'Nothing good, apart from our love, is for nothing.' Does it mean that all the good things that this boy receives in his home should be paid for? In a sense, yes, although once he begins to accept his parents right to use them as consequences the cost is minimal. If his parents increase the good things before they begin to intervene it only adds to their influence. All these good things in his home are his by right, all his parents then ask is that he is polite and that when the view from his world collides with the view from theirs - bedtime - homework - going to school etc - their view prevails. Parents find that if we do this it gives us a lot of new power. So now if we get angry we can take away this reward and that reward like there is no tomorrow, right. No. Wrong. Home has to remain a rewarding place in spite of anything and everything that your child does. Distraught clients often begin by telling me that they have taken vertually everything away in punishments. When we do this we put ourselves in the worst possible position. We make our child even more angry and uncooperative whilst at the same time arranging it so that the child has nothing to lose. You must never run out. To run out of rewards is also to run out of consequences. Sustainable sanctions always need to be based on the withdrawal of these naturally occuring rewards. If we run out, use them all up, we make ourselves impotent. All parents are constrained by this crasy-sounding mantra. The worse the behaviour and the more frequently it occurs the smaller the sanction (loss of reward) needs to be. |
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