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.

People didn't realise that these things would have a negative effect on children. Even although ut wasn't that long ago. A lot of people still don't, and its not because they don't care about their kids, thats ridiculous. With every generation we learn more about child development and the effects of certain things on children.

The 1990s really, really isn't that long ago. I was bringing up children in the 1990s (actually typo in earlier post, should have been 1996). People who wanted to know the official take on child development did know. Everybody who had a baby through the NHS got issued with a yellow book on pregnancy and a blue book on child development: they were full of parenting strategies and information. Of course there were people who didn't bother to read the books, but that was nothing to do with progress: plenty of people today don't bother to learn about parenting either.

Needless to say my kids are not perfect!

I remember my father used to threaten to call the ‘police man’ when we were naughty or sometimes the children’s home and actually pick up the phone and pretend to do it

This was done by my mother but she seemed to forget she had already put me in a children’s home a few times and I preferred it to bring with her so what ever I was doing I would ramp it up because I didn’t want to be there.

I never used the naughty step or sticker charts.
But I didn’t really have any real rules apart from safety stuff.

If dcs didn’t want to do something and in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t doing anyone any harm then I never forced or threatened anything.

My mother would threaten all sorts of things that in my mind were far preferable than spending anytime with her.

Stranger coming to take me away.
Bring it on they couldn’t be worse.

Just for historical context, fairytales were literally the same thing; stories to scare kids into not wandering or behaving in a certain way.

My parents used to threaten us with going to the orphanage. I have honestly not thought about it since I was a kid. I also dont remember much of my childhood but I definitely wasnt mistreated in any way. I just have a horrendous memory even now as an adult. I had very loving parents who are still fantastic.

I guess some things were just accepted in the past. Now we have a different attitude to parenting and raising children. I think pre 90s parents just did what they wanted. Now we have to know every bit of research and recommendation out there before making any decisions. I myself wouldn't smack my kids or threaten for someone to take them away as I would feel bad, but I dont hate my parents at all for doing what they did.

Same here, 90s child and was threatened with the children's home enough times to remember it. Even remember my brother talking to me separately about being worried he'd have to go into a home.

I don't blame my mum, she wasn't (and still isn't) very maternal due to her own awful childhood and just wasn't very emotionally skilled.

After feeling 'offended' by my parenting style with my DC my mum has now come round to my way of thinking, eg "you're a kind DC but you did a mean thing in doing xyz to your sibling" etc. Zero threats of anyone taking anyone away. This sits more comfortably with me. Time will tell I guess!

I actually find this thread quite disturbing. All generations of parents including this generation have made unwise choices and mistakes. That doesn’t make my parents ,myself and husband or my children when they have children abusive ! There is a big difference between threatening to tell Santa you have been naughty ,you will be sent to boarding schooland actual sexual,physical,disturbing psychological abuse !
I have a brother who has spent his whole life blaming my parents for his life choices so am actually pretty intolerant of people who point the finger at their parents when they have any problems as an adult.
I hasten to add that genuine ,premeditated abuse and cruelty towards a child or anyone else is absolutely abhorrent.

My Dad threatened us with boarding school, which led to my sister and I begging to go.
We had a happy home but had read all the Enid Blyton boarding school stories and were really keen on midnight feasts and a school with a swimming pool

@Grandmi, I agree. It is just the typical blame culture we have now though.

From my experience parenting years ago was shit all around. People didint really care about kids then, like they do now.

well aren't you just the epitome of assuming your experience is the only one?
Let's just write off all previous people on earth as being uncaring.
My parents loved and cared for me. Their parents loved and cared for them. None of them used to scare small children at night time. I think you might find that people loved their kids before the year 2000

I also question the idea that parents now care for their kids more. I don't see a generation of happy kids who know they are loved. I see a generation of over anxious kids with high rates of mental health problems and low resilience. Seems like the current generation (which includes me too) aren't doing such a great job really.

From my experience parenting years ago was shit all around. People didint really care about kids then, like they do now.

There will be children brought up today saying this in 20 years time from now. Let's just all hope none of them will be ours.

Everybody has personal responsibility for how they treat the people around them. Everybody has the responsibility of thinking "was this that I just said a good idea?" #

Dr Spock, who advocates a more humane approach to discipline was hugely popular in the post-war period and right up until the 80s- and available in cheap paperbacks. The volume I have retailed at about 60p in the 70s- which even then was not a lot of money. It is simply not the case that advice on child development was not available. People chose whether to access it or not.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the 'if you don't come/walk along right now, we will leave without you' thing. Maybe because this threat is one that current parents still use frequently?
To me it doesn't make any sense. You should only make threats you are willing, and able, to actually go through with if needed. If your child knows you'd never leave them alone on the footpath/in the shop/in the park (or knows you'd never send them to a children's home/have 'a man' pick them up), then why should the threat 'work' and cause the child to behave. If they are at all unsure about you actually going ahead with the threat, then you are parenting by fear and coercion. And in fact it still might not work, as in, might not achieve the desired behaviour. The child who is unsure if you will actually go ahead with it, might still not do the desired thing, either because they were not being 'naughty' but had a genuine reason, or because that insecurity about your parents requires you to check, test it, push the boundaries to get that reassurance that in fact, they would never abandon you. The less the child trusts you to be there for them, the more they will seek that reassurance, by testing and testing the limits.

