In this episode of the Empower Students Now podcast, host Amanda Werner shares a powerful reframe for how teachers and parents can approach misbehavior — one that prioritizes connection over compliance and treats behavior problems as signals, not crimes.
Inspired by a real group text conversation with fellow moms about a child sneaking screen time and lying about it, Amanda walks through exactly what she said — and why her approach looks so different from the way most of us were raised. As a self-described rebel kid who was grounded constantly growing up and a teacher who spent 16 years working with “difficult” students, Amanda offers a perspective rooted in both personal experience and years of classroom practice.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Amanda’s reframe: why misbehavior is a signal to have a real conversation, not a trigger for a consequence
- Why “consequences” is often just a rebranding of “punishments” — and why both can cause disconnection
- How to talk to a child who has broken your trust: sharing the real-world impact of dishonesty without shaming
- Why asking for the child’s perspective — “Why did you feel you needed to lie?” — changes everything
- The power of letting kids help determine their own consequences collaboratively
- Why the word “consequence” itself can be a shutdown trigger for some kids
- How to set boundaries and enforce rules while still leading with empathy and connection
- Amanda’s personal story of being a kid who stole, snuck out, and was punished constantly — and what she wishes adults had done differently
- Insights from the book “Good Inside” by Dr. Becky Kennedy: the premise that kids are good inside no matter what they do
- How this reframe applies in classrooms: cheating, phone sneaking, defiance, and rule-breaking
This approach isn’t about being permissive or letting kids walk all over you. It’s about shifting from “how do I punish this?” to “what problem are we solving together?” — and building the kind of trust that actually changes behavior long-term.
If you found this episode helpful, share it with a teacher, parent, or anyone navigating tough moments with kids.
Transcript
Amanda: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. I am Amanda Werner, your host, and I have a website, Amanda, right now.com, and that’s W-R-I-T-E. I don’t talk about my website that often, but I do think it’s a very useful hub of resources and information. I actually recently had a new teacher who’s in a teacher training program.
Email me, uh, about a YouTube video that I created years ago, and I have a YouTube channel too. But, uh, you know, I, I, all the episodes come out on my YouTube channel, but just an audio form. Uh, but this teacher was asking about the resources I mentioned in the video. And I get emails like this a lot because I guess I didn’t really do a great [00:01:00] job actually including the resources in the descriptions of the video.
But you can really, like most of the resources that I discuss in my YouTube videos are. On my website. So you could just use the search bar and search various topics and find all sorts of materials. Um, I have like lists of vocabulary words that are important for writing teachers and reading teachers.
Yeah, so there’s like this little magnifying glass right next to the shop button, and if you click that. You could search whatever you want. Um, like if I search mini lessons for the end of the school year. I’m just doing that right now. You could probably hear me typing. Uh, let’s see what happens. So easy to plan end of year writing projects.
Students will love your first mini lesson of the school year, how workshop is like playing Fortnite, battle Royale. [00:02:00] Um, mentor texts for middle school. So there’s not too much, but uh, 31 mini lessons for the first month of school. Uh, so these are all like keywords with mini lesson. Uh, in it. But yeah, it looks like I do have a good blog post about the end of the school year.
Uh, so, but you could search any topic you want and see what, see what pops up. Because my website has existed for quite a while now. I’ve been around for. I don’t know, a decade. Uh, and, and I’ve had the same website for, for most of that time, maybe seven, eight years. So there’s a lot there. So go ahead and check out my website and search different topics.
See what you can find. There’s a lot of free stuff on there, um, as well as paid, paid products. But now I wanna talk about the topic of this episode, which is, was [00:03:00] actually, uh. A topic that I was inspired to talk about, and this is a very off the cuff, conversational type of, well, one sided conversation. Um, and.
It’s, it, it’s, it was inspired by a friend of mine who was having, uh, if you hear some screaming in the background, that’s my kid. Sorry. They’re home with me. We’re homeschooling. So, uh, it’s Friday. They’re on, I think Roblox right now with their friend Anyways. So if you hear screaming in the background, that’s what’s going on.
Um, but this friend of mine, uh. We’re in a group text, a group of friends, uh, and mine, they’re, they’re all friends. We’re all friends. That did not make sense what I just said. So anyways, a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, she [00:04:00] texted saying, oh no, my kid has been sneaking screen time in the middle of the night and in the early mornings.
And they lied to my face about it multiple times. I am at my wit’s end. That’s not what they said, but that’s how they felt. And I’m just thinking through what the consequences should be of this. And it just really, I don’t know, like and, and they were asking for sort of input, which is so awesome to have a group of moms that’s like.
I mean, how wonderful, you know, to, to be able to share issues you’re having in your own family openly. And so, and, and not feel like you’re gonna be judged. Um, what a gift. Um, that’s not, that’s a rare thing. [00:05:00] And just to be brave as a mom and share these kinds of things, uh, with your mom, friends, um, that’s it.
It just, it takes a lot of courage to say what’s really going on. Um, but I, and, and, and this friend of mine was like, he broke my trust, you know? And that is so true. And my response, and, and I, the reason I want to talk about this topic is because I think a lot of teachers and parents, administrators, just anyone who works with kids, um, you know, and, and.
You’re probably, if you’re older, if you’re like an eighties kid like me. You grew up with punishments. I mean, they were called punishments and being grounded and, and things like that when we were growing up, but now it punishments has been, has kind of turned into this [00:06:00] word consequences, you know? And like it means the same thing.
