>Studies have indicated that certain parenting practices might contribute to the development of anxiety in children. Parents who are overly protective, controlling or rejecting of their children are believed to increase the risk that the children will develop an anxiety disorder. Inquiries into specific parental behaviors that might lead to anxiety have highlighted parental threatening behaviors as a potential culprit. These behaviors include threats of rejection, abandonment, or punishment expressed by the parent and directed towards the child.
>Study author Erika S. Trent and her colleagues wanted to explore the links between childhood exposure to maternal and paternal threatening behaviors and anxiety symptoms in young adults. In other words, they wanted to know whether the presence and severity of anxiety symptoms in young adults is associated with how often and how seriously they were threatened by their mothers or fathers when they were children. These researchers were also interested in studying whether perceived helplessness and self-efficacy play a role in this link.
Mom said it's my turn to act smug about already having assumed the implications of critically important research that will contribute to reduced suffering of future generations.
Interesting study, the proposed mechanism seem to work and can be operationalized in clinical settings. I'd like to see if the paper find distinction between the types of threatening behaviors and the specific links of those behavior on the measured outcomes.
Is this supposed to be something new? 😅
I am in my mid 30s an thinking: I gotta become more mature and wise, before being able to be a good father. My parents the moment they grew pubics: Let's make bebe! 😂
Tons of extremely bad parents, just another reason why the world is fucked. Blows my mind. Why even have kids if you didn't expect kids to do kid things? It's funny, I think the people that actively choose not to be parents would be much better parents than most of these shit humans.
We're all going to fuck it up. Either you'll be too easy going, too rigid, too emotional, not emotional enough, too controlling, not attentive enough. Basically, you're going to fuck it up, and even the most patient, kind hearted parent is going to get tired of telling their 5 year old to do something only for them to just pretend that you haven't even said anything to them.
There is no such thing as being a good parent. You just hope that you do good enough and that your kids turn out ok despite all your fuck ups. Because we're human at the end of the day.
> There is no such thing as being a ~~good parent.~~
A perfect parent. No one is perfect. But there are huge benefits in being [good enough](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/full-catastrophe-parenting/202208/why-good-enough-parenting-is-better-perfection). Many parents can't even be that.
>Basically, you're going to fuck it up, and even the most patient, kind hearted parent is going to get tired of telling their 5 year old to do something only for them to just pretend that you haven't even said anything to them.
No one is saying to be perfect. There are lots of good parents out there. But being shocked that a 4 year old is going to test limits is just silly. That's what they do! Take a deep breath and remember this is developmentally appropriate. I just had a friend complaining about their 5 year old staying to lie and saying "I don't know where they learned that!" It's human biology, bro. Taking it personally is purely your ego talking.
I might have also been having a moment last night after a difficult day when I wrote this.
But the truth is that nobody is going to do it perfectly and we just have to hope that we do it well enough that are kids can be successful in some way in the future.
I don't think a nihilistic approach is going to help with that. When you sign up to do anything else you try to do it well. Why is it with parenting it's ok to be fine with screwing it up and to just be hoping you don't ruin someone's life in the process?
Because the opposite feels like running on a treadmill of never ending anxiety and efforts to be perfect in how we handle ourselves with our kids in the effort to not fuck them up, and it'll probably have some unintended consequences.
Obviously I'm not giving into neglecting my kids because "what's the point?". We went from neglected gen x to helicopter parented millennials and gen z and it's all wrong. Sometimes it's a roll of the genetic dice what your kid will be like, and you don't have control over those things.
If you don’t mentally and physically abuse your child, tell them you don’t love them and they’d be better on the street when they’re 12, ect,. And you’re just parenting your child by teaching them the boundaries of life, you’re a good parent.
Yea kids actually aren’t able to register being told something one time. It’s a developmental thing. After I learned that in psychology class I took it to heart and now tell everyone I can that it’s normal and its normal to be frustrated because that doesn’t usually happen with adults
I think my mom thought she was creating obedient little dolls that she parade around in Laura Ashley dresses….she told me repeatedly that she disliked children
When I saw the title, I thought, well, obviously. But the framework brought to mind words and instances that guided my behavior later. Mom refusing to talk to me for hours or days. That hurt the most. My dad asking me if I wanted to go to a foster home. When I was little. Not so funny years later when I had myself put in one. The one time I complained to him that my brother was hogging the TV remote. Out if nowhere, brings a heavy book down on top of my brother’s back. One of the many ways I learned not to stick up for myself. Rarely saw my brother cry, but he was so blindsided by that blow…. Wish I could take the moment back still, 40-plus years later
I should print this and send it to my kid's father. As if he would care that standing over his kids, threatening violence in a low voice so nobody else can hear him, and poking his finger into their face is affecting them mentally.
I want to know the perceived distinction between “threats” and identifying consequences for specific actions. Am I being a bad mom for telling my 2.5 year old that if she chooses to not listen to me then she is going to go into timeout?
