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Permament psychological harm.
Published on November 28, 2007 By jesseledesma In Personal Relationships
The last entry I included some thoughts on parenting. I forgot to mention the part about stress. One of the reasons ranting an raving is not desired is the stress on the child and the parent.

Children do not have our understanding of vocabulary and human behavior. Yelling mostly is interpreted as a threat, which illicit fear responses. Which in other words means you are scaring the child and inflicting psychological distress.

The parent also senses fear response of guilt and prosecution. Even in this liberal society people are still receiving the messages of good and bad. When a parent rants and raves at a child he or she may feel ashamed, guilt, and expect to be punished.

The fear of punishment and societies’ reaction brings stress to the parent. Eventually the cycle between doing a behavior and fearing the reprocations can lead to enough stress that parent’s judgment can be clouded by stress and the parent disciplines the child in an abrasive manner.

In addition, what is mental health? Well it is not living a life free of stress. There is always going to be stress in life. However, dealing with stress in a rational and non-toxic manner I would say is good mental health.

Therefore, why do we want to be the reason for own distress, whether we are parenting or doing anything in life?

I have come to the conclusion peace in life is having balance between the demands of life and our emotions. We can overreact. That is an option. However, we can also evaluate things in a more realistic manner.

Parenting does not have to be the worst job on the planet. I find kids to be enjoyable and if you are nice and keep then entertained they will be more cooperative.

No one is responsive in a good way to screams and verbal abuse. In addition, all this abuse will eventually cause psychological issues in the child. I wonder if some parents hate their children so much that they would want to cause permanent psychological damage.

Comments
on Nov 28, 2007
I feel the same way. Sadly, when confronted with my children behaving badly, I get emotional and over react. I also feel out of control when I get angry. Since I love my children and I know it's awful to yell, I leave all discipline to my husband. He is good at staying calm and rational and explaining rules and consequences to them in terms that they can understand. Where he would initiate a timeout and then explain why they had a timeout when it was over, I would just yell. So I don't. Having a partner helps curb such irrational behaviors quite a bit, as long as that partner cares for the children as much as you do, as evidenced in recent news stories.
on Nov 28, 2007
Since I love my children and I know it's awful to yell, I leave all discipline to my husband.


May I suggest something, Caeli? While you may be well intentioned, it might not be wisest to leave ALL the discipline to your husband. It is very good thaat you know your limits, but I have found that as children get older, they "play to the weakest link", meaning if you're more likely to cave, they'll play you against your husband. It's best to work on learning creative proactive ways to parent so that you can be an equal with your husband in discipline.

In addition, it has a way of creating the "wait till your dad gets home" syndrome, which casts the father as the "bad guy". A role thaat can create resentment.

Note that neither of these opinions are fact, they are just my personal experiences and empirical observations as the fatheer of six.

Jesus,

You have no kids, right? It's been my experience that the people without kids tend to think they're the best parents. I wonder why that is...
on Nov 28, 2007
Caeli: I agree with Gid.

Putting the discipline off on your husband makes the children view you as powerless. They will give you a much harder time if they know you can't/aren't going to do anything about it.

Have you read any of Dr. Sear's parenting books? The Discipline Book and The Successful Child are GREAT resources!

No one is a perfect parent all the time, and we all have our moments when we wish for a do-over. All we can do is give it our best and learn from our mistakes...exactly what we expect from our children!

You have no kids, right? It's been my experience that the people without kids tend to think they're the best parents. I wonder why that is...


Yep, yep. It's easy to have all the answers when you don't have to apply them in any meaningful way.
on Nov 28, 2007
My mother spent some time in Morocco, and other parts of North Africa. She tells me that, without fail, the children she encountered there were the best behaved children she had ever met.

Why? Because misbehaviour, especially in public, brings shame to the family, and occasions beatings with wooden rods. By all means, continue to coddle, and soothe, and placate, and bribe your children.

Personally, I'd be more than happy to take a rod to the back of almost every American child I've ever encountered. Insolent, foul-mouthed, incapable of taking no for an answer.

When I drove the ice cream truck for a living I saw twelve year old girls walking around the projects I serviced carrying rolls of twenty dollar bills big enough to choke a horse. How do you think they came by that kind of money? By selling crack and selling pussy.

Stop worrying about traumatizing your brat, start exerting some real discipline, and maybe your child won't end up drug-raddled and whoring on the streets.
on Nov 28, 2007
I'm fresh out of wooden rods!
on Nov 29, 2007
if you're more likely to cave, they'll play you against your husband. It's best to work on learning creative proactive ways to parent so that you can be an equal with your husband in discipline.


LOL, I am not likely to cave. I am likely to explode. That is the problem. The model that my parents set was not a good one. I know that people who had horrible childhoods either repeat the abusive behavior or work to change the pattern. I am doing my best to change the pattern, but it is very hard. In this case I must choose the lesser of two evils. In general when he is not around I do my best to remove myself from the situation by putting them in timeout and leaving the room until I calm down. Or I send them to their rooms. Besides they are usually very well behaved. Thanks to my husband's constructive discipline, the older two understand the rules and the reasons behind them and know exactly what the consequences will be and the younger one is learning quickly.

And yes, I do have children. My stepdaughter is 5, my daughter is 4, and my son is 14 months.
on Nov 29, 2007
Timeout is discipline. So you don't really leave all the discipline to your husband, which is good. Doesn't really make sense in a violence-less discipline style to say, "Wait til your father gets home, you are going to get such a timeout!"
on Nov 29, 2007
Caeli,

What I would encourage you to do is have confidence in yourself. You are not your parents, and bad parenting habits can be overcome. I know. I've been there.

You will find, as time goes by, that you have more strength than you know. In the meantime, hang in there.
on Nov 29, 2007
Caeli, the no kids thing was referring to the author of the blog. He frequently writes self-important articles about how to raise children or how to better your relationship when he currently has neither and has failed in a big way at the latter.
on Nov 29, 2007
also, what jythier said, timeout is discipline. So you aren't leaving all of the discipline to him, which is great!
on Dec 21, 2007
Gid, Texas, Jythier-
Thank you. I appreciate your encouragement.