FAFO Parenting Teaches Kids Natural Consequences

My son has always been warm-blooded. Since he was a toddler, he would strip down to his diaper or underwear as soon as we got home and walk around barefoot on our hardwood floors… in January. Even now, as a tween, in the middle of a snowstorm, he will insist on wearing running shoes and an unzipped jacket.

I gave up this battle around 4th grade. I received the umpteenth note about “dressing my child appropriately for the weather” and decided to pick my battles: if you want to dress like it’s fall in the dead of winter, then go right ahead. I was over this debate.

FAFO parenting (F*ck Around and Find Out) is just that: you want to mess around and tempt fate (or the elements), go right ahead and deal with the consequence of being cold. This modern, often reactionary, parenting style is where parents step back and let their kids experience the direct, natural consequences of their own actions rather than coming to their rescue.

Safety first

While this independent, relatively “free” style of parenting allows kids to deal with the effects of their choices, it should also be noted that this comes with certain safety limitations. Even though my 5-year-old was fighting me on wearing winter wear, I insisted he wear a coat, hat, mitts and scarf. At 5, I felt he still needed my input when it came to these decisions. But once he was a certain age, I relented.

“Parents should allow for natural consequences to take over instead of a punishment for behaviour when the situation presents itself,” said Georgia Dow, an anxiety and depression specialist and licensed psychotherapist at Westmount Therapy in Montreal. “You want this to always be age-appropriate and not dangerous. A child’s brain learns fastest through doing something, and negative experiences are not detrimental to a child’s development as long as it is age-appropriate and not extreme.”

While some see it as a return to traditional, "old-school" discipline, others caution that it must be applied mindfully to ensure it remains educational rather than just punitive.

Why FAFO parenting can be a good thing

“Experiential learning is a healthy way to help the prefrontal cortex develop (the part of the brain that deals with consequences to actions),” Dow said. “Natural consequences also teach a child the cost and benefit of actions, which will help them figure out real-world relationships around them. Learning natural consequences to actions is essential for a child to develop problem-solving skills later in life.”

Some of the ways the FAFO parenting style can be beneficial:

• Builds resilience and independence: By facing the consequences of their mistakes, children learn to navigate challenges, recover from missteps, and develop critical problem-solving skills.
• Encourages accountability and responsibility: Children learn to take ownership of their actions when they, not their parents, experience the fallout (e.g., forgetting a jacket means being cold).
• Reduces parental burnout and power struggles: It eliminates the need for constant reminding, lecturing, and controlling behaviour. The experience, rather than the parent, becomes the teacher.
• Develops critical thinking: It encourages kids to think about the consequences of their actions before they act. This will help them with better decision-making.
• Encourages independence: It provides children with the freedom to make choices, which gives them confidence in their own judgment.
• Prepares kids for the real world: It teaches that actions have consequences, and this will prepare them for adulthood, where choices have direct results.

Real-world examples of FAFO parenting

When my son started high school and had his first big project, he got it done days ahead of time. Leading up to the due date, I kept reminding him not to forget his assignment. The morning of, he was getting ready for school, and I knew he had forgotten, so I let him walk out the door without it.

Did he lose points for it? Yup. Did he feel uncomfortable when he had to explain to his teacher why it was late? He sure did. I knew he had to experience all those things to learn from the situation and not make the same mistake twice.

The same goes for things like:

• A forgotten lunch where a child refuses to pack their lunch, so they go hungry rather than the parent making it or dropping it off.
• Ignoring requests to clean up and pick up their toys, resulting in those toys being thrown away or locked up for a set period of time.
• Disregarding advice and, say, refusing to wear a jacket. Then let them be cold.
• Having a fallout with a friend. If they were rude to one of their friends, they should repair that relationship on their own without your intervention.

Time to relinquish control

“We often want to enforce a child do something because we see the path ahead of them and are afraid that they will run too fast, jump too high, or wear improper clothing and feel cold,” Dow explained. “But if we are thinking for them and doing the cost benefits for them, then they are not doing it themselves. In this curated world, you want your child to develop a feeling of autonomy where they learn to trust their internal problem-solving skills. This will lower levels of anxiety when dealing with difficult situations, and it will increase self-esteem.”

As a reformed helicopter parent, I now see that my behaviour stemmed from my wanting to keep him safe. Then I found I was "saving" my son time and time again. It was when I sat back and let him go through the experience himself, from start to finish, that I really saw him gain knowledge, confidence and life skills. And I realized that messing up and discovering the consequences could actually be a good thing.