Now a new study looking at 400,000 youths from 88 countries around the world suggests such bans are making a difference in reducing youth violence. It marks the first systematic assessment of whether an association exists between a ban on corporal punishment and the frequency in which adolescents get into fights.
[F]or both boys and girls, [prof. Elizabeth Gershoff] said, “We found [spanking] linked to more aggression, more delinquent behavior, more mental health problems, worse relationships with parents, and putting the children at higher risk for physical abuse from their parents.”
“People often ask: Why didn’t you look for positive aspects?” she continued. “My answer is: We did, and there were none. We see consistently that the more children are spanked, the more behavioral problems they have in the years ahead.”
Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”
I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.
I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”
Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.
Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.
It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.
It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.
Apparently people are rediscovering this post somehow and I think that’s pretty cool! Having experienced similar violations of trust in my youth, this is an important issue to me, so I want to add my personal story:
Around age 13, I tried to express to my mother that I thought I might have clinical depression, and she snapped at me “not to joke about things like that.” I stopped telling my mother when I felt depressed.
Around age 15, I caught my mother reading my diary. She confessed that any time she saw me write in my diary, she would sneak into my room and read it, because I only wrote when I was upset. I stopped keeping a diary.
Around age 18, I had an emotional breakdown while on vacation because I didn’t want to go to college. I ended up seeing a therapist for – surprise surprise – depression.
Around age 21, I spoke on this panel with my mother in the audience, and afterwards I mentioned the diary incident to her with respect to this particular Q&A. Her eyes welled up, and she said, “You know I read those because I was worried you were depressed and going to hurt yourself, right?”
TL;DR: When you invade your child’s privacy, you communicate three things:
You do not respect their rights as an individual.
You do not trust them to navigate problems or seek help on their own.
You probably haven’t been listening to them.
Information about almost every issue that you think you have to snoop for can probably be obtained by communicating with and listening to your child.
Part of me is really excited to see that the original post got 200 notes because holy crap 200 notes, and part of me is really saddened that something so negative has resonated with so many people.
I love this post.
Too many parents wonder why their kids aren’t honest with them, and never realize their own non-receptive behavior and their failure to listen are the reasons why.
At one point or another, a child WILL keep a secret from you, but if it’s to a point where all their emotional feelings are being poured away from you as opposed to toward you, it’s probably because you haven’t been emotionally trustworthy or open.
Adultism 😦
not to mention, you then take away one of your child’s coping mechanisms. if your parents read your journal, you’re never writing in it again. if your parents monitor your conversations with friends, you won’t tell them when you’re depressed anymore. if you have a therapist that reports what you say to your parents, you won’t tell that therapist anything. now all those methods of venting, feeling better, self-soothing, sorting out your issues, and feeling safe are gone.
“i want information” is not synonymous with “i want my child to talk to me.” those are two separate goals, but i think parents conflate them – i want my child to talk to me, but since they won’t, i’m stealing information from them. no. you didn’t ever want them to talk to you. you wanted information. if you wanted them to talk to you, if that was your entire end goal, you would have approached things completely differently. stealing information from a child ensures they will never talk to you again. but if all you want is information, then you can take it however you want and call it a parenting success.
if what you wanted was a child who talks to you, you would apply the same principles you do to literally any other human interaction in your life, and cultivate a relationship and trust.
I had to stifle my horror and revulsion at my last job, when a conversation about removing the door from a child’s bedroom came up, and I was only one not in favor of it.
May be worth noting I was the only millennial in a conversation that was otherwise full of baby boomers.
When people say they remember their childhood perfectly and not in bits and pieces with mostly a black void of nothingness like me
?? hoW in th e fuk ???
For a long time I’ve wondered if this is normal or a result of continuous verbal and emotional abuse.
This isn’t normal, it’s the result of abuse, doesn’t matter what kind. Your brain was preoccupied with surviving, not remembering and storing memories. I have two friends who had similar shit childhood that I had, and they don’t remember shit either. And it’s easier to live with no or little traumatic memories, than have all of it on autoplay all the time. I know it makes recognising abuse for the abused person harder, because most of the time there isn’t anything to remember, just little insignificant things and slivers of memory, but if you know the sings of trauma, it’s easier. Also it has to do with overactive parts of the brain during abuse, some parts are enlarged, some are smaller (prefrontal cortex, amygdala, just to name a few), hormone regulation is fucked because of adrenaline and hypervigilance, also abused people learn the harder way in a school environment due to memory problems.
Fantastic.
Me: is stunned when people remember their childhood because I don’t remember shit unless it was in the past 5 years
A middle school in Achille, Oklahoma is closed following violent threats by parents on social media against Maddie, a 12-year-old transgender student who identifies as female and used the girls’ bathroom.
