My parents were both beaten and abused when they were kids, and they grew up with horrible notions about how parents should treat their children. Every little mistake was met with screaming and anger and sometimes violence or threats of violence, and that gave me a lot of unhealthy and paralyzing fears that actually harm me in adulthood. My parents were hoarders and we had an overabundance of everything, especially dishes, but despite how little breaking one affected anything at all, you would get screamed at and belittled and sometimes entirely shunned for it. There was one time I was helping to do the dishes and a glass that was part of my mom's collection, that she already had several duplicates of, broke while I was drying it and I was instantly met with screaming and blaming and guilting. My mom yelled at me that I had broken her favorite glass on purpose, and asked what she did to make me hate her so much. To an innocent child making a mistake like that and being treated so harshly was devastating, and it's things like that that made me absolutely terrified to make even small mistakes well over a decade later. One of the worst times was when there was something red in the toilet bowl that nobody had an explanation for. It could've very well been period blood as we literally had four girls in one house, but nobody knew how to explain it, so my parents said we couldn't get McDonald's until someone owned up to it. My sister, not even knowing what it was or how it happened confessed just because she wanted McDonald's, and my dad proceeded to take her to the room and beat her for it. I don't know how long it lasted or how many hits were thrown, but I do remember being absolutely petrified by the screaming and crying in the other room while I sat on the couch in the living room crying and hiding. There was no damage done to the toilet. No stains, nothing left in the toilet, could've easily been flushed and forgotten about, yet it sparked one of the most traumatic moments of both of our childhoods and instilled a petrifying fear of imperfection. My parents planted the seeds for so many different fears and anxieties that I can only barely function as an adult and I have a million mental hurdles to jump before I can accomplish almost anything at all, and they refuse to accept any amount of responsibility for the things they did or acknowledge that their actions hurt me. I love my parents and I understand why they acted the way they did, but I plan to do everything I possibly can to not be the kind of parent they were, and they'll be lucky if they're allowed anywhere near my kids if and when I have them. The cycle of abuse and treating children like puppets needs to be stopped with this new generation. So many people in my age group have been basically handed mental illnesses by their parents and expected to thrive and it's just too much

This makes me think of Little Mermaid and Triton losing his temper when he finds out about Ariel saving Eric and that she is in love with him. Triton losing his temper and destroying her treasures scared me as a kid.

My mom tried the consequences route with cleaning my room. The problem is that I have pretty bad ADD and depression. Cleaning is very hard for me. I either don't see it or I see it but my executive dysfunction won't let me. Even today I am messy but I feel such deep shame, especially when being watched, that I freeze.

In my house as a kid, cleaning was punishment. There were no natural consequences; it was simply "you did something we don't like, and now you will do what everyone else doesn't want to." So now as an adult I abhor cleaning. I like a clean home and yes I have found ways to make it better, but still the simple act of doing dishes is enough to bring my mood way down. It was so ingrained as a negative thing.

I tried the.whole “if you don’t clean your room I’ll donate your toys to the thrift store” and my daughter said” well at least someone else could use them” I thought she was bluffing so that’s what I did. She said “I see you donated my toys, well at least my room is clean” I didn’t know what to say to that lol.

I like That you mentioned the issue of power struggles. As a kid, I used to have troubles behaving because my parents would tell me to do something or not do that "because I sad so, because I said not to". I think instead it's important to tell children about the consequences and also the benefits. " If you put your toys away, we will all enjoy a clean and nice house that makes us all happy". " if you tell the truth, you will earn our trust". Not "do as I say because I'm the adult" but: I'm guiding you because I love You and want the best for you and I have gained insight from experience that you will gain too". And I get It that children might not have the skills to look past instant gratification or fully grasp difficult concepts, but I think it's the respectful thing to do to treat them with honesty and kindness and letting thek know you come from love not from wanting them to obey you uncritically.

I don't know if I agree with donating away a kids toys man. I remember when me and my younger brother were kids we loved collecting Pokemon cards. Me and my brother would hustle and trade for first edition cards and we got very close to completing a set of all the Pokemons. One day me and my brother was looking at them then some friends wanted us to go play outside with them so we left the cards out. My dad decided we weren't putting them away enough and he threw them away. We tried to get them out of the dumpster but my dad threatened to beat our asses so we stopped. We sat on the stairs to our apartment and watched as the dump truck emptied the dumpster. We cried then. I just remember my little brother crying so hard. He loved those things. I remember crying over again and again every time I saw his teary eyes. I still remember when my little brother opened a Blastoise out of just a few packs of cards. He was so happy and I was so happy for him. We screamed and ran all the way home from the store. We adored that card. And my dad threw it and all our other cards away. Just like that. I think we changed that day. We hide a lot of things from my dad from that day on and even today man. We are in our mid 30s with kids of our own and my dad is really just not included in a lot of things (not just for that but among other things). Another punch to the guts was when the old Pokemon cards blew up in prices a few years back. Our cards could've paid our down payments to our houses! (granted the conditions of the cards would vary but still....)

