How bad - or normal - was this parenting "trick"? (90s)

[CornwallCucumber]

Been thinking about my childhood recently and how little I can remember of it. I googled this and found something to do with depression and amnesia, and how kids with bad childhoods repress their memories. I don't think I was abused as a child but I tried to cast my memory back to my worst childhood experiences I could remember, wondering if anything could explain it. I came to the conclusion that it's probably just plain poor memory and nothing to do with trauma, but anyway - I remembered a "trick" my dad would use to get me to shut up and go to sleep, and now that I reflect on it as a parent myself it seems pretty cruel. I'm wondering how normal this sort of threat actually was back then:

I was always terrified of being on my own in a room especially at night and if I didn't have a parent with me I was too scared to fall asleep. If for whatever reason they didn't want to sit with me, I would scream and cry and refuse to sleep. If this continued and I didn't settle down my dad would pretend to phone a man to ask him to come and take me away because I wasn't behaving. He would actually pick up the phone and have a theatrically loud pretend conversation about how I'm being naughty and not sleeping and okay great, you can pick her up soon then. Then I'd go quiet because I was four and that sounded scary, and he'd say to this man, hang on, don't worry, she's settled down now. Then I'd just lie there feeling terrified, not of being taken away, but of whatever it was that scared me in the first place - monsters, the dark, ghosts, I'm not actually sure what precisely but I know it was a real fear and not just a bedtime delaying thing. And I guess I eventually did sleep. I don't know when it started and ended but I'm sure this trick was used from at least he age of 4-6.

Now I look back on it I think that was pretty shitty although I can see how you might go to desperate measures when dealing with kids who just won't sleep.

How normal were these sort of parenting threats in the 90s?

Also, this shouldn't be necessary and I'm sure it also has no legal standing but FUCK OFF tabloids, you do not have permission to share this story or quote any of my posts.

@CornwallCucumber I wanted to say that I also had a bad childhood. I saw a specialist therapist a couple of years ago and he explained that, as your research found, the reason for me being able to remember very little of my childhood was related to trauma. Just being told that, and having it acknowledged, lifted a weight.

I have a number of fears - dark (whether in my own home, garden, etc.), being alone in the woods, etc. - that are related to my childhood, and still affect me now. Understanding the cause helps.

It's abusive

Yes causes trauma

Sounds like a last resort type of thing.

If my child was screaming, crying and refusing to sleep for no good reason it would wear thin with me too.

I was a seventies child , I’d say this was pretty ‘normal’ for the old days.
Old codgers now like to make out that kids were easily controlled by a stern look and a swift beating every now and then but I think the truth is more likely that they tried any and every ‘trick’ and scare tactic going.
They didn’t have the education we have now about parenting and child development. Parents back then were winging it way more than our middle class yummy mummie like to claim they do nowadays.
Don’t forget, many many parents were teens, early twenties when they had their kids. Kids raising kids.
It sounds horrific now and of course,regardless of the intent, the cortisol affect on the child will be the same, but at the time it was just desperation and not seen as abusive.

I think every generation has that sort of strategy OP. So pretty normal.🤷‍♀️

I’m feeling terrible now as i have sometimes threatened to phone my dd’s teacher if she was having a tantrum! I hate the idea I’ve caused any trauma. My dd’s teacher also a friend/Colleague. Another thing to feel guilty about.

@Happymum12345

I’m feeling terrible now as i have sometimes threatened to phone my dd’s teacher if she was having a tantrum! I hate the idea I’ve caused any trauma. My dd’s teacher also a friend/Colleague. Another thing to feel guilty about.

Parenting can be a fucking desperate time. We’ve all done and said and threatened ridiculous things I’m sure. Sometimes having kids feels like being in an emotionally abusive relationship. We wouldn’t accept some of their behaviour from friends or partners so it’s no surprise we sometimes buckle under the pressure. As long as your kids know they’re loved, you’re not deliberately cruel or abusive and you are able to say sorry when you need to , they won’t be irreparably harmed. Like someone upthread was talking about being scared of the dark and we all grew up being scared of the bogeyman. It’s just archetypes, centuries worth of fairy tales and fables are based on fear and control. These are universal fears, we all grow up knowing a version of them. We have learned so much about how to do things differently. When you know better you do better but I challenge anyone to do it all perfectly. Don’t beat yourself up, there’s enough people out there ready to criticise without us doing it to ourselves.

I found that positively brainwashing mine that their beds were the warmest, softest beds in the house, that it was lovely to curl up in bed, worked well. They both love their beds.

I really can't imagine knowing mine were lying still in fear at night. I wouldn't be able to relax with that guilt. Not sure if it was a 90s thing or just a selfish and mean thing he did.

I wouldn't say that was common at all. I've never heard of it. And it seems especially wrong with a child that young.

