NO MORE LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES
- At least hardly ever!
FOCUS ON SOLUTIONS
by Jane Nelsen
During
a class meeting, students in a fifth grade class were asked to brainstorm
logical consequences for two students who didn't hear the recess bell and were
late for class. Following is their list of consequences:
1.
Make
them write their names on the board.
2.
Make
them stay after school that many minutes.
3.
Take
away that many minutes from tomorrow's recess.
4.
No
recess tomorrow.
5.
The
teacher could yell at them.
The
students were then asked to forget about consequences and brainstorm for
solutions that would help the students be on time. Following is their list of
solutions:
1.
Someone
could tap them on the shoulder when the bell rings.
2.
Everyone
could yell together, "Bell!"
3.
They
could play closer to the bell.
4.
They
could watch others to see when they are going in.
5.
Adjust
the bell so it is louder.
6.
They
could choose a buddy to remind them that it is time to come in.
The
difference between these two lists is profound. The first looks and sounds like
punishment. It focuses on the past and making kids "pay" for their
mistake. The second list looks and sounds like solutions that focus on helping
the kids do better in the future. It focuses on seeing problems as opportunities
for learning. In other words, the first list is designed to hurt; the second is
designed to help.
In
the first list, the kids try to disguise punishment by calling it a logical
consequence. Why do they do that? Could it be that this is what they are
learning from adults? The "Four Rs of Logical Consequences" (Related,
Respectful, Reasonable, and Revealed in advance) were conceived in an attempt
to stop the trend of logical consequences sounding like punishment, but they
have failed.
Many
teachers like numbers 2 and 3 on the first list above. It is true that those
suggestions are related, reasonable, and could be enforced respectfully and
revealed in advance; however, they all focus on making the child pay for the
past mistake instead of finding a solution to solve the problem in the future.
Kay
Rogers, a recently retired teacher from Sharon School in North Carolina, said:
"After I heard about the possibility of focusing on solutions instead of
consequences, it was the hardest habit for me to break. All my life I had
believed that kids learned from punishment - or at least from consequences. I
can now see that my students and I both tried to disguise punishment by calling
it consequences - even though the consequences weren't as harsh as blatant
punishment. I had to learn about the effectiveness of focusing on solutions
right along with my students. We were all surprised by the difference it made
in our classroom. The level of respect and caring for each other was raised
tenfold. Students became pleased to find their name on the agenda because they
knew, as Jane Nelsen had told us, that we would have a whole room full of
consultants to give us valuable suggestions. And the solutions they found were
much more effective in changing behavior than anything we had done
before."
This
does not mean logical consequences cannot be effective when properly understood
and appropriately used. Hopefully the chapter on "Natural and Logical
Consequences" in the newly revised edition of Positive Discipline will help.
However, logical consequences are rarely necessary and are only one
possibility. Rudolph Dreikurs taught that logical consequences were effective
ONLY for the mistaken goal of undue attention. Too many adults look for logical
consequences "to punish" every behavior. Looking for solutions is
more effective in most situations.
Many
teachers have switched to and now teach the "Three Rs and an H for
Solutions": Related, Respectful, Reason-able, and HELPFUL. Once students
have brainstormed for solutions to a problem, it is extremely important to let
the individual student choose the solution he or she thinks will be most
helpful.
A
vote should be taken only if the problem involved the whole class. Please take
up the call to forget about logical consequences. It is much simpler and much
more effective to focus on solutions.
Jane Nelsen