While I think the choices with consequences thing is really good, I think that it should have a limit. Taking away toys is pretty messed up, especially when an emotional connection is made with the toys. I specifically remember when this was done to my brothers and I remember crying and begging my mother to give them another chance because they were so destressed and running around in a panic trying to clean things up. Don't give them away. Take the toys and say you have to earn them back. Otherwise you're just traumatizing your kids with a fear of losing things if you do wrong, which I suffer with to this day. It sucks. I had a serious panic attack at work because my phone got stolen and it reminded me of the crying my brothers did when their stuff got taken away.

I'm not a mother, but in a period where my brother was struggling with work I helped a lot with his kids. One of them was having a really rebellious, confronting moment... he was a bit in a turmoil, suddenly moving to a new place and with mom and dad always at work. The "consequences" method always came pretty natural to me, things like "if you clean up your toys now you can watch your favorite show in TV later, but if you don't you'll miss it because you'll still have this mess to clean". Now, I was barely 20 at the time... I probably was way less than perfect with this, and many times I felt like I was trying to get a 6 years old to be way more mature than it was possible for him to be, but in the end I think not only it was good lessons for him, but to see that when he DID the thing I requested him to the prize was there for real, it brought us together even more. It was like after a while he saw that he could trust me with actually having the good thing there for him if he listened to me, and we grew so so close.

Man, my mother was excellent at this. She FOLLOWED THROUGH y'all. Now watching her as a newly minted grandma is hilarious because she's spoiling this child rotten! You can tell she's been waiting for this opportunity because she's a big softie, but being a teacher she knew how important consistency was.

My nephew was misbehaving and lying on Christmas Eve so his parents withheld one of his Christmas gifts for a week. During that week, he did the same type thing again. They added another week. So far, that seems to have stuck with him.

My mom did the toy thing with my room too. Took my stuffed animals. Didn't work. I just...can't clean. Well, I guess put things "away" or "neat". I just can't. I didn’t have trash or food in my room, it was just messy. But I knew where everything was. All it did was make me upset and feel like I'll never be good enough because I can't clean like my mom and sister. I found ways that work for *me* but my mom would hate it if she ever saw it. I have a 'clean' hamper and a 'dirty' one because I know I can't put away laundry. And if I do, i just shove it in drawers anyway. But it works for me, I don't mind wrinkled clothes. I don’t have a trash can in the kitchen, but instead of having a trash mountain piling up (which got really bad), when I see the bag is full I just take it out. Its not what most people would have or want, but it works for me.

I lost some respect for you when you said you threatened kids with giving away their toys for not organizing. My mom did that to me and I never recovered, I have hoarding tendencies because of that. And later discovered I have adhd which makes it more difficult to stay on top of things.

Hi Jonathan, thanks for your great content! I respect you very much for your work and for sharing :) BUT: I would like to challenge this definition of consequences. "You refuse to wear your jacket, you will be cold" is a consequence. "You don't clean your room, I take your things away forever" does not follow logically. It is a choice. A choice we parents make to use leverage to force our kids into doing what we want. They call that blackmail. As a mother of two boys (3 and 5) I can absolutely relate and I take away things constantly (for a given time, sometimes just to keep them from mauling each other). Still, I see what you are describing as using our power over their possessions and our position in the family hierarchy to enforce behaviour, but framing it in a way that it can not be addressed. I would argue to call a punishment a punishment and at least accept their anger so that they can choose to avoid or take the "consequence" and still keep their integrity.

When I was a kid my mom did something like that thrift store thing. I wouldn't pick up my toys so she warned me "clean up your toys or I'll throw them out on the lawn (we had a pretty large property".... yeah having to hunt through the grass for my toys made an impression.

I love your content! Whether it is on Cinema Therapy or here on Mended Light, you just always give such great advice and have great insights!

I'm 20 but when I haven't cleaned my room for a while, my parents will say something like "clean it or we'll do it for you" which is parent-speech for "we're gonna enter your room when you're not home, decide for you which of your things you still need and which ones we're gonna throw out forever, and possibly we're gonna break some of your things in the process". They've done that basically since I was 5. My room is still a mess, but now I also live in constant fear of losing my things when I'm not looking, and I can't get myself to clean because I can't bear to let them win by threatening me. For the love of all that is holy, USE EMPATHY when punishing your kids. There is such a thing as going too far, and you wanna know where "too far" is before you go there.

You mentioned about those times when kids are constantly asking for things or repeatedly asking the same things trying to get a yes. I read once about something called the "Asked and Answered approach". It was a method employed by parents to cease the repetition of questions. It was up to the parent how many asks to accept, but after three asks or more in an attempt to get a different answer, the reply was "You have already asked and I have already answered. If you ask again a consequence will happen or what do you think has changed this time that you ask to follow up. This allows the child to choose between consequences such as a loss of allowance for that week or an additional treat for the weekend that would be given up or questioning their own behaviours and impacts. Nothing too severe. We still want kids to ask questions, we just want to stop the whining and pestering but also give them some kind of self-assessment process. I have a nephew who does this a lot and his mom gets really frustrated and major fights break out. So I encouraged her to try this. They had some success but they struggled to keep doing it as he got older. Anyway, just a thought as I watched this.

