Balancing Natural & Imposed Consequences in Parenting

Parenting is full of tough choices, especially when it comes to discipline. Should we let our children face the natural consequences of their actions, or do we step in with imposed consequences to guide their behavior? In this episode of the Turning Winds Podcast, we explore this delicate balance with expert insights from our team.

Join us as we discuss how to set a strong family framework, when to allow natural consequences to take their course, and when structured discipline is necessary. We’ll also dive into how understanding your child’s temperament can help you adjust your parenting approach for long-term success.

If you’re navigating challenges with your teen, this conversation is for you. Tune in and discover how to create a structured, supportive environment that fosters growth, accountability, and trust.

To learn more about Turning Winds, visit turningwinds.com or call 800-845-1380.

Transcript

 This is what it sounds like to hear that you shouldn't internalize your teen's mental health struggles, but you have the opportunity to get them the treatment.

They need to give themselves some grace is really important and valuable and validating like parenting is hard. It's super difficult. And in our world, unfortunately, in the western world, we have created a society.

That does not foster  healthy mental health.  Welcome to the Turning Winds podcast. My name is Kevin Zundl.  Turning Winds has a full continuum of care for teens who can greatly benefit from help clinically and academically.  Today, I sit down with Jared Sartell, clinical director at Turning Winds, and we discuss one of the greatest questions when parenting. 

Jared, one of the concepts that have come up in previous podcasts with Enoch and Carl is to best understand which approach to use in a given situation and the development of their team,  do we allow them to experience the natural consequences of the decision, or do we intervene with guidance or potentially a punishment?

I think I speak for so many parents out there when I say help.  Yeah, that's a great question. The precursor is. His coolest frame. Are you operating under, are you operating under like, I use the analogy of a picture frame. And so we have a picture, which is a beautiful picture that is framed by like, there's a constructed frame that is designed to compliment the picture. 

And so oftentimes when parents are struggling with this area, it's because the child actually is setting the frame as opposed to the parents creating the frame and an inviting. The child to live within the picture that existed before them. And so really what you have to do before we can really consider consequences is we have to consider who's frame, who's framing the situation.

Is it, you know, are we operating under the kid's frame or, or are we operating under the adult frame that the kids live within? And so part of what makes turning when so effective. Is that at all times, the child has to operate under a frame that is created for them that existed before they got there and will exist after they leave.

And it's such a strong frame that's held up by a lot of really healthy people that the kids have no choice  but to ultimately begin living within that frame. Now it's really common for our kids to come in. And really want to set the frame and try to get turning winds to sort of bow to their frame. And so the beginning stages of the process is, is them sort of going through the acceptance phase of, Oh crap, like I'm living within a picture that's already created.

I'm not able to sort of paint it the way that I want it to be. And so with parents,  it's important to identify who really holds the frame.  Do the parents truly hold the frame? And then they have to look at the contrast. Between natural and contrived consequences or a combination of the two, or do the parents need to reestablish frame that the kid is operating with you. 

And so we do a lot of, of that sort of work with parents is whose frame are we operating under is your family system operating under. And if it's not your frame solidly, then that's what needs to come first. And our work actually will be more in our energy will be directed more towards parents. That it will towards the kids, because the kid is going to start following eventually the frame set for them.

But then if they go home  to an environment where they can just recreate the frame again,  then the work that they will have done as a family won't be nearly as effective.  And so, so that's number one is establishing whose frame are we operating under and how do we make sure that it's the parent's frame as solidly as possible before the kid comes home. 

And so we do that through family therapy, through team and team calls. We do that through visits and those sorts of things. And so your actual question about natural consequences versus contrived consequences, that comes more into play when.  The frame creators are asserting consequences, right?  And so there's a lot of factors that you have to look at.

You have to look at the potential risks and hazards of them operating in a way that creates natural consequences.  Um, you have to look at the pros and cons of sort of setting back and letting things just happen, which can be frightening. But could be very effective. You know what I mean? Again, depending upon the subject matter, if a kid's wanting to use substances and they've proven that they clearly have no capacity to use substances in a safer way. 

