It was 12:00 a.m. and I was no where to be found. My parents called my girlfriend's house to see if I had left yet, and she confirmed that I left about 20 minutes earlier. Now the worrying set in. "What if" questions sprung into the recesses of my parent's consciousness like a roaring river, flooding their thoughts until they finally released the situation to God.

You can imagine their relief when I finally walked in through the front door. I should have probably chosen the back door with the amount of anxiety my parents were experiencing. I then boldly announced the reason for my tardiness, a speeding ticket. The tension was mounting exponentially.

"I know you warned me about speeding, but …" I started in immediately. I was already beginning to mount my defense. But to my surprise, neither my dad or mom reacted. What they did next not only helped me, but it helped my parents as well.

They could have lit into me, scolding me for being irresponsible and careless. This only would have caused me to get more defensive, thus leading the three of us down the path of intense conflict. When families undergo intense conflict they can feel less secure in their relationships with each other. Furthermore, the couple's relationship suffers from the conflict. Anxiety and difficulty in parenting is not going to remain solely within the parenting realm, it will sneak around affecting many areas of the couple's lives. Thus the reasoning behind my parents not reacting negatively to my speeding ticket is simply that they didn't need to!

Some of you out there might be thinking that our parents were being irresponsible parents by not disciplining me for getting a speeding ticket. This is the beauty of natural consequences. We, as parents, don't always have to discipline our children. Life can be a great disciplinarian!

I already suffered the fear of returning home with a speeding ticket by not knowing what was going to happen to me when my parents found out. The officer who gave the ticket scared me more than my parents ever could. If only parents could have those incredible lights and siren when we approach our children for discipline!

Besides the embarrassment of getting the ticket, I also learned how much they can cost. How insurance on my car would raise and that I not only needed to pay the ticket, but also pay for the classes I needed to get the points taken off my license. When you added it all up, I dolled out some $200 for my speeding ticket. Which hurt me much more than anything my parents could have imposed upon me.

What Are Natural Consequences

"Natural and logical consequences teach children to learn from the situation, thus encouraging self-control and self-discipline."

Natural consequences allow our children to make mistakes free from parental involvement. This means not stepping in with discipline of our own, but allowing the natural course of things to teach and discipline our teenager. It is letting the world and the effects of their decisions serve as discipline.

In trying to understand exactly what natural consequences are, it can be helpful to fully examine what natural consequences are not. First, as mentioned earlier, natural consequences are not about getting involved in regards to discipline. We must allow our teenager to experience the full force of their decisions. We take that away when we get entangled with their messes.

Secondly, natural consequences are not about letting our children suffer through their choices, and then telling them what they should learn. The lessons are inherent in what your teenager goes through. When allowing our children to endure the hardships of their mistakes, we give them the chance and opportunity to grow, despite our efforts to interfere. We take that away when we try and give our teenagers the answers instead of letting them learn themselves.

To understand this concept more fully, try thinking of it like taking a test. What would happen if, during one of our teenager's test, we gave them the answers? For one, if our teenager got caught cheating, she would presumably receive an F on the test. If she got away with it, that would not help her either. She never truly learned the material and would be behind in knowledge compared to her other classmates.

Lastly, natural consequences are denied in the statement, "I told you so." We might as well tell them, "I know everything, and you know nothing." They are basically the same expressions. By telling our teenagers, "I told you so," we are diminishing their opportunity for growth by belittling them. This makes them feel incompetent, which leads toward poor decisions from lack of confidence.

The silver thread running throughout what natural consequences are not is control. When we are fearful of our teenagers making mistakes and either severely harming themselves, or embarrassing us, we might compensate that fear with control. Control makes us feel like things are not as bad as they are. It is a false sense of security.

When we start trying to control our teenager; watch out! Control will cause a plethora of problems for our teenagers. I can remember a time when my parents got incredibly upset about a decision I'd made about playing football.

It was my Junior year in high school and I decided against playing football. This came as a huge shock to my parents because I had played football for two years and had just won a state championship. I tried to explain to them that I didn't like football anymore, but before I could tell them why, they were off to the races.

Football was not just for me, it was for my parents as well. They loved traveling to all the games and had developed many close friendships with the other player's parents. By me not playing football, they couldn't play either!

When I made my final announcement that I was not going to play, my parents went into high gear. First they started with the classic four-hour drag-it-out meeting trying to convince me that I had made a poor decision. "You're just being lazy", my dad said. "Where's your dedication to your teammates?" he tried in vain.

Their tactics only made things worse for our family. It stressed me out and frustrated my parents. It was a difficult month. August practices had come and gone and I still chose to stay out of football. Despite their best efforts, using anything from guilt to threat of punishment, I did not return. They felt the football season seemed doomed!

When they finally gave up, I got space to think without my parents hovering over me. Things started to change. Now I was able to hear those besides my parents who were wishing I'd come back and play football. Other parents were calling, as well as some of the coaching staff. I had never realized how much I meant to the football team.

With my parents out of the way, I could finally make the decision for myself. But, because of their interference, I could never feel like it was truly my decision. A great lesson was missed for me that month during my Junior year. I could have realized that my decisions don't only effect myself, but people around me. Though, by my parent's own desires and motives, they denied me the opportunity.

© Copyright 2003 Smalley Relationship Center

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