Parenting | Ten Ways to Use ‘Consequences’ in Parenting

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choiceWe all experience the consequences of our behaviours everyday in both positive and negative ways.

When parenting, consequences are used to support children to learn to make the right choices, the choices that will lead them to more positive responses. At times parents can forget this and start to use consequences in their parenting as punishment with little learning.

Consequences, if used well, will support a child’s learning and help them become responsible adults, making good choices most of the time, none of us are perfect!

These following tips may support you to implement consequences wisely:

  1. Never put a negative consequence in place for your child’s behaviour until you have ensured all the positive parenting behaviours are in place. These consist of praise and encouragement; positive language; assertive listening; clear and direct communication; positive reward focusing on what the child is doing well more so than on what the child is not achieving. If you feel you have mastered all these techniques and put them into practice every day then you can explore consequences as the next step to take.
  2. The greatest mistake parents make when using consequences is that they make them too big. They often cannot follow through on them. This tells you the consequence was not planned so therefore was not effective.
  3. All consequences must be planned. Children must be told in advance of the behaviour that is not acceptable and that when they choose to behave in such a way there will be a consequence. Talk with your child about what the fair consequence will be, Agree on it with them.
  4. Children have to choose and not be forced out of fear to make the right choice. When children do make good choices in their behaviour it is crucial to praise them for that. Never miss praise worthy action, they are small and meaningful at the time.
  5. Never shift the boundaries of what is agreed. If you decide on the spur of the moment on a new harsher consequence then you have lost the battle immediately and what your child will learn is that adults are dishonest and do not follow through. If your child feels they are being treated unfairly then they will not choose to behave, they will most likely choose to act in such a way as to let you know how unfairly they feel treated.
  6. Choose reasonably small consequences to start with. Take away an activity from your child such as their favourite toy for one hour- if you start with the biggest consequence then you have no room to move. Firstly remove one small but meaningful privilege and then if your child continues to choose to misbehave then remove another.
  7. Do not be ruled by your mood. Parents can often let go of behaviours when they are in good form and implement harsh consequences when in poor form. Really this is not teaching children anything other than adults have power and can use in whatever way they choose. This is not the message you wish to send to your child. If you over punish then you need to step back, apologise to your child and start over with them. Sit your child down and tell them what the issue is. Hear from your child what the challenge is for them. Then make and agree a plan.
  8. For children under three years of age it is much more appropriate to ensure you are parenting with positive rewards. Young children will not understand the consequences and will most likely just be left feeling hurt and scared. Children have to be old enough to reason with.
  9. Put consequences in place for you as a parent also. We are our children’s most effective role model. If you are not modelling the correct behaviours then talk with your child about this also. No double standards for parenting. You also need to choose how to behave. Often when we parent we misbehave in ways we never would in the work place. Give your children some power to help you recognise the negative choices you make and tell them what you are going to do about it.
  10. Team work is what families are about. Talk with each other, understand each other’s needs and work together to formulate new plans and new ways to live and learn from each other.

This ’10 Ways to’ article is by One Family’s Director of Children & Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly, as part of our weekly ’10 Ways to’ series of parenting tips. You can read the full series here.

Join Geraldine on Facebook on this and other parenting topics for a weekly Q&A live in our One Family Parenting Group which is a closed Facebook group (meaning that only members can read posts) that anyone can join. Post your questions and share your experiences.

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.

 

 

 

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Press Release | One-Parent Families Experience Highest Deprivation and Poverty in Ireland – Shameful!

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Press Release

One-Parent Families Experience Highest Deprivation and Poverty in Ireland – Shameful!

SILC Report 2014 Launched Today

www.onefamily.ie

(Dublin, Thursday 26th November 2015) One Family – Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone and sharing parenting – reacts to the Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC) 2014 results published today, which clearly show that people parenting alone and their children remain  the poorest families in Ireland.

Karen Kiernan, One Family CEO, comments: “Today’s SILC results show that those with the highest rates of deprivation at nearly 60% are one-parent families. This is combined in the 2014 results with the fact that the most common type of family living in consistent poverty are also people parenting alone. This is a direct result of government choices and policies and it is unacceptable to continue to sentence a generation of children to a lifetime of poverty and poor life chances.”

Kiernan continues: “People parenting alone tell us through our monthly surveys, askonefamily helpline and our family support services that they constantly live on the knife edge of poverty. Government continues to enforce ill-formed activation measures without the provision of effective supports such the long-promised, affordable quality childcare.”