As a parent of a child who does not have that elementary trust (adopted from care so knows deep down that parents can and do abandon you, unlike my other child who without ever needing to think about it, knows that his parents would never abandon him) - I have grown to realise the value of that fundamental trust and how it affects a child's relation with the world on every level. I think playing around with this trust and risking it for empty threats of abandonment is rather stupid. A child who is totally secure in their parents' love would be able to take it as a joke and empty threat. But how would it then work to affect their behaviour? Whereas if a child is already not fully secure, then threats like this further undermine that sense of security. I'd rather have a child who takes my love for granted, than a child who feels they have to earn it with good behaviour, and if they don't measure up, I might send them to 'the man'. Is that 'entitlement'? Yes, entitled to my love. That doesn't mean entitled to do whatever they want, have whatever they want. There are obviously consequences - but those consequences do not include losing the right to be loved by their parents.

I don't know if we're doing 'better' than other generations of parents, I think that can't be easily compared, other generations had other circumstances and contexts, other difficulties to deal with.

My own childhood memory is very hazy, and could be due to trauma (little sister dying when I was 4). My mum sometimes points out how differently we parent, but mostly in a way that she wishes she had been confident enough to do it like we do, rather than going with the norm at the time. I don't remember any 'will send you away' / 'will leave you here alone if you don't walk now' threats (but then, my memory is hazy, as mentioned, so could be that's why rather than it didn't happen). Child of the 70s. Unlike what some have been saying, from the little I remember I had a very gentle childhood, with no physical violence, nor fear-inducing threats. To some extent it is down to the times, but to some extent it is also a choice the parents make.

Well said @Grandmi.

From my experience parenting years ago was shit all around. People didint really care about kids then, like they do now.

Utter rubbish - people have always cared about kids. Obviously some didn't but there are still people who don't. Every generation thinks their way is the right way - only for the next to say it wasn't!

I also question the idea that parents now care for their kids more. I don't see a generation of happy kids who know they are loved. I see a generation of over anxious kids with high rates of mental health problems and low resilience.

This is so true. When I was a child (many years ago!) we didn't believe we were the centre of the universe and that we would always get what we wanted. We learned that life isn't always fair, that not everyone can be winners - and that we had to cope with that. Which breeds resilience.

The only thing I remember about not sleeping, in my childhood, was getting smacked.
When ds1 was afraid to sleep I created a mummy bubble around the house and got nightlights.
Ds2 was totally unimpressed, when I tried the bubble with him, but nightlights everywhere worked.

My mother tried this once when I was about 4 (presumably it had worked on my half siblings previously as 3 of them are absolute racist twats). It backfired on her, though.

I was discovered sitting on the first stair by the front door, dressed in my frilliest skirt and toy beads with a scarf around my head, crayons in a little woven bag I'd made, my favourite cat on my lap and the dog going mad because I'd put his lead on.

Yep, when those Gypsies came round, I was going to be ready for a quick getaway.

She never threatened to have me kidnapped, sold or taken away ever again.

Shame, really, I'd have loved it if she'd put me into care.

I remember my mum making me write a letter to social services/the police, explaining the bads things I'd done. If I didn't write the letter, they'd come and take me away.

I genuinely believe that my mum enjoys cruelty though, so such things are to be expected. She gets a kick out of manipulating and upsetting others.

*bad

My aunt did this used to pretend to phone the children’s home, my cousin knocked the crap out of me whenever he could when no adults around.

My parents would 'threaten' us with boarding school. That worked until, around 8 and10, both of us expressed an interesting in going...😂

Interestingly, decades on, my DB still sort of wishes he'd've had a chance to go! But it would have been Charterhouse, say, in his mind's eye.

I’ve only skimmed the comments but have to say, anecdotally, this type of “parenting trick” was really really common and generally viewed as harmless/funny.

Hell would freeze over before I’d ever say anything like this to my kids, but at the same time, taken on it’s own I can’t see it as abusive. It’s just one of those things that we know now isn’t the most helpful or kindest tactic.

I had to put my foot down and stop my mum coming out with stupid shit when she was looking after my DC. Threatening to give all their toys away to “Lucy, the (imaginary) little girl down the road” if they didn’t tidy up. I’m not a fan of idle threats.

I think lots of us could point to something that our parents said/did that was probably less than ideal. Not everyone, but lots. Just poor judgement not abuse. Popular parenting trends change - just look at “cry it out”. Now known to be harmful to a baby but even 10 yrs ago it was still being widely advised.

@brilliotic I agree with al your points about trust. You've hit the nail on the head for me; I didn't trust my mum very much (not abusive or frightening, more unpredictable) so have tried to make sure my DC know 'love and safety' are both certain, but they are challenged on poor behaviour etc.