I'm so glad to just hear I'm not the only one. My son..(my first son) .as a baby he was so easy and happy and smiley...then just that streak of STUBBORNNESS! and it Is every day, every argument, every topic of conversation has to be some negotiation. What to eat, what to watch (even if he loves it), bathing, (even though he loves showers and bathing), even just cleaning him when he has an accident has to be this battle...and the most challenging thing I find is I don't have surplus energy to do this. Being chronically Ill makes this so hard. Having this battle when my head feels like it will explode and my muscles are screaming at me just...ach! And I thought I was patient! I am patient! He has so many amazing qualities as well...he's kind and intelligent and nice to everyone else and shows respect to strangers and knows intuitively if another person is upset...its not so much that 'no matter what I try it never changes'. He does learn and he is a good kid and people give great feedback all the time about how much they love him...but it helps to know that I'm not the only one who thinks 'sigh...I love you buddy but the thought of you today makes me exhausted.' Thankyou again for your insight and kind words

I really love your channel and I am super invested in a lot of ideas in this video, but I am not sure if I agree with you on the punishment/consequences stuff. In your example you stated cleaning up the mustard as a "natural consequence". No it isn't. The natural consequence would be "Kid played with mustard -> rug is a mess". Telling your child to clean it up can still be a powermove, and I think it really depends on the approach towards the child. With that in mind, I do think that cleaning the mess the child created would be the appropriate thing to ask, because: freedom of one is over where the other one's boundaries would start. And in that example the parents' boundaries would be violated (I guess). But my concern is that a lot of punishments are sugarcoated with the term consequences when they actually mean the same thing. Just my thoughts as a fellow parent and a Kindergarten Teacher. Also sorry if this looks weird or if I made any errors, English ist my second language. Nevertheless, thanks so much for your work! Especially the videos about trauma and CPTSD are a huge help for me!

Love this. I adore The Simpsons. I grew up with it and quote it constantly, but I definitely don't use it as a model for good parenting. Homer does have his few shining moments though and I loved your comments and analysis of this episode in particular. "Choices have consequences". This simple sentence, and what seems like is a no-brainer, was really helpful to be broken down. Thank you :)

I can't wait for this channel to take off! You're putting out such valuable information, thank you!

This is a really good episode. Makes me want to call my mum and apologies, because I never wanted to clean my room as a child. I don't have children, so it's interesting to see the room cleaning struggle from a parents point of view.

The way you describe this concept makes it sound so kind. For it to work, do you decide the behaviors and consequences beforehand, and tell the child their options? Or do you take the child's input and together you both agree on the behaviors and consequences?

Really interesting how we can find these really helpful tips and opportunities in things like pop culture! "To every action there's a small seed of truth inside it. " is something a friend of mine said a lot :) If I may offer a video request: How to deal with expected loss. For clarify as I am unsure of the correct wording:, how do you cope when you know someone is going to die soon (pulling the plug, putting down a pet,...).

you could also try the option of cleaning the room, but not telling them where their stuff is now they have a reason for they themselves to clean their own room rather than just letting you do it, and that's good for independence although i can't speak with experience, might be worth a shot

I've always loved this episode of The Simpsons.

Although I was a minor at the time, a always had to take care of my younger sister and had responsibilities because of her. She always drawn on the wall until one day I grabbed a sponge and made her clean everything. She had drawn so much inside and outside of the apartment that spent hours cleaning it. After that I told her that every time that she draw or paint on the walk she would have to clean it exactly like that time, and that never happened again.

I have to set a timer to make my kid clean up her toys or she thinks she has all the time in the world (and will actually try to use cleaning up her toys to put off bed time.) I won't throw away the toys but they WILL go on "vacation." She didn't believe me the first time, but then I went around the room with a trashbag picking up toys to go in my closet. She lost her ever loving mind! I also make her clean up spills if they happen because she would sit down with a drink.

This isn't speaking from personal experience, but one thing that I think is very important is to teach children that interacting with you in a reasonable, positive way is more likely to get positive results than not.

I keep sharing this with my husband lol. Love your channels

I remember when my nephew was younger, around 7 or 8 he went through this stage were he would throw tantrums, specially when he had to go to bed before his sister--his sister is 7 years older, so him having to be in bed by 8 and her being around 15 and being able to stay up until 10 or so just made sense to me. He thought it was unfair, even as I explained to him that when she was 7 or 8, she had to go to bed around 8-8:30 also, and so did I for that matter, when I was around that age. Anyhow, when he started to throw his tantrum at bed time I would tell him; "you have a choice here, you are not in trouble yet but you will be soon if you continue to act this way. Your choices are: you can calm down and I'll give you 30 more minutes of screen time on the tablet before going to bed, or you can continue to throw a tantrum and no screen time at all for the rest of the weekend you are here, and I'm telling your parents you didn't behave." He more often than not chose to take the extra 30mins and go to bed. The choices usually worked on him, even when he was as small as 4. I used to pick him up on Thursdays from VPK take him to McDonald's and let him play in the play place inside for about an hour while we ate. The first time he thew a mighty fine tantrum when it was time to leave, after that what I did was that when we got there, in the parking lot I would tell him "I'm taking you to eat and play, when its time to leave you'll say okay, and not cry or scream or we are not coming next week." I reminded him of this every Thursday in the parking lot of McDonald's (I figured he was 4 so he needed a reminder every time) and he never threw a tantrum again. I also told him not to screech and scream in there. I don't mind kids playing loudly, its adorable to hear them laughing and having fun, but its obnoxious when they start to scream, so he never screamed or screeched in there again. Even little kids like my nephew at 4 understand consequences, and understand choices. Now he's 13 so the issues are different than when he was a little one. His parents had a pretty hard time with him during the pandemic. Most of his grades were pretty much As and some Bs scattered here and there, and was headed to a gifted program for middle school when the pandemic started. Home school did not go well for him, and it screwed with his grades, he just couldn't do it no matter how much we all just begged him to do it. Unless someone sat with him the whole time he did school work he would do pretty much nothing but sit and stare at his screen. I'm so happy he's back in regular school, on no more home schooling.