It it’s the, it means the same thing. And so I had a lot to say about this because I really do think that there’s a different approach when. A kid is breaking trust, lying or sneaking, or just doing things that you, that are, that aren’t right, you know, um, or that are like that, that maybe we automatically assume needs a consequence, whatever that is, whatever that behavior is, it could be a lot of different things.
And I, I just as a kid that got in trouble so much, um, I mean, I really did get in trouble a lot. Uh, I was grounded a lot. I was punished a lot and for good reason. I mean, I was just, I mean, I was stealing, I was [00:07:00] drinking, I was doing drugs. I was sneaking out. I was a rebel. And maybe that’s like shocking to you listener to hear all of this from me.
Um, but it’s the truth and I was punished a lot and I think that a lot of times it’s like adults, they don’t know what else to do. But this episode I wanna talk about a different approach that I have learned actually works. Welcome to the Empower Students Now podcast. A podcast about equity, neurodiversity, mindfulness, and student engagement.
There’s a lot that needs to change in our education system. The good news is teachers have the power to make these changes. Now,
so [00:08:00] here’s what I said to my friend. I said, um. Well first I, I asked my friend for permission. I said, would you be interested in hearing my reframe for consequences? And they were very interested, which is so wonderful. ’cause not all parents are interested in my, my opinions, you know? Um, because I have a different take and it’s not very common, uh, for people to, to have the take that I have.
Um. I said, you should let him know that the impact that this behavior has had on you and that it’ll probably have an impact for years to come. That’s the real consequence. You’re constantly gonna wonder if what he says is true, and he needs to know that when you’re [00:09:00] dish dishonest with someone. It causes real damage to the relationship that won’t be repaired until a long a length of time has gone by, that they have proven they’re trustworthy again.
And so just reframing this misbehavior. Um, instead of it being like, you’re bad, you’ve been dishonest with me. Not that my friend said that at all, like, uh, you know, but like getting really upset with the kid, reframing it as, wow, this is a signal that we need to have a conversation about a problem. And to be open to what the kid’s perspective of the situation is.
Like, share how it’s impacted you. Share how you are feeling about what they did and how they behaved, but also be curious about their point of view. [00:10:00] Why do they feel they need to do this? Why do they feel they needed to be dishonest? Like actually ask, um, for their perspective. And this is like this opportunity to talk about a real problem to be open.
To be kind, to show empathy. And yes, you could use the word consequence, but for my kid, that word is a, a big trigger, a shut down word. It’s a word that can shut my kid down and cause disconnection between me and my kid. So. That’s my reframe. My reframe is when a kid is quote unquote misbehaving or doing the quote unquote wrong thing, what if it’s just a signal to have a real conversation with the kid about what’s going on for them?
And of course, not being, you know, a rug that they’re just gonna like walk all over. [00:11:00] Um, and if your kid is responsive, like ask like, what do you think? The consequences of this should be, you know, and maybe the consequences of losing your trust are big enough, like, and impactful enough, they probably are gonna impact the kid and make the kid feel pretty, pretty sad and, and upset, but maybe not, you know, maybe not, I don’t know your kid, I don’t know your students.
Um. Another one of my friends suggested, and I think this is a great suggestion too, maybe you need to shut the internet off at certain times. Maybe your kid needs more, uh, boundaries. Maybe you gotta lock up the device, um, for a while. But if you do, uh, use those types of consequences, um, then. Saying it in a, in a at a time [00:12:00] when you’re not angry, uh, saying it in a calm way, explaining why, you know, explaining that, you know, as a parent or as a teacher, it’s my job to, to, to help you and to keep you safe, and to keep you healthy.
I always would say that to my students. My number one job is safety. And your, you know, happiness and your ability to learn, like making sure that this is a space where you have all of those things. Um, and so because that’s, that’s the environment I’m trying to create in this classroom and bringing this back to teachers now.
Um. You know, I’m gonna have, like, there’s certain rules that need to be in place. Uh, there’s certain, um, red lines that’s a word that a lot of people are using lately instead of boundaries. Um. That just can’t be crossed. And if you cross them, you know, our, our [00:13:00] school, their school systems, you know, that, that are in place to help you.
Um, not to make you feel like you’re bad because you’re not bad. You’re a great kid. I recently read a book called Good Inside, and the whole premise is helping kids realize that no matter what they do, no matter what they say, no matter how they act out, they’re still good inside. And telling them that you’re a great kid, you’re a great kid, you’re a good kid, and I love you and I wanna trust you, and we’ll build this back up together, you know?
Um, and this goes for like kids that are cheating, kids that seem like they’re sneaking their phone in class, like all of it. I feel like this reframe can apply to. All of these situations. Hope you felt, found this, uh, this episode helpful. I know that reframing punishments and consequences in this way, that [00:14:00] it’s, it’s about like, okay, there’s a problem and let’s solve it together in more of a collaborative way.
It’s definitely helped me a lot because the goal is to establish connection with kids, not break. Connection and disconnect. And I think punishments and consequences cause more disconnection. Um, so if you found this episode helpful, feel free to share it with someone you know and use my website. Go look and see what’s what’s available.
Email me if you notice something’s not available and you want it to be, let me know. I’m always willing to. And wanting to hear from you. Um, so yeah, uh, email me and let me know what you’re, what you’re thinking. I know a lot of, you’re wrapping up your school year. I’m super happy for you and excited for you to have time and space this summer.
Yes. All right. Until next time, I will talk to you later. [00:15:00] Bye.
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