Of Logical Consequences

I try to parent with logical consequences being the result of the choices that our kids make. However this meets with mixed success. My middle guy doesn't seem to "get" that the results are a direct result of his choice. (i.e. he will not correlate that he gets sick because he gets chilled from not dressing appropriately. I can infer this from his behavior based on the fact that it happened over and over again till I finally decided it wasn't worth ME putting up with him getting sick and mandated dressing appropriately!) You can even have had discussion afte discussion about the correlation to help the kid see the connection. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

With my eldest I have the same issue. As an example, last week his boss called and said due to budget cuts he could no longer afford to pay Chet to work there. If he wanted to continue as a volunteer, he was welcome to do this as the issues were budget only and not (thankfully ) related to job performance. I explained this to Chet and told him to contact the elderly woman he carpools with and explain the changes. I told him she would likely hear that he had lost his job and not think to pick him up unless he heard from her. He didn't call.

Yesterday he got ready for work and stood in our front hall for 40 minutes waiting for a ride that did not come. He looked so forlorn it killed me. I asked if he had contacted his car pool lady and he said no. I told him we would go over again what he was supposed to say on the phone when I got home from work. I then left for work. I came home and we went over what to say to her. We role played it. Chet is um, weak in phone skills. Did you sort of figure that out from the tone of the post? LOL Ok so then he gets her number calls the elderly lady and says:

" Hi Ms. X, this is Chet WHY DIDN'T YOU PICK ME UP?" Sigh. Trust me, no where in the role playing and conversation was this one of the options we went over! So there I am wondering if I should grab the phone so the poor lady doesn't have a coronary or think Chet is mad at her. He wasn't, he just gets loud when he is feeling intense about something. She did say something to the effect that she heard he lost his job and that is why she didn't pick him up. She didn't know about the volunteering (which thankfully Chet did a better job explaining) and said she would confirm that with the boss.

We talked more after the conversation and he could see that what he said didn't come close to matching his practice runs, but he had a harder time seeing that his choice of verbal expression could alarm someone. Hmmmm, definately our telephone skills are a work in progress!