I was born in 1977 and never heard of any parent doing that ever since- and it was common/fairly normal to smack children then, most of us were smacked, so it's not like people were particularly sensitive. x

I think there is a lot of overreaction on this thread. I don't think you need therapy or that it was abusive. Your dad was probably exhausted from your behaviour. It probably wasn't just pure terror of the dark that stopped you from sleeping either. I sit with my children before they fall asleep because I want to, not because they are scared of the dark. I read to them for a long time every night first. Sometimes they just tit about and won't settle down though even after all the reading and wind down time, and I know if they just stopped getting out of bed/doing forward rolls/opening the curtains etc and stayed still and stopped messing about they would be asleep in seconds. With one of them I say I will leave the room if they carry on messing around and that usually stops them. Otherwise I will eventually leave them to fall asleep on their own if I've already been in there about an hour and have things to do, and rather are ok with that. I've never left them crying. With the other I tell them that giants will be out soon and don't let them catch him awake. That always settles him down, not with terror, but with a smile on his face. I can tell he is about 90% sure I'm joking but he won't risk it so he stops messing around. He is a confident imaginative child, not scared of the dark or bed times. I wouldn't say this to the older sibling because they really would be scared. I know my children. Childhood imaginations are weird and wonderful, children's stories are often terrifying. Sometimes you need your child to sleep because they will become exhausted otherwise. The odd scary story from a loving parent isn't emotional abuse in my opinion. I think scaring children with bogeymen and threats CAN be abusive, but most of the time isn't.

Going against the grain I don’t think this is really that bad or abusive. A bit mean perhaps but I’m sure most of my friends have mentioned their parents doing similar tricks and none of us are traumatised.

My mum used to pretend she’d been “possessed” by a creepy old man when I was being annoying. My dad did other things I consider abusive so I’m not talking from the perspective of having had a perfect childhood. It has never occurred to me to consider the creepy old man thing in any way abusive, in fact I hadn’t even thought about or remembered it til I read this. I would laugh about it now like your cousins

Parents used to threaten us with Esther Rantzen!

I was threatened by my parents with being taken into care if I didn't 'behave'. Yep, emotionally abusive.

My dad was abusive in other ways but he didn't do this.

Sometimes you need your child to sleep because they will become exhausted otherwise.

@user32723 But this didn't help OP sleep, she was up for ages fretting about the dark etc. It sounds like you know your children and are attentive to their needs. OP's parents were not in this instance.

If a child is/was frightened of the dark, people would leave the door open a bit on to the lit hall, or maybe by the 90s have one of the glowing plugs/some night light or something.

@SoulofanAggron

My dad was abusive in other ways but he didn't do this.

Sometimes you need your child to sleep because they will become exhausted otherwise.

@user32723 But this didn't help OP sleep, she was up for ages fretting about the dark etc. It sounds like you know your children and are attentive to their needs. OP's parents were not in this instance.

If a child is/was frightened of the dark, people would leave the door open a bit on to the lit hall, or maybe by the 90s have one of the glowing plugs/some night light or something.

Night lights were invented before the nineties. And I’m pretty sure that before Edison invented the lightbulb we had candles. Don’t quote me on that though, my memory is a little shaky due to my age.

People on here are talking like the 1990s were the bloody dark ages.
Behaving in an abusive fashion wasn't acceptable then as it isn't now.
I was born in the 70s () and my parents wouldn't have dreamed of behaving like this.
I'm sorry that you have such horrible memories op.

@famousforwrongreason

I think it was less common in the 90s than previous decades, my sister used to tell my nephew he would go to the bad boy's home if he didn't behave in the 90s though.

I was a child of the 80s and was told the Gypsies would come and steal me which terrified me as did the threats of the bogeyman.

I too think this is an overreaction. I sometimes used to tell my daughter that I phone the police if she didn't behave. It worked!

I don't think this traumatised her!

Child of the seventies here. We were threatened with the orphanage, the rainbarrel, the police, the ‘man who would take us away in his black bag’, the ‘boodie man’, ‘Jack the Black’ (don’t ask) etc.

Pretty standard, and my parents were uneducated, unused to children, had far too many of them, were overwhelmed and replicat8ng their own (fairly dysfunctional) upbringings.

Anyone else have to say prayers where effectively God got to play the bogeyman and decided if you lived or died overnight in your sleep?

That was special.

I used to get gold I would be sent with the gypsies. I was also often told they were given the wrong baby by the hospital. I used to wish it was true! But I think my mother thought it was funny as we looked very alike.

She was in turn told my grandparents got her from the gypsies.

I’ve tried really hard to make sure I didn’t ever let my children think they were anything but loved and wanted but I’m pretty sure I’ve ducked up in some other way they will remember as adults 🤷🏻‍♀️

@JamieLeeCurtains

Anyone else have to say prayers where effectively God got to play the bogeyman and decided if you lived or died overnight in your sleep?

That was special.

Yup. And the nuns taught us to sleep with our arms crossed on our chests (we were six or seven) in case we died in our sleep, which apparently would help us go straight to heaven. Cheery times.

@Feagle, 1960s-70s perchance?