Tough Love in Parenting - Borderline Child Abuse

I'm a bit surprised this topic/question hasn't popped up on WSO yet, but I'm glad it finally has.

I was constantly beat as a kid, physical/verbal/emotional abuse and the whole nine yards (several times being nearly choked to death -- I'm not kidding). And these weren't "spankings," more like Jean Claude Van Damme-type ass-kickings with objects/weapons (e.g. belts, eskrima sticks, etc.) thrown in for good measure.

And yes, I admittedly do have deep-seated mother issues. Haha.

It's really hard for me to take this seriously. Abuse is generally pretty cut and dried. Corporal punishment, however, is not abuse (at least not the corporal punishment I grew up with). I got the belt when I was a kid, and it didn't effect my relationship with my parents in the least. What I mean by that is that I deserved it when I got it, and the things I ended up resenting was the strict environment I was raised in and not the physical punishments.

I left home the day after high school graduation when I was only 17 and never went back, but it wasn't because I was beaten as a kid. It was because I was tired of people telling me what I could and couldn't do.

People are just soft pussies nowaday. The generation that won WWII probably had their asses whipped on a daily basis and turned out just fine. Now if you look at a kid sideways they call child protective services and have "issues" when they get older.

Humans are animals with a voice box. We use cattle prods with cows, we use electric collars with dogs, we clip chicken wings and we beat/spank kids. We respond, learn and adjust to physical instruction. Now this isn't advocating wanton abuse, but spanking/slapping a child that does something wrong isn't abuse, it is corrective measures.

My mom would beat me with a wooden spoon. Yeah, sucked. But life sucks. I also grew up to not be a pussy. We've become way, WAY too soft in this nation.

I got the living hell beat out of me when I was younger, physically and verbally. I'm talking fists, dishware, belts and all similar. I grew up with extreme anger problems which I take care in now controlling, granted I may have been born with it since my parents seemed to posses similar traits or it could of been a reaction to the "punishments"

One positive that I would never wish to lose, I am one tough dude now and won't back down from anyone. We are soft in today's world and I imagine that if some kids were disciplined more when they were younger, they would be far more successful instead of jobless bums.

@West Coast: that's just brutal, dude. Sorry you had to endure that.

I was never spanked as a kid, got my fair share of the belt though.

My father is definitely agressive, and I vividly remember the times I got my ass whooped. Sometimes you can't reason with your child. At the time, of course I believed they hated me, etc. But being friends with kids raised with the "time-out" punishments, I definitely thank my parents for what they did. They taught me that success unfortunately matters in this world, and that you can't half ass anything. Tee-ball and time-outs teaches kids that it's ok to be soft, that it's ok to lose.

"As my old man always said, If you try, you win. And he was a hell of a garbage man." - Don Geiss

There' spanking to teach discipline and there's excessive beating because the parents have no discipline and desired to take their frustrations on life out of the child. I had a friend who said he sued to get spanked, but he always remembered later that day (or the next morning if it was late) his father would come back in the room and explain to him what he did wrong, and them let him know that he still loved him.He's one of the few people I know that holds no resentment towards towards his father.And that doesn't make him a 'pussy' either. Better than developing a 'toughness' that manifests itself in not being able to really love anybody fully (not romantic in this case).

Well, I was raised by my mother who had to deal with three boys and a husband whom was always out of town on business. Believe me, we got smacked the shit out of us if we did anything out of line. I just don't understand how she could cope with all of us and still not end up in a mental hospital. Hell, I was far from the nicest kid in the street and neither were my brothers.

My father never laid his hand on us. Since he was beaten the living daylight out of as a kid by his father (suffered from PTSD fra WW2), that was his one promise to himself; Never lay your hand on your own child in anger or in lack of other alternatives.

I didn't get beat necessarily, but I was kind of a douche as a kid and thus got hella spankings and the belt a few times. That shit didn't bother me much at all. However, my mom did lose it a few times yearly where she'd start full-on rape yelling at us probably once ever 3-4 months (rape yelling = screaming past the top of your lungs, cursing, that shit). That was way more fucked up than a spanking/the belt.

Thanks for sharing everyone, I'll add that my mom would go crazy and just mentally dehumanized me and my little brother on certain occasions. While it made me tough on the one side (no individual's comments have hurt more than those of my parents) I have personal resentment towards women that might never go away.

It's good to know that other people went through the same hazing, and haven't killed themselves haha.