One Family recorded a staggering 30% increase of callers to its askonefamily helpline in 2014. The real impact of years of austerity is only now being realised and one-parent families and parents sharing parenting of their children have borne the brunt of spending cuts. Every parent should have an equal opportunity to create a better future for his or her children. All families deserve an equal chance.

Research shows that a key contributor to children’s futures is not the structure of their families but living in consistent poverty.  One in four families in Ireland is a one-parent family and 58% of lone parents are employed. Only 45,000 lone parents are now in receipt of the One-Parent Family Payment. They want to work and they want to learn. The policies of activation being directed towards these families are not working. Children in one-parent families are still more than twice as likely to live in poverty. The number of children in Ireland living in consistent poverty – meaning they are living both at risk of poverty and experiencing deprivation – has risen to nearly 12%; while 23% of children in a one-parent family experience deprivation.

The askonefamily helpline can be contacted on lo-call 1890 66 22 12.

About One Family

One Family was founded in 1972 as Cherish and is Ireland’s leading organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting or separating, offering support, information and services to all members of all one-parent families, to those sharing parenting, to those experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and to professionals working with one-parent families. Children are at the centre of One Family’s work and the organisation helps all the adults in their lives, including mums, dads, grandparents, step-parents, new partners and other siblings, offering a holistic model of specialist family support services. These services include the lo-call askonefamily national helpline on 1890 66 22 12, counselling, and provision of training courses for parents and for professionals. One Family also promotes Family Day and presents the Family Day Festival every May, an annual celebration of the diversity of families in Ireland today (www.familyday.ie). For further information, visit www.onefamily.ie.

Available for Interview

Karen Kiernan, CEO | t: 01 662 9212 or 086 850 9191

Further Information/Scheduling

Shirley Chance, Director of Communications | t: 01 664 0124 / e: schance@onefamily.ie

Policy | Back to Education Allowance – What does it mean for Education and Employability?

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JOB 200x200Stuart Duffin, Director of Policy and Programmes, One Family, responds to the recent findings of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) that there is ‘no evidence that the Back to Education Allowance employment support programme is effective helping unemployed people to find jobs’.

The relationship between education and the economy is longstanding. Employers generally see achievements related to the subject discipline in education as necessary but not sufficient for people to be employed. In some employment contexts the actual subject discipline may be relatively unimportant.  Achievements outside the boundaries of a discipline (such as the possession of so-called ‘soft skills’) are generally considered to be important for a job. Yet ’employability’ is not a major feature in education programmes in Ireland; or why should it be?

‘Employability’ refers to achievements and potential to obtain a ‘job’, and should not be confused with the actual acquisition of a ‘job’ (which is subject to influences in the environment, a major influence being the state of the economy). Employability derives from complex learning and is a concept of a wider range than those of ‘core’ and ‘key’ skills. The transferability of skills is often too easily assumed. There is some evidence to suggest that references to employability make the implicit assumption that graduates from education are young people. The risk is of not considering employability in respect of older graduates, who have the potential to bring a more extensive life-experience to bear. Employability is not merely an attribute of the new graduate. It needs to be continuously refreshed throughout a person’s working life.

There are many definitions of what it is to be employable and views on the processes that develop this attribute which are based on the premise that, in education, employability is about good learning. One of many definitions of employability is: ‘A set of skills, knowledge and personal attributes that make an individual more likely to secure and be successful in their chosen occupation(s) to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy.’

Therefore, employability goes well beyond the simplistic notion of key skills and is evidenced in the application of a mix of personal qualities and beliefs, understandings, skilful practices and the ability to reflect productively on experience.

Notice that the commonly used terms ‘knowledge’ and ‘skills’ are not used. They have been replaced by ‘understandings’ and ‘skilful practices’ respectively, in order to signal the importance of a rich appreciation of the relevant fields and of the ability to operate in situations of complexity and ambiguity. There is a parallel here with Stephenson’s (1998[1]) suggestion that the capable person can work effectively on unfamiliar problems in unfamiliar contexts as well as on familiar problems in familiar contexts (which is really a matter of routine). Given that this account of employability stresses complexity, it follows that pedagogy for employability (and the associated assessment) (a) needs to take the inherent complexity of the construct into account, and (b) will be promoting similar achievements to those that teachers in education , at all levels, tend to value. Much of the discussion of employability implicitly refers to the full-time student who enters education at around the age of 18 and who graduates at the age of 21 or 22, and deals with matters beyond the boundaries of the subject discipline(s) concerned.

