Today's Tip for Families

[En español]

11-20-2024

Reevaluate Consequences as Your Child Gets Older

Discipline is most effective when rules and consequences are clearly spelled out in advance and enforced consistently.

Of course, if it’s been some time since you updated those consequences, it may be time to consider whether they are still appropriate for your child.

Here are two areas that might benefit from some updating:

1. Time-outs. Even if you no longer call it “time-out,” you may still say “Go to your room” when your child misbehaves. But if that room is full of digital devices, games or other distractions, being banished to it won’t have much of an impact. Instead, have your child sit screen-free in the kitchen or on the couch.
2. Loss of privileges. True, being told to turn off the TV an hour early may have once been a fate worse than death, but what if your child now prefers to listen to music or play on a tablet anyway? In that case, temporarily losing access to those may make more of an impression.

Brought to you by:

West Point Consolidated School District

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