These stories are so sad.

But hey, this is what life is all about. You'll get dealt some cards (for 99% of the population, they'll get a shitty hand to play) and you try to end up with a better one.

Don't sweat it, don't take life too seriously and appreciate the human experience. Remember, we're on this spaceship called earth, lost in an ever expanding universe. So, enjoy yourself and congrats once again for your efforts.

I bet people get way more traumatized by verbal abuse and the torture of unrealistic expectations than they do by the belt and the back of their dad's hand. Physical punishment was pretty standard in my household, my parents were pretty oldschool, but it was definitely never a problem. If anything would have broke me it would have been mental abuse.

i had this conversation with my parents. My sister and i were disciplined with a pretty heavy hand, then the other two siblings came along after my parents had a "change of parenting style" The difference? My sister and I are college grads, and have pretty good lives without jail time. The other two both have criminal convictions, neither have survived more than a semester of college and both are living at or below the poverty level.

My parents to this day swear this change was positive. The proof says otherwise.

I can't speak for my sister, but getting kicked down a flight of stares for talking back to my mom taught me a lesson i wont ever forget. Am i hard on my kids? yes, not to that extent though. My dad want's to make sure i don't turn out like him.

you wonder why kids these days are pieces of shit? they took away the paddle from school teachers

Fuck that, the majority of teachers are way too fucking stupid/incapable of restraint to be trusted with corporal punishment. Leave that shit to the parents.

Also, not every kid needs corporal punishment. Some parents are better at handling their kids psychologically than others.

If I wasn't afraid of the legal ramifications and of my fiancee, I'd think a little corporal punishment is pretty much essential to my kid's childhood

This just popped up on my feed. Thought it was hilarious:

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/parents-force-girl-to-hold-sign-as-pun…

Worried about their 13-year-old daughter's increasingly disrespectful behavior, Gentry and Renee Nickell of Crestview, Florida, decided to make her punishment humiliating and public. On Saturday, the teen (whose name has not been released) spent 90 minutes standing at a busy intersection with a hand-written sign describing her sins.

It read: "I’m a self-entitled teenager w/no respect for authority. I’m also super smart, yet I have 3 'D’s' because I DON’T CARE." ...

"We spend so much focus on not wanting to hurt a child's self esteem that we don't do anything," the Nickells said in a statement defending the punishment.

"Walk a mile in someone's shoes," the statement read. "We must undo at home what the world tries to tell her is better." ...

Holding a sign in public wasn't their first choice for punishment. They tried grounding her before, but it didn't help, they explained. They didn't forbid her from attending activities at church, they said, because the activities were supposed to reinforce the Christian values they were struggling to instill in her. They didn't confiscate her electronics because neither she nor their two younger children, ages 2 and 6, have any, they said.

"We just got to the point where we just didn't know what else to do," Renee told the newspaper. She said that she got the sign idea from a Christian counselor "several years ago," and decided to start with a 90-minute public punishment. The girl's dad stood next to her the whole time.

My sister and I were both spanked and verbally abused a lot as kids. I think that I received that "magic amount" of punishment, because now I can't even fathom being outright disrespectful and "acting out" against other people. I dunno, I'm just a good kid I suppose. Unless you count recreational drug use "bad" and "acting out against my parents".

My sister on the other hand turned into a slut.

Seeing my younger brother grow up and my parents easing up on him has made me appreciate my beatings even more.

He treats them as if they're his friends (and vice versa). This is both hilarious and unsettling. Or maybe I'm just that fucked up.

Got beaten once and that's it. I wouldn't say I am lucky because I believe kids need their beatings if they do something wrong. Don't take this the wrong way but I wish I had gotten more since now I am kind of a softy, but am actively working on that. Sister never got a beating and now she's a brat and spoiled.

Yeah I definitely got a few whippings during my day, and I turned out okay.

However, I do plan to refrain from using this type of unsophisticated punishment on any children I may ever have.

I feel there are other ways to go about these things.

I got whooped and for the most part, I'm better off for it. Except I dive for cover when I walk by tree branches swaying on a windy day.

My brother lost a game of 1-on-1 with my dad. The little fucker was being a sore loser afterwards, cursing etc.

My dad gave him the belt when we got home. It was both hilarious and satisfying, considering how spoiled/angry my little brother is. He could barely walk afterwards.

Goes to show you that an ass-kicking goes a long way.