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AIBU?

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Original poster

AIBU to think that my friend is going to make her DD terrified?

109 replies

DetectivePotato · 19/07/2010 19:46

A friend of mine used to use cats to scare her DD into doing something. Her DD was afarid of them so if she got too far away or something, my friend would say "the cat is going to get you" and her DD would run back looking terrified.

Her DD has got over the fear of cats so now my friend is using 'George'. It is a bloke they saw at a garage and her DD was afraid of him. Now my friend says "George is coming to get you" and her DD runs looking terrified.

To me, she is going to make her DD terrified of men at this rate.

OP posts:
Original poster
DetectivePotato · 19/07/2010 20:08

I can't believe how many people 'threaten' their children with things.

To me it is laziness because she doesn't want to go and chase her.

When it comes up again, as it will, I will have to say something. I was too gobsmacked today and I'm not exactly sure what to say without sounding like I'm interferring.

This is the same friend who is teaching her DD to hit back at others who hit her, at 2 years old.

She has some questionable methods.

OP posts:
pigletmania · 19/07/2010 20:11

My grandma when I went to stay with her one day when I was 7, did that, there was thunder and lightning outside and she said that the thunder was going to get me, and had a weird look in her eye. However she did have mental health issues, but was a fantastic grandma dispite that lots of love, treats and great times, miss her very much RIP grandma.

wb · 19/07/2010 20:11

Fruitysunshine that is heart-breakingly awful

pigletmania · 19/07/2010 20:12

Oh Fruity thats awful. My mum threatened to call SS and pretended to be on the phone to them, but I was 13 and being an almighty little shite, I don't blame her tbh.

Original poster
DetectivePotato · 19/07/2010 20:21

The more opinions on here I have read, the more I cannot believe what she is saying to her DD. FFS, its making me .

OP posts:
Fruitysunshine · 19/07/2010 20:22

We were around 7 and 8 at the time.

It has actually taught me now not to raise my children. I can't see any time when I parent should make a child feel scared like that. I now work hard to ensure that if my children ever feel scared anywhere they know that their home is the safest place in the world.

There are millions of women who should not be mothers.

Ladyanonymous · 19/07/2010 20:23

My friends step-mother used to keep Social Services number by the tlephone - and she had alreadt been adopted by them

Mowgli1970 · 19/07/2010 20:24

Fruity I felt so sad reading your post.

muggglewump · 19/07/2010 20:26

That's a really weird thing to do.
I scare DD, because she likes it, and thinks it's funny, but never with something real.
Ie, a do a funny laugh and say it's Darth Vader, or made noises and say the aliens are landing.
She honestly finds this fun, and encourages me to do it more, I'd never really scare her.

FionaSH · 19/07/2010 20:29

Fruity - that makes me want to cry. How could a Mum do that?

BellevilleRendezvous · 19/07/2010 20:42

a friend of mine said his mum used to say to him and his brother that she would send them to the children's home if they didn't behave. the home in question was actually at the end of their road! drove past it quaking in fear every day apparently...

Fruitysunshine · 19/07/2010 20:46

There is nothing more powerful in a child's life than it's imagination and if you plant a horrible, scary thought that will grow and grow until it creates a fear so deeply felt that the child will carry it into their adult life for the rest of their days, like me and my sister.

Thanks for your sympathies ladies. I get so cross when I hear how some people treat their children. It is almost as if they can wipe the slate clean each day their child wakes up but you know, it does not work like that. Every day is another days worth of memories to be filed in the child's mind, they never forget.

OP - Your mate needs a stern talking to.

tomme · 19/07/2010 20:49

If my son is playing up and whingeing (sp) when we are in town, supermarket or whatever, I say to him in a perfectly calm, reasonable voice "ok then you stay here and I'll get you on the way back when I've finished" and keep walking. He always follows nicely and stops complaining, is this the some thing? I'm worried now.

Fruitysunshine · 19/07/2010 20:51

Tomme - it is not the same thing at all.

The threat that hurts is implied as the child will be taken away and will never see their mummy again.

Your statement is an instruction where you will be coming back for him when you have finished shopping. Two different things - don't worry!

muggglewump · 19/07/2010 20:53

I've had to tell DD that if I'm really ill again she'll have to be looked after by Foster Carers.
I didn't say this as a threat, or anything nasty, but because it's true, and could be real.

I was in hospital earlier this year and my Uncle won't have her again because 'people might talk'.

I hated telling DD that, but I felt it was better she was prepared, just in case.

Hopefully it'll never happen.

