People Are Calling Out Toxic Parenting Tactics That Are Still Often Viewed As “Normal” (30 Answers)

My daughter was around 10 years old and we had gotten into an argument about something where she was in the right. When I paused to take a breathe she said "Sorry or thank you?" I realised she had a very good point and I said Sorry. It must have been something she had picked up in school but I learned a lesson that day.

I'm 50 and still don't have a voice. It made for 2 interesting marriages.

Children need to learn humility and true repentance. If you never apologize or admit you're wrong it's teaching them to be stubborn and unsympathetic when they do something wrong.

I did all of those, when I apologised I made it clear what I was apologising for, ie what you did was wrong and the punishment still stands but I am sorry for shouting at you the way I did.

Agreed

Or openly asking kids if they have a boy/girlfriend, especially in front of other people... massive cringe!

Sometimes you don't do this, but they still do it themselves. My (at that time) 4 you (I think) wanted to marry a friend's kid. Now 7 yo, still wants to marry that same kid.

yes!! I wrestle and mostly its boy's but my stepmother tells them that I think their cute and tells me that I have a crush on them but she knows I have a boy friend. Like wtf. this is a little off topic but she say's I love you to my boy friend. She is 15 yrs older than me and my boyfriend. He would never do anything with her because she is not a person most people want to be around and. So I don't know how to feel about that i'm not jealous or anything its just weird af.

Or saying you cannot be friends with the opposite gender, ever, only a sex object/future mate/etc.

My 14 year old daughter has always had boys among her friends, from the age of around 6. It's pretty normal these days, I thought.

This is my mum to my bro and us all "your dad wanted me to abort you, you should be grateful to me" and then goes on "I still regret having u all" then throws in all possible verbal abuse u can think of 🤦‍♀️

Hmm, not sure about this. I think it's good to teach kids "when you have a problem, talk about it". Not to b!tch about their other parent though. But to tell them your problems so they can see how an an adult deals with problems, I see no problem in that.

There are two different issues here .. putting down your child’s parent isn’t right ever But talking to your children like your a human is absolutly ok when age appropriate. There is nothing wrong with shareing your hurts and pain and disappointments with your kids .. age appropriate of course .. I may not tell my 7 year old how scared I am about finances but if he sees me sad about losing a day position I wanted I can absolutly share with him mommy didn’t get the job she wanted and she’s a little sad about it .. he doesn’t need to know my fears about the future but it’s ok for him to see me as a human with feelings ... pretending parents are super human isn’t healthy .. no you can’t dump all your problems on your kids and yes it needs to be age appropriate but my mom and I share our hurts and pain and feelings with each other because we are adults and we aren’t fake .. I share the same with my adult son and he in turn comes to me when he’s hurting ...

I tried to be their therapist for 1 year. Failed miserably. Wrecked my life.

My mom does this to me but I don't really mind much I guess.

If you say you have to do it. So if you say "no punishment" no punishment as to be. They've to trust you. So if there is something bad happens to them they will tell you and not keep a secret otherwise parents get mad.

Being punished is not the same as being yelled at. Actions have consequences, but yelling or getting mad is not helpful. Punishing can be, depending on the root cause.

This is bullshit. I’ve taught my son that I won’t be angry as long as they tell the truth it doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to their actions. I just won’t become irrationally angry when he steals from me to buy in game purchases but that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook.

There was a great Cosby Show episode on this. Bill Cosby himself may be cancelled, but that show was one of the best things to ever happen on TV.

OMFG this drives me so crazy and like I cant even express my feelings because the conversation flips and my stepmother is like oh pity me and says "I feel this all the time and you manipulate people to think your life is worse... a mothers Job is so underappreciated"

You need to learn deal with failure through small things in childhood in order to be prepared for big failures in adulthood. It's like being expected to swim through a lake without any swimming lessons otherwise.

"Try again, fail again. Fail better" -Samuel Beckett

Well, I tried to tell my parents exactly this, and they said, "Okay then. Since you're independent we'll stop caring about you." So giving your kids freedom to fail == stop caring about them. If you have uncultured, uneducated, barbaric parents, the first 25 years of your life are quite hard.

Failure is always an option, how else have we learned from anything?

The greatest gift you can give your child is to NOT interfere. Children are smart until their parents tell them they aren't. And one way parents do that is to "fix" everything. Because when you do, you just told them that they cannot take care of themselves and you set them up for failure when they become adults.

The whole concept of teaching a kid they're not allowed to talk back is the source of so many adults being unable to speak their minds and tolerate crap until they either get depressed, abused or have a breakdown.

Respect has nothing to do with age. You should respect older ones for their additional experience not for their age. Everything else tells the lesson that respect is not to be earned but just comes...which essentially tells you that there are easy excemptions from being respectful.

We would have arguments. When my parents were right they would go on and berate me for hours for being 'stupid' or 'evil'. On the rare occasions I would win the argument, and this would take overwhelming evidence on my side, they would just tell me "thats it, end of discussion" No apology or aknowledgement that they were wrong, just an immediate shutting down.

THIS...

They can argue their point but both parents and child need to be respectful of the other.

I remember when I was about 8 (64 now)coming home from school with mud on my school skirt. Mother stripped me down to my underwear and made me sit outside on the front door step. Never did that again, lol

That is the worst thing. They get enough of that from their peers and learn to deal with it. From their parents it NEVER goes away.

Especially when you record it and put it on social media.

My mother did this to me a lot during my childhood. I could never understand how someone who is supposed to love me could do that.

My father did this to me. Not in public, but at home with 45 minutes to an hour of standing over me, ranting on & on about how stupid I was. I honestly don't remember him ever telling me to my face that he loved me, or was proud of me for anything - he would tell my mom when I wasn't around, and she would tell me later when he wasn't there. And I will NEVER forget the day he said "I wish you had never been born, I never wanted you anyway", and then he walked out of the room. That happened when I was 14 or 15 - I'm 69 years old now, and I can still hear his voice & see his angry face in my mind.

Taking away your kid's bedroom door so they can't change in private is perverted.

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Debatable. There are many stories that children were saved because of that. Or could have been saved. I know it's unpopular opinion, but it's not always easy to be close to your children and know what's going on in their lives without snooping.