Reality Discipline has to do with learning from our mistakes by their natural consequences. It happens all the time... show up late for work consistently and you'll get fired... don't study for a test and you'll fail... don't weed your garden and it'll get overgrown with weeds... play with fire and you'll get burned... don't take care of the animals that feed you and you'll go hungry...
About a week ago, I had gone out to the chicken coop collect eggs and get some more chicken feed for the baby chicks in our garage. I noticed that the chicken feed was within a day of being empty (there's more in the big barn). Since it's currently Seth's job to take care of the chickens and collect the eggs, I didn't think much about it. He's old enough to know where to get more feed, and he's strong enough to carry the 40 lb bags (I'm actually amazed at how strong my older boys are getting!!).
Well, as the number of collected eggs kept dropping throughout the week, we just assumed they were making nests in other places that they shouldn't, so the kids would search a bit harder to find the eggs (to no avail). The chickens were also out wandering throughout the yard (which is very annoying when they make a mess of our flower garden and wood shavings). Well, as I found out on a trip to collect eggs in the coop, they were completely out of food (and have been out for a while).
Where does reality discipline come in? If my dear son doesn't mind if our animals go hungry, he should be able to tolerate a bit of hunger himself. That night, Seth didn't get to eat dinner. Now, granted, it didn't hurt him a bit to skip a meal, but it did get the point across... especially when we had the apple pie pizza that Caleb made for dessert. Only time will tell if he's learned his lesson...
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