For older students (many of who will opt to study part-time), employability may take on a different route, since they may well have experienced employment and/or voluntary work prior to (or whilst they are) engaging in education. For them, the emphasis that they give to employability may be on the development of subject-specific understanding to complement what they have already learned about employability in general.

There is also a need to acknowledge the employment-relevant learning that ostensibly full-time students derive from part-time employment as they seek to fund their passage through education. Students, therefore, will develop their employability in ways that reflect their particular circumstances. It might be hoped that they would become capable in the sense outlined by Stephenson (1998).

Capable people have confidence in their ability to:

  1. Take effective and appropriate action.
  2. Explain what they are seeking to achieve.
  3. Live and work effectively with others.
  4. Continue to learn from their experiences, both as individuals and in association with others, in a diverse and changing society.

Capability is a necessary part of specialist expertise, not separate from it. Capable people not only know about their specialism but they also have the confidence to apply their knowledge and skills within varied and changing situations and to continue to develop their specialist knowledge and skills. Stephenson’s words point beyond employability at the moment of graduation towards employability in the context of lifelong learning (a point that is implicit in all the definitions of employability).

We have a system in Ireland whereby:

  1. We see education as solely not about investing in human capital and enabling people into a better place.
  2. We lack a coherent and integrated set of supports and aftercare while in education to enable sustainable employment options in the future.
  3. We lack, with the Department of Social Protection understanding of human capital investment and employability skills.
  4. Lack of skills of DSP staff to support and guide people.

Going forward, the Back to Education Allowance should be an education support not an employability support; and therefore taken out the auspices of Social Protection and given to Education and Skills. After all, they are the experts. Though attention is focused on the transition between education and employment, it is important to remember that – as stickers in the rear windows of cars provide reminders in respect of pets – employability, for most people, is for life.

 

 

Parenting | Ten Ways to Praise Your Child More

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praisePraise is a normal part of life for many but we must not take it for granted. Some children and adults are very rarely praised. Praise has a huge impact on behaviour. The more positive praise we get the more likely we are to have high self-esteem resulting in positive behaviours.

Here are some pointers to keep in mind when giving praise:

  1. 1. Praise each step your child takes in trying to achieve something. It does not have to be something big. Just comment and praise on a piece of work such as a jigsaw puzzle.
  2. Praise is better delivered in short phrases and is best delivered without any conditions. For example: “You are really kind sharing your sweets with your sister, why can’t you that all the time.” By adding on the extra bit you undo the good of the praise.
  3. Praise the small things, they are the things your child is doing every day. That is where the difference will be made.
  4. If your child rejects praise then you may need to explore why they are doing this. Have you being giving praise with conditions so they may feel criticised? Children and adults who are not comfortable with praise usually have low self-esteem. This may be an area you need to explore.
  5. If your child is not used to being praised they may be puzzled but also delighted. However, they may worry you have some other motive. Assure them you don’t. Tell them you are going to notice their efforts from now on and praise them.
  6. Think of the last time you were praised, by anyone! How did it feel for you? Children have the same range of feelings as adults but mostly they need support to understand how they feel. Try to help them understand their feelings.
  7. Are you comfortable giving praise? Within Irish culture there is a strong belief that self praise is no praise. This is not true. Children need to be supported to identify when they have done well. They need to be encouraged to feel proud of their achievements. Remember no matter how small they are. For example: “Wow you are so clever sitting on your potty.”
  8. Catch your child being good! Many parents find it much easier to list what their child does wrong and what they feel may need to be ‘fixed’. Children are perfect just as they are; they do however need support to understand life and the role they play within their family and community.
  9. Many parents can make up to forty demands of a child in a thirty minute block of time. How many praise statements do you make in the same block of time? If we are asking children to carry out endless tasks are we also noticing how well they do?
  10. Be very specific in your praise. Name exactly the behaviour you liked. Children will then learn that they will be praised for specific actions rather than not being sure of what they did well. Statements such as “you are a good girl” really does not tell a child anything. Telling them they are so good at sharing or so good at helping is much more useful. They know then these actions get positive rewards.

This ’10 Ways to’ article is by One Family’s Director of Children & Parenting Services, Geraldine Kelly, as part of our weekly ’10 Ways to’ series of parenting tips. You can read the full series here.

Join our new One Family Parenting Group which is a closed Facebook group (meaning that only members can read posts) that everyone is welcome to join. You could post questions and share your experiences, and take part in a live weekly Q&A with Geraldine.

Find out more about our parenting skills programmes and parent supports. For support and information on these or any related topics, call askonefamily on lo-call 1890 66 22 12 or email support@onefamily.ie.