Try Not To Worry About It - Delaying The Consequence - Community Care Corner

In our monthly newsletters, we have been informing you about the Love and Logic behavior management strategies we teach our staff to use when working with campers. Love and Logic uses two main principles:

1. Adults set limits without anger, lectures, threats, or repeated warnings.
2. When children cause problems, adults hand these problems back in loving ways. We know that children learn best (and behave best) when treated with love and care.

Sometimes we have to deal with difficult behaviors. And, sometimes, children just make mistakes and we have to figure out what consequences make sense given the situation. Our staff are never alone in making decisions about how to handle these situations. They rely on other staff, such as their Division Leaders and the Community Care Team, to help them. We believe that consequences do not need to be immediate and that delaying the consequences gives staff time to figure out what is best to do in each situation. Immediate consequences are often not helpful for anyone because:

• Most of us have great difficulty thinking of an immediate consequence in the heat of the moment.
• We "own" the problem rather than handing it back to the camper. In other words, we are forced to do more thinking than the camper.
• We are forced to react while we are still upset.
• We don't have time to anticipate how the camper will react to our response.
• We don't have time to put together a reasonable plan and a support team to help us carry it out.
• We often end up making threats we can't back up.
• We generally fail to deliver a strong dose of empathy before providing the consequence.

And, as we all know, our own emotions can get in the way of dealing effectively with a situation, and removing ourselves from making a decision or not acting on the situation immediately may be best for everyone. So, how does delaying the consequence work? When a camper creates a situation that may have negative consequences, the first thing we do is lock in the love. We respond with an empathetic response that lets them know that we see the problem they’ve created and that we care about them. (That was the very first technique we gave you in our October newsletter). We feel for the camper and know that this isn’t a situation they want to be in. For example, the staff member may say something like "Oh no. This is so sad. I'm going to have to do something about this. But not now…later. Try not to worry about it,” or “That’s a tough one, I’m not sure what I need to do. but I’ll see what I can find out. Try not to worry. We’ll figure it out soon.” Or, the staff member may say something like, “That’s really sad. I’m really upset about what just happened and I think I need some time to cool down before I can talk more with you about what we should do next. Give me time and I’ll get back to you on this. Try not to worry about it.” These responses give the counselor time to seek help from others and to find out what the best response should be. Telling the camper “try not to worry about it,” sends the message that this might be something they should think about. Sometimes, that’s all the consequence that’s needed. The staff member will get back to the camper later and they will talk together to process the situation and deal with any other consequences that may be needed. For more information about Love and Logic, please visit loveandlogic.com. You will find free advice and articles on Love and Logic's site.