Scaring kids into behaving

One Mom wrote that her 4-year-old daughter did not want to leave Chuck E. Cheese’s when it was time to go. She solved the problem by telling her daughter “That’s fine. The hobos will come and take you away.” Her daughter immediately got her shoes on!

While scaring our kids may work in the short term, in the long term the consequences aren’t so desirable. What are they learning? We are teaching them that what we say may or may not be true. We are also showing that they can’t always count on us to protect them. Are these really the messages we want our kids to be hearing?

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