Well, the natural consequences alone probably aren't good.  So really it's individualized to each family and each kid, because some families  or with some kids, they may not need to do a whole lot of imposing of constructed consequences. I'll use, so I've got my family life. I have four children, each with their own personalities.

My oldest child is a daughter. She's 17 and she's the quintessential perfect kid. We've never actually had to do any consequencing of her. Like, I don't think once in her that I can remember where we've had to impose a consequence because the nature of our relationship with her, the nature of her temperament and the nature of natural consequences.

Has been enough, um, whereas my youngest child, my son, he's eight years old and he is very clearly going to need way more active parenting.  And then our oldest kid. And so we are frequently when he's acting out or when he is mismanaging himself, being unkind in the home to contrive consequences for him.

Sorry, son, because you're acting this way, you no longer have access to Dude Perfect on YouTube or whatever it is, right? Because for him, the natural consequences of those behaviors. Wouldn't be that he loses opportunities because he just would take them anyways. But is it a complicated target because really depends on where the child is at, where they are in their development, how old they are, because ultimately isn't what we're all trying to do is be in a spot where we're taking off the training wheel.

Yeah, begins with immersion with that kid as parents, we can choose to either know our kids really well, or we can choose to not really know our kids that well at all at turning winds. We  like everything is based on the relationship. And so we know our kids really, really well, we know the ins and outs of them.

And so I will know with little Johnny, like this is kind of his way of operating and temperament, and this is what's been effective with him and what hasn't. And so we would adjust our process. To have high expectations that are calibrated to his capacity.  And so for parents, it's really important for us to be accurately calibrated to our kids, which is super difficult  that you have two kids in your house as a parent, you have completely different human beings.

That you have to get to know really well in order to calibrate. And so what that means is that we need to adjust  the time and attention that we pay towards one area of life and maybe take some away from that area and move it towards our kids. On the inverse, are we too enmeshed with our kids and we need to take time and attention away from them and put it towards developing ourselves in some other way.

For parents to understand themselves and be accurately calibrated to their kids really is the trick. We have parent workshops every two months in most of our parent workshops. We have a guest speaker. Foster Klein, who is the author of the legend love and logic series of parenting books  in his presentation, he uses a term with our teenagers that we want to parent our teenagers as if they're a good neighbor that we want to have as a good neighbor.

And so this can mean a lot to parents because oftentimes parents will accept behavior from their kids that they wouldn't accept from a good neighbor that they want to keep as a neighbor.  Like, it's not even a question, I wouldn't let my neighbor come into my house, open my fridge, toss it at me and then go do whatever they want.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't let a neighbor do that. And so when you say, so how come you allow your kid to do that on your weekly sessions, it kind of rocks them back a little bit and they realize, oh my gosh, you know, I know Jordan Peterson, who is a psychologist and a professor.  He, in an effort to guide parents, reminds us, don't let your kids do things that make you not like them.

What that means is you're operating in your own frame and you know what you like and what you dislike, and you're assertive enough  to not let your kids be that person in your space.  And so that's sort of a summary of all of this. It's fascinating stuff. One of the things that I'm trying to be more mindful of.

My boys get older, which is don't be there just for the immediate guidance. I don't want that to be all they remember  in terms of the relationship that for every one or two sort of points of conflict, we have points of connection. And you build that trust over time. We invest a lot of time in the individual.

We, we invest a lot of time in. Moving them towards having things go well in their life. We try to set them up to get some wins under their belt. And that goes a long way and just time together, you know, even our clinical staff, when they're not in sessions, we like to sit down and eat meals with the kids.

We like to be when some of their free time, just that proximity is really valuable and important so that you're a person that's in their life. Not just as you said, when things are going badly or when you have to step in as a parent to do what I call active parenting. In fact, that active parenting is way easier and they're way more responsive if it's built on a foundation of you're a person that's just around anyways and you're pretty reliable. 

