“I recently read a quote from a Finnish education minister: “There’s no word for accountability in Finnish… Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.” – Teacher Tom
What does it mean, to hold our children accountable for their behaviour? My definition would be that children assume responsibility for their actions, including making amends and avoiding a repeat, whether the authority figure is present or not. So, really, it isn’t about “holding our children accountable.” What we want is for our children to step into responsibility, to hold THEMSELVES accountable. Once someone takes responsibility, we don’t have to “hold them accountable.”
Essentially, we’re talking about raising moral children who want to do the right thing. Most people assume that punishment is what helps humans decide to do the right thing, so if we aren’t punishing our children, they’ll grow up doing the wrong thing. That’s a bleak view of human nature. And it turns out to be dead wrong.
There’s now a wealth of research demonstrating that kids who are punished are LESS likely to make positive moral choices. That’s because: Punishment focuses a child on the “consequences” he is suffering, rather than on the consequences of his behaviour to someone else.
Punishment makes a child feel like he’s a bad person, which is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, so he’s more likely to repeat the bad behaviour.
The most salient lesson of punishment is to avoid it in the future by sneaking and lying to escape detection, so punishment fosters dishonesty.
Because kids invariably consider punishment unfair, it teaches kids that might makes right and abuse of power is ok — which makes kids less likely to make moral choices.
Punishment–yes, even timeouts–erode our relationship with our child, so that he isn’t as invested in pleasing us. And the more disconnected he feels from us, the worse his behaviour. Punishment increases defiance.
Because punishment doesn’t help a child with the emotions that drove her to act out to begin with, those emotions just get stuffed down, only to pop up again later and cause a repeat of the misbehaviour.
Punishment makes a child feel wronged, and creates a “chip on the shoulder” so she’s likely to resent making amends.
Punishment makes kids look out only for themselves and blame others, rather than caring about how their behaviour affects others.
Punishment creates an external locus of control — the authority figure. The child actually comes to see the parent as responsible for making her behave, rather than taking responsibility for her behaviour as her own choice.
One study showed that Year 8 students whose parents raised them using punishment, including consequences and timeouts, were less morally developed than their peers. “Having learned to do exactly what they’re told in order to avoid losing their parents’ love, they tended to just apply rules in a rigid, one-size-fits-all fashion,” says Alfie Kohn.
Not surprisingly, these studies also show that children who are punished (yes, including with time outs and consequences) exhibit MORE bad behaviour, not less. Not because kids who behave badly are punished more often, but because kids who are punished behave badly more often.
So if punishment teaches our child all the wrong lessons, what DOES help raise children who want to do the right thing? Loving guidance. Which includes limits, set with empathy. Connection. Modeling. And a whole lot of love – from everyone involved in their lives.