Many current methods of behavior management, by relying on externally imposed motivations, run roughshod over this delicate drive. The doctrine of so-called natural consequences is one example. This disciplining method is meant to impress upon the child that specific misbehaviors will incur specific sanctions selected by the parent, according to logic that makes sense in the mind of the parent but rarely in the child’s. What the parent sees as natural is experienced by the child as arbitrary. If consequences are truly natural, why do they have to be imposed on the child?