_"Alright child, now choose your punishment!"_

Wow, I thought you were going to talk about his abusive ways, hah. This was so much better than expected. "If you say No. No. No. Yes. You're training them to drive you crazy." So relatable. Very rarely will I turn a No into a Yes. If I don't know and need time to think about it, I will tell them maybe. One will respect that and wait for the answer, the other will just drive me insane to choose Yes. Any answer is a negotiation for more... so exhausting. I feel you. Wouldn't it be nice if they could just listen to the answer once in a while? Lol. 🥂

My mother use the word consequence… My grandmother however said consequences are the result of action… So if I play ball in the house when I was told not to, the consequence if something gets broken. The consequence is also my grandmother having to work more to pay for whatever was broken, the consequence was her being upset with me for not listening and the thing being broken after if she had told me not to play ball in the house, the consequence was me not getting the things that she had promised because now she hast to work more to pay for whatever was broken. My punishment for not listening was going to my room or something else so I think we need to start teaching kids that consequences are the results of our actions, and punishment is for doing something negative.

Jonathan, I would be curious to see what you think of positive parenting: a kind of child discipline that does not punish or use time-outs, but uses empathy and reparation for the kid to do, like replace a toy that they broke.

There is a lot to unpack with Homer's parenting style, at least there are episodes where he gets it right. You should do another Simpsons with Marge's parenting style.

Thanks for sharing the video and for the subs.

Homer is hecka abusive and tries to strangle his son so often that it's a running gag.

Giving agency to a child through appropriate choice making and being clear about what will naturally occur if a thing is/isn't done are so key to helping a person develop the skills they need in life, especially the skill of forethought. As a parent, you have such latitude to give if/then reactions (like donating the toys if they aren't put away) but it is important to understand that this kind of bargain *is not* a "natural consequence as it does not flow from the action itself, like falling because of running on ice or Grandma being upset and maybe leaving because the kid is hitting her would be. In either case, what's also important is to *follow through* with the consequences. He's 1,000% correct that if you don't follow through the person will not learn the lesson you were hoping for.

Honestly this seems like torture and I highly question the sanity of anyone who would willingly subject themselves to something like that.

realy fun and insightfull

I'm barely now watching this video but your system of donating your kid's toys to a thrift store if they don't clean their rooms feels like emotional blackmail, especially if your kids have any emotional attachments to those toys you just donated. This "consequence" feels more like a punishment.

Getting rid of the toys can work real well in some instances but I still remember my mother doing that to me. I also have difficulty not resenting it. Granted I don’t know how clear it ever was when a toy should be put away or where. There is also a slight possibility that I am neurodivergent although I tend to attribute most of my possible symptoms to my tendency towards high levels of anxiety. Regardless I feel as though I didn’t have set play times to the point where I understood now the toys should be put away. Often I at least thought I’d be returning to the game initially and later when I wasn’t I had forgotten. I do remember decades later missing toys particularly stuffed animals that disappeared. I remember looking for them. Asking about them. I remember finding out that they were (permanently) gone.

I really wish I could find a therapist like you around here. I have had a couple of them. My first one was really good, but the other one was horrible.

I WISH my parents put effort into learning about effective child care. My dads M.O was to just ignore us, snap at us and when he was really angry he would terrorize us by screaming, chasing us around the house as he punched, slammed and broke our toys and belongings. My mom didn’t give much positive attention either. She mainly barked orders at us and when we rebelled she would explode into a fury, she also liked to terrorize and chase us. She would catch us, violently slapping us around or beating us with a belt until she felt better. It was about authority and control; and if we challenged it we were punished severely. They didn’t seem to understand the concept of thinking about their decisions in their own life, let alone be capable of teaching it to children. I ended up cutting off contact. I was the one who ended up teaching them about consequences. They made their choices around having and raising us. Losing their children when they grew up was an obvious consequence of their behavior.

Going to Bad without eating is a really Bad example cause its a terrible punishment. But good Video

I was hoping you would react to the simpsons whether on this channel or the one with Alan!

