..unnatural consequences

When the children were young, teaching cause and effect was simple. The natural consequences were as easy as letting the grass grow or the dishes pile up. The resulting growth of jungle and fungi were natural consequences and resulted in a simple matter of choice. The child could either choose mower v. machete, or dishcloth v. chisel. The natural results made excellent teaching tools as the child scrubs or scythes.

The newest parenting philosophy suggests that if the natural consequence will eventually be
negative, but due to some unfortunate situation will also be delayed, (which somehow occurs most of the time,) then parents must initiate an appropriate effect that has lasting impact.
These structured consequences, require some of the most brilliant thought.

To you honey:
I’m worried that the warning message of the dry ice and two liter bottle story was lost on the boy and I think that he thinks the gunpowder in the attic story was a how-to story.
I know that plastic shrapnel embedded in his legs and behind seemed a good visual, but maybe we should watch what we say? Whichever, T.

Quick! On the fly, think up an immediate response for finding the teen on the front porch extending the good-bye kiss to the length and breadth of your last dental root-canal. What’s the logical consequence in this situation and how can it be restructured as negative yet natural?
Once we recover from the shock, and wipe the surprise from our face, it is difficult to choke out a civil response, let alone structure an immediate natural consequence.

To me,
I’ve had another epiphany about laundry and teenage boys. I’m countering all advice and intervening on natural processes.
I’m keeping his clothes in the laundry room where they will be protected from the cross-contamination of being shoved in pristine condition under the teen’s bed or dropped onto the floor of his closet.
This interrupts the natural cycle of unused clothing being salvaged, rewashed and returned when Mom yells, “Laundry day.”
If I interrupt this never ending cycle and secure all the clothing in the laundry room, then once every so often, when I felt the need to feel needed, I could pluck the clothing from the fold shelf, and run it through the wash and dry cycles, then I’d return it to the shelf without once having to yell or pitch a fit.
The side-effect of a cleaner bedroom would go far to boost that coveted, yet ever elusive, teen-esteem.

And thus we see that there are parenting situations that confound even the best and brightest manual and I find solace from the life-skills learned from history: “It could be worse,” “Such is the nature of youth,” and my own personal favorite, “Remember when.”

Reality bite: In these situations, I also respond with the long-range curse of “What goes around …”