There are not many parents who will openly admit to abusing
their children mainly because most parents do not believe they are abusing
their child at all. This occurs because there is not an exact line drawn
between abusive or regular discipline. What one person thinks is wrong may
believe it is okay. Personally I think that physical discipline such as harsh
hitting is pushing the boundaries but what I hate the most is mental abuse.
Mental abuse I feel is most common because parents believe that if they are not
touching their child then they are fine. Being grounded or put in a time-out is
considered a normal punishment but where is becomes abuse is the reason they
are being punished. One place I have seen harsh punishment is in my sport of
baseball. Younger kids are being punished or yelled at for messing up and not
doing “amazing”. What parents don’t understand that in baseball you will ALWAYS
fail more than you succeed. A batter can get a hit 3 times out of 10 tries and
that is hitting .300 which in the baseball world is a great batting average.
What some parents see is 3 out of 10 which in school is 30% or better known as an
“F”. I know that this is not exactly the “worst case” of punishment but my
point is that parents need to understand why they are punishing their kids and
make sure it is justified.
Hey southpaw!
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you that a lot of parents do not admit that they are abusing their child because they think what they are doing is just some form of discipline for their child. This idea of abusive parenting is very subjective since there is a fine line between the two. I believe sometimes parents get abusive because they did not get what they want from the child, or the child anger them that it is some sort of release for their anger. You bring up a good thought with that no matter what the parents do to punish their kids they have to make sure the punishment is justified. Good posts this week!
SOUTHPAW,
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of the points that you made in your post. The first being the part about mental abuse. I believe this is a real problem with a lot of children. With some parents, it's almost as if they are playing mind games and showing their supremacy through that. Like you said, they don't think they are doing anything wrong because it isn't physical abuse. I also agree that in the sports world is where a lot of children experience mental abuse. Children are supposed to play sports and games for "the love of the game", but how can they do this when they get punished for doing something wrong? Great post SOUTHPAW.