Consequences are great. In my class during middle school a lot of students struggled to get to school on time. So our teacher greated the rule, that if we come on time every day, we get to leave school 15 minutes early on Friday as to when we are late, we have to stay and clean up the class room on Friday. I'm not sure if it really worked, but leaving school early was great.

Maybe you've changed your mind since making this video, I don't know. But taking your children's belongings away permanently as a "consequence" of not doing something or for misbehaving, is cruel and very probably actually traumatizing. They'll never forget that, and not because it taught them a valuable lesson. They'll remember it for the rest of their lives because it left an indelible emotional scar. I'm a grown adult, and just thinking about it makes me want to cry. I *still* have many of my toys from my childhood, they are and have always been deeply meaningful to me. Had my parents done that to me, I know for a fact the sadness and resentment would never leave me. In fact, they did do similar but significantly less harsh things as punishment (taking something away for over a year, for example), and I still have negative memories about it to this day. I didn't learn natural consequences from these things, I only learned what would make my parents inflict suffering on me.

You're different from my mom. She was the enforcer when we were growing up, and I have two older siblings. For one, it was group punishment. If one of us did something wrong, all three of us got grounded. For two, her preferred style of punishment was public humiliation. She spanked my brother in front of his entire Scouts group once. For three, if she knew we were lying to her about anything, she would sit us down and ask us question after question after question after question until we either got tripped up, or got so nervous that we just broke. Thing is, you confess anything to my mother, and she will hold it over your head for years. No, literally, for years. She holds my brother accountable for having a hard labour with him. I'm not kidding: she said to him once when he was a teen, "I should have known you'd grow up to be a little bastard. I knew it when you were coming out of me." But in my eyes, the only unforgiveable thing she has EVER done was threaten to my father to divorce him. When he had cancer. He lived, okay, but he was lying on the couch dying at the time, and she said to him, "Jimmy's just getting too heavy to carry. The second you're over this, we're done." No, she didn't end up leaving him, but YOU DON'T SAY THAT to your dying husband. She threatens to divorce him probably once a month nowadays, though, so I've learned not to take it seriously. I was not functional when he had cancer, though. Like, all of my faculties were gone, to the extent that I don't remember that year very well. Suppressed most of it, I think.

A consequence that is a punishment is a punishment with a different name. A consequence is something that will always happen, such as: you threw all the eggs on the floor, so now you're hungry because that was all your food, and you have a big mess to clean up. A punishment for throwing the eggs on the floor is something like not being allowed to play video games, or a spanking. Donating your kids' toys is a punishment, not a consequence. The actual consequence to the child might be not being able to find the toy they want, stepping on and breaking a toy on the floor, a sibling taking one of their toys because it looked like they didn't care about it, their dog eating a favorite toy. Punishments are more effective at teaching when they fit the crime (perhaps putting the toys up in a box in the attic for a week), but they are still punishments, and it's not right to sugar-coat the name like that.

I remember this episode of the Simpsons

My mother had a saying when we were kids "actions equal consequences".

I'd love to see you react to bandit heeler, the dad from bluey

In the 5 min. When you said your kid kept adding more, I did that but after a while I saw a pattern to when mom would say NO. I get 1 and 2 but 3 is NO or if we didn't have money she would say a stern NO. And that's how I figured out how to get things without getting Mom mad.

To me consequence means for instance, if you don't look around before crossing the road, you'll get run over by a truck. Those I don't give them, I'd try to save them even if they fail to learn the lesson. But now I know what you mean by giving them consequences. Those are contracts as I would say or understand. I don't know about these though. Surely contracts are good for teaching things but I feel unconfortable "playing life" with kids. I feel like it'd replace experiencing life. Although probably it's only me. I prefer giving them choices that actually have physical consequences but safe ones. Meaning, crying and being disappointed, losing a toy in consequence is fine; breaking bones are not fine, those are "save them" category. But it's not working, maybe not enough.

do a break down to problem child one and two.

Like your Chanel, like the Simpsons - so perfect match for me this time. But Homer as an example for good parenting? He is more of a grenade. As long as you know how to treat him right, you can get away with almost everything. Maybe you can even make him your partner in crime. But when you pull the trigger, there is just a very small window to straighten things out, otherwise Homer would take it this far and kill you. Remember? He tends to almost strangle Bart over and over again, when he is raged up. Marge and other people have saved Bart's life more than once over the time.

My parents could never really ground me because I often lived in my head rent free. Power of Imagination! Also, I was an artist and they couldn't rationalize taking away my sketchbook and pencil.

Fun fact: acting cute to avoid being scolded or punished is something animals do too. My cat tries that when she has done something wrong and I am scolding her.

Its just to hard to stand my ground.. (in any relationship)

Isn't it fear-based to tell your kids that if they don't do a chore for example that you'll donate their toys? My father did the same thing with me but with my Nintendo 64 back in the days and I remember feeling somewhat detached, from him emotionally in a way ever since.

Taking toys to thrift stores for not cleaning. That's kinda cruel. How would you have reacted if they did not clean because, say, something awful happened at school and they were so upset that they did not clean right away?

I have taught my kids to enjoy life no matter what. Which is awesome! But they don't care so much about consequences. Win some lose some.

