Logical Consequences

Logical consequences and removing privileges are other effective ways to address problem behavior:

LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES are given or imposed by adults for a short time in response to a child’s behavior. Logical consequences are directly related to the child’s behavior or the immediate situation. REMOVAL OF PRIVILEGES involves taking something away for a brief period of time as the consequence for a behavior. Privileges to consider removing are those that are motivating and meaningful to the child and occur often enough and close in time to the behavior you are addressing. The child should be able to link their behavior to losing the privilege. Remove privileges for only a short time – and no longer than the remainder of the day. Removing privileges is useful when a timeout or logical consequences may be difficult or when a child is refusing to complete a timeout.

When using these strategies, remember these steps:

Give a clear direction or warning.
Give the child a brief period to comply (about 5 seconds).
Give an explanation and follow through.

REMEMBER Logical consequences are given or imposed by adults. They are usually:

for a short time in response to a child’s behavior.
directly related to the child’s behavior or the immediate situation.

Consider the following example:

Tori continues to throw pretend food in the pretend kitchen area. Ms. Paisley responds by telling Tori not to throw the food. She waits 5 seconds for Tori to comply. When she doesn’t, Ms. Paisley leads Tori away from the kitchen to explain.

“Throwing food can hurt my other friends. Let’s take a break from the kitchen. Why don’t you go get crayons and a paper and let’s draw a picture to hang in the kitchen instead?”

Ms. Paisley leads Tori away to the art table. Tori followed and sat at the table to color.