To think there are better ways to discourage 'bad' behaviour?

[LolaTheShowgirl]

I was in the chip shop tonight and this couple were in with a little girl who was about 3 years old. The little girl was getting shouted at very loudly for showing her knickers while she was sat on the window ledge (which most kids use as a bench). Bloody hell, it's hard enough to remember not to show my knickers in a skirt as an adult, let alone when I was barely out of nappies! Her mother then shouted "you are really doing my head in today, you are the most annoying person I ever met and if you don't stop I will lock you in the car alone and me and your dad will walk home and leave you there". The little girls face was truly devestated! Poor thing I do feel sorry for the mother as looking after children is sooo difficult, but really felt sorry for little girl!

I can understand parents being cross with thier kids, they certianly know how to push the buttons but its heartbreaking when you see people being downright nasty to their kids

I saw a girl who lives opposite my mum shreaking at her little boy who was the same age as mine (3 at the time), he had a dummy in his mouth and was carrying a teddy bear, she was dolled up to the nines and had a plastic bag with his clothes in. She was heading for a night out and I guess he was going to stay with someone else. She was literally screaming at him to hurry up and snearing at him because he was crying

still haunts me and I'm still not sure I shouldn't have reported in. my mum says it happens all the time but my DH thinks leave well alone, he thinks it would be worse for the boy if ss got involved and he got taken into care, i'm not so sure

Oops sorry off the point a bit. erm no YANBU, there are far better ways to treat your lids

This kind of verbal abuse does such terrible damage in the long run. Poor kid.

im not so sure how i would judge such comments tbh!

It depends on the way in which the person is saying it i.e in an extremely stressed way or in a 'i dont really like children' kind of way.

I suffer from major anxiety/stress and on occasions i have found myself shouting at DD for walking too slow/walking too fast etc and when she has cried i have told her to shut up! sometimes feelings of frustration/stress can overwhelm you to the point where you dont care or dont even realise what you are saying!

I think I'd have called social services. THat is child abuse.

But then, I am the most judgemental woman in the world.

But the double standards for how we treat adults and how we treat children just astound me.

IF I lay hands on someone without the permission, even lightly, that is assault and I can be prosecuted.

If someone batters their kids on a daily basis, until they cry and are hurt, that is reasonable chastisement.

ITs disgusting!

im not sure its child abuse!

I would/do judge "If you don't stop I will lock you in the car alone and me and your dad will walk home and leave you there" to a three year old very harshly.

And I don't care how stressed/tired/yada yada the mum is.

no I really think it is. Especially becase you don't just say stuff like that out of the blue, you'll have said stuff like that again and again. Awful.

how do you know? the mother could have been under a hell of a lot of stress! it was very wrong to talk to her child like that yes! but it could be that she loves her child more thatn enything nut that particular day couldnt cope?

when i was a child (3ish) my mum couldnt cope with me, she had suffered with years of depression and she would say some rediculous things to me, the thing is, me and my mum have a fantastic relationship! she needed help to cope with me and ive never resented her for it, i certainly never saw it as abuse!

by the way i do think it was out of order what the mother said to her child but i dont think you can say it is child abuse!

I have days when I can't cope. Lots of them! It goes with being a parent. But threatening to lock your child alone in a car and leave them? This will terrify a toddler. They take everything literally.

I've said pretty bad stuff I didn't mean on a bad day. I don't do it all the time. I feel v. v. bad when it happens.

It may well have been a bad day empty threat, and she may feel bloody awful when she gets home. It's easy to lose perspective. Not right, but it happens.

It's never nice watching a child being shouted at but I'm sad to say that a lot of us do it at times.

I remember when my dd was 4, she kicked a shoe fitter at the local shoe shop, on purpose because she didn't want to be fitted.

I totally lost it...and this is a child who rarely got shouted at, so I'm screaming at her like a banshee, telling her how unreasonable her behaviour is and how ashamed I am of her.

She's weeping, completely heart broken and I just couldn't stop yelling. It took me ages to calm down. I just couldn't figure how to make her see what she'd done was so wrong...I went over the top.

I'd be mortified if I saw someone doing what I did, but it was a one off.

With the parent in question, who can say? It may be she was at the end of her tether. She might use that kind of language with her child every day or she might just be a bitch. You can guess, but you can't generally tell on one hearing.

YANBU but it's a sad fact that parents (a) snap occasionally and (b) sometimes fall into the habit of shouting at our kids (not that I think I have, but I couldn't judge someone who had).

Poor little mite....

I've sad bad stuff too. But that sounds like a really cruel threat.
Maybe 'shut up' or 'go away' or whatever, but a complicated I'm going to lock you in the car AND I'm going to walk away AND so is daddy.
terrible. sorry, but however stressed out you are, you don't say things like that.

Sometimes parents say things with humour, as well, when they're in a good mood, then say them when they're really unhappy too, not realising how harsh it sounds to others.

I used to tell my girl I'd open the window and drop her onto the decking if she played up. Her general response was to say that she'd bounce on her head, which wouldn't be good. But if a stranger overheard me, and dd didn't give her standard approach, they'd probably think I was evil!!!! Which I'm not!

Its strange that as a trainee social worker (the vulnerable children field) i am quite sensitive to how people treat their children, but its through my own personal experiences that ive realised that theres often more to what we see, like Sqilly- im sure that if a total stranger were to see how i react to DD sometimes they would think she'd need taking away from me, but this is not the case atall! Sometimes i am so clouded by my own stresses that i dont realise how my words may be perceived by DD or anyone else for that matter!

'Criticise the behaviour not the child' is the mantra, isn't it?

It is difficult to remember that sometimes (a lot of the time!) but I know from my own experience that being told 'you are X,Y or Z' rather than 'the way you are behaving is X,Y or Z' can be so damaging.

I struggle at times with DS2 but I know that telling him he is X,Y or Z rather than his behaviour - becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Oliver James the media psych wrote a book called 'They f**k you up, your mum and dad' which I found really interesting and helpful.

Bubble99 I LOVED that book. It was fascinating and should be read by every person who's had a crappy upbringing.

It's been a while since I read it, but I'm sure it was partly about how we relate to different family members depending on age, etc. I am the youngest of 6 so seen as the baby, despite being 40+!

Sorry...|'m digressing. You're right...we criticise behaviour not the personality, but it's hard to do that when stressed sometimes.

I've never called my dd anything drastic, but I'm not saying I never would. It's hard to tell til you're in that position.

Thats a horrible thing for a child to hear, but people do say such things when they are stressed.

I remember my own, darling, beloved mother saying to my brother and I "go and pack your stuff, your going to live with another family!". She was joking of course (and totally out of the blue, she'd never said anything of the sort before).

I don't think it fudged me up - but I still think about it to this day, and would never, ever, EVER dream of saying anything like that to my own.