As a middle school teacher, that’s a lesson I’ve yet to learn… 🤦🏻‍♀️

My mom used to say "clean your room or I throw away this to trash". All she achieved is that I'm always anxious about loosing my belonging. All she coded is that nothing I have is mine and she can take it at any moment. Her "presents" cost me most, because I feel like I only borrowed them from her. Just think about it: Does Alicia tell you to move your car or she will sell it?

I worked in juvenile correctional for 3 years lol talk about manipulative kids who also had some very creative ways of insulting (or flat out attacking you) if you enforced rules. Kids started warning new kids that I was "a cool staff but do what she says, that's the one staff you don't piss off" 🤣

Please read a book called Mercury's Child

4:17 idk if they're going to "spend hours" on that... Why wouldn't they go the Bart route: "it's done", the carpet's clean, it just has a new spot on it that's now yellow. 🤪 8:26 well sure, don't go louder... but now i have to listen to the rest of the video at 500% volume to just be able to hear what you're saying. :-< (Or, in fact, is this why the WHOLE VIDEO was so quiet? Did you auto-balance the audio level and the editing software picked up that bit as the baseline, making everything else mumbly?)

I was a pain in the ass to parent. My mother deserves to be canonized. I was one of six and I got in as much trouble as the rest combined. But I had this wild streak of common sense so I didn't do anything that would hurt me. Just a bunch of stuff I wasn't supposed to do. As my Mom finally learned, the punishment had to be just enough that it beat out the other side. Not so much that it was horrible. And if I kept doing it and sucking up the consequences, she would increase them until I stopped - finally figuring out that I was just doing a cost-benefit analysis. And I had to understand why it wasn't allowed. If she said "if you get into the food saved for lunches, I will run out of stuff for lunches and we will all need to take an hour out of our week to get more. That is why there are items like apples and bananas for snacking. I get enough to last through the week. But unless you want apples and bananas for lunch, I'm going to need you to leave the lunch food alone." Yeah, I was feeding the lunch meat to the cat. She loved it. Mom didn't. My kid is just like me. But I had a perspective my Mom didn't, I understood the reasoning long before my Mom figured it out. I would explain why something was not allowed. If he understood, he wouldn't do it. But he's as autistic as I am. So when he melted down, I'd back off. I couldn't let it be personal. My ex, on the other hand, would lose his temper and would levy ever-increasing punishments to get him to stop (and he couldn't, he was melted down) and then leave me to enforce them. When I refused, he would say I was undermining him. But you can't take a 7-year-olds electronics away (including his night light to help his fear of the dark) for a month because he lost it. And you can't just say "here are these wild consequences" and dump it in your spouse's lap. Parents need to be on the same team. And that means sitting down and working out consequences before being put on the spot. It's the reason my adult son still comes to me with problems and won't do the same to his Dad. I'm fair if it kills me. The same can't be said about my ex.

Yeah so... behavior therapist here. Forcing kids to choose between bad 'consequences' is not OK. For example, when we would teach kids with limited eating to eat more we never ever forced them to choose between 3 foods they hated. We let them choose the foods they wanted and added one they didn't to try. It makes kids very anxious and is a worse punishment to force them to choose between 3 things they hate. Punishment is the same. Contracts are ok as long as the kids are not being unfairly punished. And yes taking things they like away is a negative punishment. A negative reward would be removing something they hate like a chore as a reward. That said, if someone took my toys and donated them I would be a anxious wreck and honestly would never forgive my parents for it. I loved my toys with a passion, and if they can be taken away forever and given to someone else without my consent then they were never mine now were they? I can't imagine living in a home where the message is clear 'nothing here is yours and I can take anything you love at any time for any reason I see fit'. My grandfather threw my father's comics he collected into a pit while my father was away at college for a semester. It scarred my father so bad even though he was an adult. 45 years later and he still thinks about it. He never ever took our things permanently because of that. It is ok to take things for a while as punishment if they are being misused. It is not OK to steal what you claim belongs to the child and give it to someone else. And that does not happen anywhere else in life. You file for bankruptcy? You can work your way back up over time and get those things back. Fired? You get a new job. The only time you lose everything is of you go to jail for a horrific crime and that is not the standard children should be put to for not cleaning their room. Even if you stop paying taxes and they take your stuff, an adult can eventually get money to replace it. Children have no way to do that is you scenario. Taking it away and locking it up so they have to work to get it back is. I just really disagree with taking and donating toys on an emotional, mental, and moral level. It does not teach any good lesson other than if you don't do what I say I will take your stuff and you will never see it again. The only way this could sort of work is if things are taken if a child hurts another child with that specific thing and it is gone forever. But for not cleaning a room? No. That will get you distrustful anxiety ridden children who don't feel like they can make any mistake without losing things.

Bacon up that sausage, boy!

