What are negative consequences?

Negative consequences are things that happen because you did something, and they make things harder or not as fun.

Imagine you're playing with your favorite toy, a big red ball. You kick it really hard, and it flies all the way to the other side of the room. That's fun. But if you kick it so hard that it breaks, now you have a sad, broken ball. That’s a negative consequence, something bad happened because you did something exciting.

Let’s say you eat 10 pieces of candy in one go. At first, your mouth is happy with all the sweet taste. But then, your tummy starts to feel upset. That's a negative consequence, eating too much candy made your stomach not happy.

If you have a big pile of toys and you don’t share any with your friend, they might get sad and leave the game. Then you’re all alone playing by yourself. That’s also a negative consequence, not sharing made your friend go away.

So, negative consequences are like little warnings or reminders that sometimes doing something fun can lead to something not so fun.