inflicting property damage, that warrants teaching in the moment because they are not in lizard brain state. But be watchful: is your child actually calm or is there strong emotion bubbling under the surface? Or maybe your child does not express regret or shame about an incident, but they are experiencing other strong emotions like anger and frustration. That is lizard brain even if shame is not present and they will learn better from you explaining the problem and consequences after they have shifted out of lizard brain.
To address the second common refrain, I always say parenting is a series of experiments; consider this one of those experiments. In a moment of heightened emotion, resist the urge to give consequences and see what happens. I counsel parents to try a new strategy or response for a few times just to test it out, and then we problem-solve any barriers that pop up.
However, what I have found happens a majority of the time is the results of the experiment include pleasantly surprised parents. When the initial experiment goes well, it then opens the floodgates of understanding for how to shift responses in similar situations, and voila — the family dynamics have changed.
Not only are children more able to learn from their parents, parents feel calmer and more effective. The lizard brain moments pass more quickly (for everyone). A child feels supported rather than shamed. Everyone is better off for next time. And the next.
What has been your experience with consequences, shame, and lizard brains?
Work With Me!
ICYMI, my new solo private practice is in full swing! I am offering both traditional therapy and parent coaching. As a licensed clinical psychologist, it is against our code of ethics to solicit testimonials but a client kindly offered to write one:
I’ve been working with Dr. Edlynn for the last six months, and I’ve made more progress with her than any other therapist I’ve worked with! She is very attentive, easy to talk to, and takes my input as a patient seriously.
With her guidance, I’ve been able to uncover A LOT about myself and have gone above and beyond what I initially went to see her for (support with anxiety around chronic illness). I am also in a period of a big life transition and I would not be where I am today without her!!
She’s helped me identify the root cause of my anxiety, and I’ve gone from feeling like I need medication to function, to feeling confident that I can manage my anxiety with the tools and insight we’ve uncovered. I strongly recommend working with her if you’re ready to feel more autonomous and fulfilled in your life — and want someone who is kind and supportive to cheer you on.
I get teary every time I read it! I’ve also had some powerful parent coaching sessions where we uncover the “why” of dysfunctional patterns and shift into calmer, more effective parent-child interactions. I love working with parents to translate theory into real-world change and I’m so grateful I now have the opportunity to spend more time doing this work!
Check out my website for more information and feel free to email me at emily@emilyedlynnphd.com
In parenting solidarity,
Emily
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I recently survived a major parenting milestone: my child’s first high school party. With alcohol.
Raising ADHD: Beyond the Diagnosis
When I set out to write my book, I knew I wanted to reach parents of neurodivergent children because mainstream parenting guidance mostly excludes this parenting experience. From “this will never work with my kid” to feeling like they must be getting parenting wrong when, for example, reflecting their child’s emotions during a freakout escalates instead…
Quick shout-out to my book, Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout and Raise Competent, Confident Children!
What a lovely read, Emily. The things you’ve shared in your essay are fabulous. The part when you said, when a child is angry or upset, we shouldn’t focus on consequences, I completely resonated with that. After so many years of being a mum, I’ve realised that’s the moment when we either connect or disconnect.
This was timely and helpful for me today, thank you!