My mom would pull the “clean your room or I’m donating your toys” thing all. the. time. If I didn’t listen she would literally start filling up a box so I knew she was serious. 😂

They get choices but in some ways they have to choose between a good consequence and a bad one. Don't feel like much of a choice... Wouldn't be better to try to understand why he.she does that? Asking the kid about his.her feeling? But hey, I'm not a parent so... What the heck do I know about? 😅

My nephew is a very cute kid, but he always got his way by throwing a fit. Literally everytime something was inconvenient to him, he would start crying, screaming and get upset. And he would mostly get his way when he did that and he obviously did it because it worked. So, someday when I was over, the family sat on the table and he threw a fit and started crying and screaming again over a minor inconvenience of not getting exactly his way. And so I threw myself on the floor, started screaming and acting like I was a little kid, crying like a baby. My nephew would even come and try to pick me up and I would start kicking and screaming like he did and yell he should go away. His parents and siblings were pretty amused and so he was, seemingly. But... BUT! ...he never did it again after that. Not sure why exactly, why it worked. But he didn't. Of course, he still tries to cross boundaries and argues with his siblings, or gets disrespectful sometimes but he never acted the same way again after I threw my fit. He overall is a good boy and very smart and curious about the world around him. I am sure he is gonna turn out to be amazing. :)

😅Gotta Love Maggie

Hi Jonathan. So I understand that this is an old video and you may never see my comment but I was wondering how to tackle the smaller kids... my daughter is 2 and she throws the biggest tantrums for a simple enough. I'll give an example: my daughter loves rose flavored milk so I have a bottle of rose essence that I mix into the milk. Lately she likes to help and so when I said that's enough she laid down threw her arms and legs and started shout crying that she didn't want mama any longer. Not knowing what to do I just left her there and got her father who then calmed her down... help!

Jonathan- I have 3 girls whose room was ALWAYS a mess. I would tell them to clean up and they wouldn't and I would end up spend in hours of my time directing them in cleaning this room. Once, as I sifted through items I had spent time selecting and money buying that obviously meant nothing to them (scattered on the floor like garbage), I had an eureka! moment- I realized that they didn't really CARE about this stuff. They just like the endorphin rush of receiving. I decided to take responsibility for MY actions- the buying. I threw EVERYTHING still sitting on the floor after hours of cleaning away. Gone. And I told them I would be buying WAY less stuff. And if *I* overwhelm them with things to the point they have difficulty handling it, I will help them purge whatever is too much. So I buy less, and they show me I haven't overwhelmed them wit stuff by keeping their things organized or we start purging to make things manageable.

I don't think Bart is simply "obnoxious or difficult". I think he has behavioural problems, some from his diagnosed ADHD and from the really toxic environment he grew up in. It can be harmful to label kids like that. I notice that his parents never sit down to do his homework with him or teach him any skills to cope with his ADHD ... just yell at him when he messes up. I honestly see Bart as just a person acting out because of very incompetent parents ... one of whom deals with violent rages, addiction, and even breaking the law. Bart has stated multiple times that he acts out as a cry for help. He's been traumatized repeatedly from infancy from physical abuse. Homer Simpson himself is constantly skipping work, not helping with the household, and generally being self-absorbed. So Bart doesn't have a role model. I think he needs more than just discipline (though he does need it) he needs engaged parents who model the same behaviour they expect from him.

First 20 seconds.. i must have not seen this episode bc Homer was NEVER a good parent when i watched!

You're not your kids friend is my only parenting tip

I strongly disagree that Homer's "sticking to his guns" for that long in the matter of watching the Itchy and Scratchy movie was the right thing to do. It's one thing to say that a parent should stick to their guns, which I do agree with for the most part. But ever heard of "picking your battles"? For one thing, it was clear that Homer being that much of a hard-ass about the movie was just an attempt to make up for all of the times leading up to that when he had not stuck to his guns. Therefore it was more about the parent's ego than what was right for the child. For another thing, forbidding Bart from seeing the movie was at bottom no different from Jonathan's punishment that he erroneously labels as a "consequence" of telling your child that you will give away their toys if they don't keep their room. As other commenters point out, losing your toys is not a natural consequence of letting your room get dirty. Having a dirty room is. Not being able to see the movie is not a natural consequence of any of the things Bart did. Forbidding your child to engage in things that bring them pleasure in order to stop them from doing what you don't want them to do is simply flexing your power over them. That teaches them that might makes right, not that actions have consequences. So that makes two ways in which Homer was ultimately acting from a place of ego and power, and not acting from a rare moment of wisdom as Jonathan thinks he was. Those moments seem to be reserved primarily for Lisa, at least in the earlier episodes. And yet Jonathan seems to agree with the message of the episode that this very approach to parenting will lead your child to become Chief Justice. The message that ultimately teaching your child that might makes right will lead them to be successful down the line is a very common but very toxic message to be spreading. I'm not saying that one can never learn important lessons about parenting from cartoons, but this ain't it. And frankly, I'm disappointed in this video.