Maddie had been using the staff bathroom at her old school but used the girls’ bathroom at the new school because she wasn’t sure where the staff bathroom was. She was then accused of peeping under a bathroom stall. Her mother said it was probably because she “leans very far forward to use the bathroom.”
Then the threats began on a private parents’ Facebook group for the school. The parents called Maddie “it” and “thing”, suggested that her genitalia be mutilated to make her female (“a good sharp knife will do the job real quick”). One said it was “hunting season on them kind” and said there was “no bag limit.”
Maddie’s mother Brandy Rose said she fears for her life: “These are adults making threats– I don’t understand it. She’s an awesome kid. To see any fear in her, I can’t explain how bad that hurts me for them to hurt her.”
KXII reports: “The sheriff said the mother filed a protective order against one parent but no other arrests have been made, however several agencies including the FBI are stepping in to see if any comments constitute a hate crime.”
See the screenshots:
Sorry to say this but if we have to think about whether or not threatening to cut a 12 year old child is a hate crime means there is no hope for us. What has this nation become when it’s citizens feel they have a right to threaten minorities with no fear of repercussion. The only ringing heard now is the death knell of freedom..
how is this shitty parenting if i tell you to be home at a certain time you better be there. Shit my mom would have been out looking for me.
Right? How is this shitty at all?? If i tell you to be home at a certain time you better be there or else you aren’t allowed in the home. I care about my kids safety so much I’ll endanger them when they dont listen to me.
i do not have the energy to explain why this is a shitty thing to do but yeah it’s shit
I do! If you’re gonna be a vindictive little shit to your kids,you shouldn’t be having them. Having abusive parents like the ones up here fucked up my perception of love and affection.
I got locked out of the house all the time just like this poor kid. Do you know how fucking cold it gets at night? NO because you’re cushy and comfortable behind those decorated glass doors! I slept in 30
°F weather. I was on the swim team so I had to wake up and run with the team at 5 am then go to class. I’d wake up with frozen hair and bugs crawling on me. I’d start crying and it would rain fucking cold water. I had no friends in the neighborhood to go to. I’m still somewhat scared of the dark.
There’s wild animals and predatory strangers and shit out there. You’re gonna put your fucking CHILD in that situation and FAIL to be their guardian at one of the most important times of day just because they made it home late? Kids make fucking mistakes, and if you aren’t prepared for that, you shouldn’t even have pets. You’re not a caretaker, you’re a lazy abusive perfectionist snot. I’d kick your ass if you were my neighbor and I saw you pulling this shit! No joke!
My roommate talks all the time about how if her kids mess around she’d smack them around, but she and a LOT of other people do not understand that punishments like those are abuse. They fuck your kid up for life.
If you leave a kid out in the cold they’re more likely to get into more trouble/danger to keep warm anyway. Who’s gonna take your kid into their home? Do you even give a shit what happens to them? No because you wanted to play god and get back at someone who is still developing. Be a fucking adult.
Your kid is not a robot. It’s so shitty these parents have done this kind of stuff before and have NOT given the kid a blanket.
Neglect is the chronic inattention or omission on the part of the care giver to provide for the basic emotional and/or physical needs of the child, including food, clothing, nutrition, adequate supervision, health, hygiene, safety, medical and psychological care and education. Emotionally neglected children do not receive the necessary psychological nurturance to foster their own growth and development. The consequences of neglect can be very serious, particularly for young children. The child who does not receive adequate emotional, cognitive and physical stimulation, physical care and nutrition may experience lags in development. These lags in development may be irreversible.
SOME FORMS OF ABUSE & NEGLECT:
*Rejection, ignorance and isolation
*A lack of shelter
*Emotional neglect or lack of supervision
*Deliberate locking children out of the house
So if you think pulling this childish bullshit is ok, I will break into your house and steal whatever funds it takes to care for your child. I’ll fight you in the morning because you’re a garbage human being.
Stop teaching your damn kid they’re worthless. YOU made them.
Stop being your child’s enemy, start being their actual fucking caretaker.
Just so y’all know… in the state of Texas, this is grounds for me to call CPS on your ass.
And I will, too.
Same in Illinois and I fucking will.
TBH all the people coming out in support of locking kids outside for missing curfew need to just not have kids
Reminder that one of the victims of Ted Bundy (the serial killer) was locked out of her house because of missing curfew, and he offered his “help.”
This can get your child KILLED.
But if someone was to drive by and snatch they ass up I bet they’d be the first talking about “I don’t know how this could’ve happened” uh maybe cause you refused to let your child into the safety of home.
“Rules are more important than people” and “punishment can be as nasty as we want because they shouldn’t have broken the rules” are basically the definition of Lawful Evil.
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