I’m a parenting expert – I let kids freeze if they go out but refuse to wear a coat because it’ll actually help them

ONE PARENTING expert has recommended giving your kids the tough love treatment. 

Specifically, she suggested letting kids “freeze” if they go outside and refuse to wear a coat because it’ll actually be beneficial for them. 

In the age of internet shaming and granola moms, it seems like anything you do as a parent is going to be ridiculed or judged by those who think they can parent better. 

That’s why advice like letting your kids go outside without a coat may sound wild, but psychologist and detachment parenting expert Heidi Smith Luedtke said it doesn’t make you a bad parent.

In fact, she told Verywell Family that not forcing a whining child to wear a jacket will teach them a useful lesson.

“Parents may feel they have to punish kids for mistakes or misbehavior rather than letting real-life take its course,” she noted.

“If your child refuses to put on his coat, let him get cold. 

“If he fails to clean his room, let his toys get lost.”

She continued: “It’s tempting to engineer other consequences, like taking away video games or TV time, because we don’t always trust that natural consequences will work. 

“But over time they do have a way of shaping behavior.”

Using natural consequences – which takes the parents’ involvement away from punishing their kids and allows society or nature to react – seems to be a growing trend in parenting. 

For instance, a mom of young ones previously encouraged other parents to let their kids cry and feel all of their emotions in public because she believes it’ll teach them how to manage their emotions as they get older.

Another mother told Kidspot that she refuses to punish her kids and instead uses natural consequences as a way to teach them life lessons.

She also doesn’t force her kids to do homework or share with their siblings, although she admitted she’s aware her parenting technique is “controversial.”

Perhaps, something between natural consequences and downright punishment is a parenting method known as related consequences. 

This requires punishing your kid, but making the punishment related to the thing he or she did wrong. 

For example, one mom said when her little boys completely smashed and smeared her makeup all over the walls, she made them help clean it up rather than simply just taking TV time away.