Like many other commenters, I am horribly disappointed with your suggestion of permanently taking children's property and comfort objects away for not cleaning their rooms. You can call it whatever you want, but it *is* punishment and a display of power. You're showing them they own nothing and if they receive something it's only theirs conditionally. Wouldn't it make more sense to: a) show them the benefit to respecting their property and/or the (natural!) negative consequences of not doing that, say when a toy gets lost or broken because it was on the floor? Or say the kid wants you to play with them (in their room), you could tell them that you don't feel comfortable in their room because of the mess and tell them you'll gladly do that if they clean up. If they seem overwhelmed, you could tell them that you can help them instead of playing and you still get to spend time together. b) talk to them and explain why having a clean room is good for them and also how it makes you feel when they don't respect the things you've given them? If you put your children's drawings on the fridge, you could ask them to imagine how it would feel if you left them on the floor instead (but not actually do it of course). c) pull a Marie Kondo and talk to them about whether they're overwhelmed with the amount of stuff and maybe convince them to choose which stuff they want to give away to children who would like the toys and benefit from them I've had some abusive and traumatic experiences in my childhood and teenage years (multiple instances of physical violence included). But one of the experiences that I find on par with being hit when it comes to trauma was the following situation: My mother's car had a little shelf instead of a glove compartment. I always got restless and uncomfortable in the car seat, even as a teen when I rode in the front seat, and I always felt more comfortable having my legs brought up close to my torso, so I'd prop my feet on the shelf every now and then. Inevitably, I broke it one day. The "consequence"? My father ruled that since I broke something that would cost money to repair, I'd have to give up my language course for my mother to take instead. Now that I think about it, a language class is far more expensive than replacing or repairing this little shelf, but that wasn't what hurt the most. There were three layers of unfairness to this. Firstly, it was something that I wanted to do to better myself, to develop a skill for the future - I wanted to be a teacher or an interpreter and it was tied to my chosen future identity. Secondly, it wasn't a course they were paying for - it was comped as an award for winning a regional competition, which I took great pride in and I'd worked so hard for. And thirdly, they did "follow through" if you want to call it that because I wasn't allowed to go and enroll in the class. But my mother never actually went. So even if we view this "compensation" as fair (which I don't), it felt as if it didn't matter to her at all, when to me it was everything. I don't think this is too dissimilar to taking the toys away permanently. You're not repairing a relationship with someone you've wronged. You're implying someone is more worthy of owning the child's property than they are. You're taking away something that might just be an object to you, but has emotional, sentimental value to the child. It's clearly not just clutter if they've noticed and ask where it went. And you might not even be taking away something you've given them - some of the toys probably came from other relatives, maybe that also has some significance. And you even admitted - in a tone that I read as unpleasantly smug, but that's probably me projecting - that this only works "more often than not". It's not foolproof. Sure, nothing is. But maybe sometimes it doesn't work because it's a fear-based and resentment-building strategy? TL;DR I am horribly disappointed. Don't take your children's property from them over something as innocuous as a messy room and something oftentimes as overwhelming to many children as cleaning all of it up.

How could you get rid of their toys like that?! I never forgave my aunt for getting rid of my very 1st stuffed animal (in 2009) that was a security blanket for me, given to me by my Mom on my 8th birthday! I'm sorry, but getting rid of something so important to a child is just absolutely heartless. Your children aren't gonna trust or forgive you if you do! Thin ice, man.. Thin ice. Absolutely appalled. 😠 And no, I didn't do anything wrong. She got rid of Patches just because she looked "too old."

But it is considered child abuse to choke your child half to death just because of either he is making a comment or being a snide smart-aleck; Just like Homer does to Bart.

I think you are being a bit rubbery with definitions in this video when you attempt to claim that giving the child consequences for a certain behavior is not the same thing as punishing them. 'Consequences' and punishment' aren't mutually exclusive, punishments are imposed in consequence to a particular unsanctioned behavior. Knowing that you will be punished for a certain behavior in advance doesn't change the fact that it is a punishment, our entire criminal justice system is based around set punishments for transgressions of defined laws. It's also worth noting that merely knowing that there are consequences to a certain action does not make the consequences imposed fair and reasonable. If a mugger threatens to beat me up unless I give him my wallet, I don't think you would say it's fair for said mugger to beat me up if I refuse because he warned me in advance what the consequences would be if I didn't. The fact is that when you throw out someone's property for a breach of standards that was unilaterally set by you, in order to artifically create consequences to cause discomfort, and the other person has no recourse, then that's punishment imposed by authority. It may be justified punishment, society needs to punish children and adults to ensure socially acceptable behavior, but let's not beat around the bush and pretend an authority figure isn't imposing on someone beneath them.

I don't care if it's to"teach me a lesson". If my parents took my toys and sold them without my permission,I would hold that against them for the rest of my life(actually... I DID!And it wasn't even to punish me,it was only because"I was too old for that kind of toys"!!)and the only lesson I would learn is that they don't respect me,my feelings or my belongings. *Horrible* lesson,IMO!Because once"the lesson is learned"the toys are still gone and I will never get the chance to have them back even if I behave well for the rest of my life and that's not fair! It's not fair to lose something that is precious for you *forever* just because you misbehaved *once!* It's the same concept of Christian Hell...I died at 85 years old,I misbehaved for..say..63 years of my life and I get to spend *ETERNITY* suffering?!?!That's not a fair trade,dude!!X-O Never do that to your kids,please!😡

go to sleep or ill sell all ur toys