DD loves to be scared, she loved Edinburgh Dungeon when she was 7, and she loves scary films (we're talking Gremlins and Jaws, not Saw, or similar), and I like scaring her, in an appropriate way, but scaring kids so they are upset is really not on.

LutyensCBA · 19/07/2010 20:59

at some of the threats on this thread! Especially the Social Services/Children's Home threat...so heart-breakingly awful

Have been trying to think if my mum did anything similar, and I really can't remember her using fear to get me to behave. She did used to say, till I was 8-9, that God was watching everything I did, and if I did anything bad and noone found out, God would still know and would be disappointed (she is still very religious). I think that wasn't so bad as a tactic to get me to behave as it wasn't a threat that carried a punishment iyswim?

pigletmania · 19/07/2010 21:07

Oh in my situation I know it was not true, I was a teen and knew that it was an empty threat. I humoured her by saying 'go on then', mum never did. But if its said to a young child, they cannot separate made up from reality, and would take it literally. They dont know that mum is making an empty threat and wont carry it out. I was awful to mum though, which I now regret and have apologised to her for it.

qwertpoiuy · 19/07/2010 21:07

Apparently when I was 2 I was rooting through my grandmother's cupboard, she roared at me that the monster was in there and was going to get me. Undeterred, I continued to rummage, when she said "I told you the monster is in there!". I responded with "But I want to see the monster...."

CaptainKirksNipples · 19/07/2010 21:12

I heard a woman at work talk to her friends about how her 4 year old daughter was scared of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride/show (?) they had been to and if she wants her to do something then she says they will come and get her! Some people are just fucking stupid and mean. I told her she should be saving for years of counselling when she is older, she thought I was joking!

peeringintothevoid · 19/07/2010 21:15

I'm going to be the voice of dissent as usual, but I wonder what Fruitysunshine and her sister had actually done to push their mum to the point of having to 'follow up' on her threat? I totally agree that it's not an ideal (or indeed acceptable) way of controlling a child, but it was fairly common for the previous generation to use outlandish threats. I would imagine their mum considered herself 'pushed to the brink' to actually march them off 'to the children's home'.

In the case of the OP's friend, she sounds incredibly stupid. Why would you want to engender a fear of cats and men in your child? YANBU.

Fruitysunshine · 19/07/2010 21:28

peeringintothevoid you know, I have no clue as to what we did to warrant that, I guess you have to ask the question to ascertain whether there was justification for my mother to do that.

I also can't recall what my sister did to have my mum throw her around the kitchen by the hair and bounce her off the walls and cooker or the time my mum picked me up off the hall floor by my hair...but I guess we did something to push her to the brink.

Years of it.

She recently admitted she should never have had children.

pigletmania · 19/07/2010 21:37

Gosh Fruity It was the norm in the past for parents to threaten with the children's home and things, yes kids can bring out the best and worse in a parent that something silly can slip out, nobody is perfect, but to keep threatening the child with scary things is nasty and horrible.

Morloth · 19/07/2010 21:39

peeringintothevoid, there is nothing my babies could do that would cause me to do what Fruity's mother did.

peeringintothevoid · 19/07/2010 21:46

Fruitysunshine IMO the physical abuse of your sister is on a different level to the possibility of a 70s mother with a limited armoury of disciplinary measures telling her children that if they don't do as they are told, they'll be sent to the children's home. And that mother then feeling forced to 'follow through' further with that threat because it didn't have the desired effect.

As I said, I don't think it's an acceptable way of controlling children, but I don't think it was uncommon at that time either, and I don't think that that alone indicates abuse.

In the context of your subsequent post, then of course it does indicate abuse, and is deplorable.

CheerfulYank · 19/07/2010 21:48

My SIL tells my nephew and niece that if they don't do things (eat their food, keep their coats on when it's cold, etc.) that they will "get sick and have to go to the doctor for shots!" And she wonders why she has to bloody drag them in, kicking and screaming, to actually get immunizations or have checkups! She also tells them that there are strangers everywhere waiting to grab them. As a result, they are the most fearful children you have ever seen. They are terrified of doctors. Bugs. ("Because if they bite you you'll get lyme disease and have to get shots!") Tall grass. (because it might have bugs in it, of course.) Dogs. (They might bite you and then you'll have to get shots.) Policemen. (They'll get you if you're not good.)

It's so hard to know what to say! I remeber my nephew telling DS "and then the doctor will get you!" and I just firmly said (as pleasantly as possible, though) "Actually DS likes going to the doctor; they have a big fish tank there and he gets stickers." Or another time when he was trying to scare DS about policemen "Actually policemen are our friends. If you ever get lost, you can go ask a policeman and he will help you." I mean, what can you really say?

So, no, definitely NBU!