Yeah, it could manifest itself in a lot of different ways too. So, I mean, if you're trying to encourage  your child to be an achiever, whatever that is for them,  how do you not  have that child feel like this is all you see them as? So if they are that great sports star, eventually they may be 12, 13, 14 and just burnt out.

They've been doing it for years and they're like, what a career for me. It was fun and now it isn't. But, you know, as a parent, you're pushing them academically, you're pushing them to stand out and all that. Areas, but I think it feels good as a parent to see your child stand down as well. So it's a little bit selfish in there.

No, it's true. But how do you balance that?  Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a super good question and there's no real clean answer to that. And so it's, and you sort of intimated this, but what's the balance between getting our needs met through the act of parenting versus  facilitating somebody else, getting their needs met outside of ourselves.

I mean.  There isn't really a good answer to that question. We constantly have to be  paying attention. Am I doing this because it's for me? Am I doing this because it's for them? Am I miscalibrating their capabilities? Parenting is having relationships. If you want to maintain a good relationship, there's tending to, right?

There's boundaries that we have to set with that other person to ensure that it stays healthy. And there's the ability to check ourselves with humility to make sure we're not meeting our own needs. And the challenge is all of this is subconscious until you purposefully make it conscious. And you have other people that you know, and trust that can be a sounding board.

That's a part of what we offer. Parents develop relationships with them. We like to say that we effectively become married to them. And we have that sort of relationship while their child is in treatment.  And we strive to build trust with those parents so we can put our arm around them and go, Hey, I think you might be doing this like for your own benefit.

That's more your stuff than it is their stuff. And if we've done a good job with that relationship, then perhaps the parent will be able to step back and go, Oh yeah, I need to change some things. We use at Turning Winds, we operate from what's called a family systems theory, which means our focus is not solely on the child and correcting how the child was operating, but it's also looking at the family system as a unit.

And so what can we look at tweaking and changing with different areas of the family system  in order to optimize. The best long term outcome for the kid, even before their kid is enrolled at Turning Winds. We're offering them homework to do and letting them know this is a joint effort and the more you're involved, the better it is. 

So I think one of the things that parents need to really understand and having to gone through.  Mental health system myself  is if you do push them and they get honor roll, that is not necessarily affirmation that you're the best parent. Right? Ignore the fact that your child needs treatment because they have something going on.

Being afraid to take any steps around is probably the worst thing you could do,  okay? But we are pretending to be a perfect household as opposed to going, you know that mental health is health and this is real infrequent  necessary. It's very common. That our therapists are sitting in front of a family, telling the parents like you guys are actually really good parents  and to have them be shocked by that because they ascribe all sorts of self judgment as a result of how their kid is doing or the needs that their kid have and sometimes it's like, guys, there's no way that anyone could be prepared to parent a child that's on the autism spectrum or that can parent a child that has significant bipolar mood disorder.

Like, We're just, as humans, we're just not prepared to be able to manage that and a parent. And so sometimes it may not have anything to do with you and your parenting.  In fact, I find myself at least occasionally telling parents, like, the foundation that you've set because of your good parenting has saved this kid's life.

And even though they're still needing treatment, probably they would have been dead a year ago if you hadn't have been such good parents. And so giving parents permission to,  if they need to, To give themselves some grace is really important and valuable and validating. Like parenting is hard. It's super difficult.

And in our world, unfortunately, in the Western world, we have created a, a society that does not foster  healthy mental health. Um, like everything is stacked against the mental health of today's generation. And all of these things that are amazing and wonderful and advancements that are valuable.  At the same time,  also foster significant mental health issues.

And that's systemic, you know, part of that is how we go about parenting. And part of it is just the system that we are raising our children in has created. A much more difficult job of parenting than even a generation ago. If you are an alumni or an alumni family and would like to share a story about time here on campus, just reach out to Enoch at enoch@turningwinds.com.  But importantly, if this conversation gives you hope for the situation you are in, I encourage you to call Turning Winds at 800 845 1380 where you can check out the wealth of resources they have at turningwinds.com.