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Consequences vs. punishment

2/22/2015

2 Comments

 
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I’m currently working with two groups of home-educating parents, delivering a workshop around the Brave Hearts and Hero Minds curriculum I offer for children. The aim of the course is to enable parents to create and facilitate their own emotional learning programmes for their children but it also involves them doing a lot of reflection on their own role as parents and educators.
We look at mindfulness, emotional intelligence, communication and thinking skills but also behaviours that are difficult to manage.
Some of what I present to parents may challenge them and make them see their own behaviour and its impact on their children in a new way.

Yesterday we discussed the difference between punishment and consequences and I personally find it easiest to differentiate between the two when I think in terms of person and behaviour. Consequences respond to the behaviour whereas punishment focuses on the person and implies that there is something wrong with the person and that the person therefore deserves punishment, i.e. “you are bad and that gives me the right to punish you.” Consequences say: “You broke this vase that doesn’t belong to you, therefore you need to replace it/make amends.” Consequences teach responsibility for our own behaviour and an understanding of cause and effect. For every action there is a result. The choices we make have an impact on our environment and the people around us and it is our responsibility to deal with the consequences of the choices we make.

Punishment on the other hand, teaches judgment and violence because there is a person who is apparently ‘right’ and ‘good’ judging another as ‘wrong’ and ‘bad’. In addition, the person doing the judging has the power to dish out whatever they perceive to be an appropriate form of punishment. A punishment is not a natural consequence of the behaviour but an unnatural, artificially chosen response aimed at teaching some kind of lesson. Ironically, it often involves the very kind of behaviour that is being judged as bad such as when violence is punished by counter-violence. As it is not a logical consequence of the behaviour and therefore artificial children often perceive it (rightly so!) as unfair. Using the example of the broken vase, punishment could be anything from banning a child from watching TV, grounding them, or any other random response that will cause them upset while being completely unrelated to the initial behaviour and the natural consequence of that behaviour.

The biggest issue I have with punishments is that there is an underlying assumption involved about people’s intentions and motivations. Punishment assumes a conscious choice and intentionality. In the example of the broken vase for example, punishment assumes that the vase was broken on purpose, that ‘evil’ intent was somehow involved, which then goes back again to assuming that there is something inherently ‘bad’ within that person that needs to be punished. As none of us are able to read minds (at least as far as I know) I advise to be very careful with judgments and punishments because they can quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies. It is much easier for a child to prove you right than to try against all odds to prove you wrong so be careful what you project onto them.

Lastly, punishments leave very little room for learning through mistakes. If every mistake or wrong choice is seen as a sign of bad character and punished as such, there is no room left for experimentation and learning through experience.

When I talk to parents about separating the child from the behaviour I need to stress that we need to do the same with ourselves.
When we engage in study or any form of self-development, it's important to bear this in mind. We are not trying to change ourselves, but our behaviours, and when we become aware of ourselves engaging in unhelpful or even harmful behaviours there is no need to judge ourselves as 'bad people' or ‘bad parents’. Just as when we deal with our children engaging in unwanted behaviours, we need to employ the same strategies when dealing with our own: separate the person from the behaviour. Do not withdraw love from yourself, do not judge yourself but solely focus on the behaviour, its consequences and ways to change it. Don't use it as an opportunity to punish yourself. You don’t deserve punishment any more than your children do.

 


2 Comments
Dimitri
2/23/2015 01:05:44 am

Thanks for sharing these experiences and posing the question; I feel very much concerned by that, as I have two

children (6 and 12 years old) and I'm continuousy asking myself whether 'education' is possible at all

I agree with you that education focus is on "learning"; that's why preserving the desire and the enthousiasm to

experiment, to play is so crucial;

You describe also very well the risks associated with apparently (or actually !) authoritarian and arbitrary

punishment. This should make parents think twice (or more !!) before punishing children.

And linking children education to our own personal continous education and self-development is also a precious guide:

are we helping our children to grow or are we projecting our own beliefs ?

I have however a question about the "separation" of behaviour and person;
With no obvious link between these two, we could become "schizo", don't you think ?

Are we reponsible of our behaviour ? we should be, otherwise there will be no interest in learning because we cannot

change or orient our behaviour as there is no link, no clear consequence between 'understanding' and 'resultant

behaviour'.

How could we change our behaviour without judge it (or evaluate or ...), and by the way without judging ourselves at

the same time ?

It is not bad in my opinion, to judge ourselves, if the judgment is founded on the belief that we have all the

potential to change, and if the judgement is considered as a very temporary and very limited assessment of what we

are and we are doing; If correct, it may leave the door open to a wise punishment.

What do you think ?

Dimitri

Reply
Dani
2/23/2015 03:06:42 am

Hi Dimitri

Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.

I think it's fine to judge our behaviour as good or bad but struggle with the idea of judging ourselves in these terms unless it is, as you say, a very temporary assessment and even then I ask myself what this assessment is based on if not our behaviour or our thoughts?
As these change all the time and there's always the potential to change them, they provide very shaky ground to judge a person as a whole, I think.

We are definitely responsible for our behaviour and our thoughts and therefore need to deal with the consequences of these but I don't think it's necessary to judge ourselves as a person for us to learn, change and grow. Consequences provide enough feedback if we are willing to look and listen, I think and this ability to look and listen is something we can teach children.

In fact, I think it's easier to change behaviours and thoughts if we don't identify with them so much but see them for what they are: trained habits and choices that can be changed rather than traits of our personality.
Once a person believes that they are 'bad', I think there's very little room for change and that belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've seen this in children I worked with who had severe behavioural difficulties. Once they bought into a negative self-image, their ability to change became very limited.

Reply



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    Dani Miller, MA, PG Cert.

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