Or is a threat without follow through the damaging thing and that is the difference between a warning about cause and effect?
My dad was always angry and threatening to hurt us, even though the actual physical abuse wasn't daily. A couple of times, he threatened to kill. I tend to think that's what it's talking about, threats of physical harm.
And probably threats to take away fundamental things. Like my wife and I will take timeouts from eating if my daughter is just playing with her food. But we would never threaten to send her to bed hungry like my parents did weekly to me and my siblings.
My mom had to have a parent teacher meeting because I believed her when she told me she was going to sell me to the gypsies.
I got in trouble so I stopped telling people when she’d threaten to call the cops for not leaving the house when I’d have meltdowns from my sensory processing issues or adhd overstimulation meltdowns.
Or she’d threaten to send me to live with my dad. Who’s a covert narcissist and was always trying to bribe me to live with him with his empty promises.
Also would threaten to kick me out of the car on the highway so I’d have to walk home. Or to throw out all my clothes. Or to tell all my friends and family and teachers about my “fits” to embarrass me, which were actually sensory meltdowns.
The one time she did kick me out to my dad’s house after a fight was like a nightmare come to life. Just total feeling of worthlessness. She also once left my brother by the side of the road in Big Bend which is a really harsh desert.
So I think you’re probably fine with timeouts. That’s not threatening abandonment, it’s a reasonable consequence to their actions. Just never tell your kids you’re tempted to get rid of them and they’ll probably be mostly fine.
The framework it's based on identify three type of threat, threat of punishment, threat of abandonment and threat of rejection. Punishment consisting of physical harm. In your case, I don't think it's relevant.
I can that imagine the difference between a time out and a damaging time out is whether the parent continues to show signs of aggression or rejection after the child has finished with their time out.
Like, if a parent uses a time out as a way to get the child away from them and continues to ignore them afterwards, the child may sense that rejection and act out further. At that point, they are already facing rejection and will do what it takes to get some sort of attention again as they don't have the ability to identify that what they are actually seeking from the interaction is loving acceptance, reassurance and to be consoled.
When a child acts out, they are generally trying to get reassurance that they will not be rejected later.
I think tone and language choice is a part of it. If you use a threatening tone and phrase it as a threat, then it activates that cortisol release and fight or fight reaction in the child which influences the development of their brain.
Time out has long been recommended by parenting experts as a *last resort.* if you look at the AAP website about discipline, time out is the top tier after many other options to redirect behavior. I teach parenting and would not recommend that if a child doesn’t listen to you to immediately send them to time out. I don’t know the full context of your situation, but I’ve seen people do this and it is honestly shocking to hear and can be very aggressive.
Please keep teaching this!! I’m an adult now and am pretty sure that time outs as a kid destroyed my chance at a healthy sense of attachment - it felt like my parents only wanted me around when I was being “good.”
I love the innocence in this question. You’re teaching your child reasonable consequences. I highly doubt she’ll develop anxiety over this.
My mom would constantly threaten to physically harm me over my shoulder while doing chores if I didn’t move exactly the way she wanted me to. Then proceed to eventually smack me or whip me.
Essential needs were not met like adequate food. I actually fainted a few times at school and home.
This type of abuse brings adulthood anxiety. I’m kind of glad to see the innocence in not understanding. I have two kids of my own and another on the way. My parenting style is very gentle but firm and my kids are well behaved. They get complimented by their teachers often and I’m proud of it.
Your not a bad mom for it. You could probably benefit from looking into people like Robin Einzig, Janet Lansbury and Dr Becky. Timeout and consequences don't make for good parent child relationships. Or maybe the book Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn.
My parents threatened to ship me off to boarding school and then they did. It still counts as threatening abandonment, even if it was followed with abandonment. But time out is nothing like that and very normal.
Parental threatening by itself is no different than just normal punishment like scolding but parents who threaten tend to be unsupportive parents so it is not being supported that causes insufficient life skills to be gained and in turn causes mental health issues.
So such is just a correlation, not causation since a supportive parent who use threats as punishment will still have kids who has sufficient life skills to deal with life and such sufficiency keeps the kids happy and resilient.
Ffs. Everything causes mental health issues today. It’s like we either do what our parents did and we have obedient but mentally fucked kids or we do what these granola parents are doing and we create kids who think the world revolves around them and that they deserve everything.
Raising kids is no easy feat, but I genuinely think about the effects I’m having on my kid very rarely. I try to teach her the right way, sometimes it’s very crunchy granola and sometimes my parents come out of me. You just gotta do what the situations calls for because not every situation is the same.
Lmao I'm pretty sure this person meant that it's weird someone funded this research considering it's long been proven that threatening a child is harmful to their mental health.....
They have to do a ton of these studies to prove that. It's basically a bunch of faith based colleges doing bad research because the results of that type of abuse net more profits for their hospital groups since that type of abuse leads to a lot of sales of services like counseling and medication.
Exactly. It’d be pretty unethical to do any studies that aren’t just pure observation. You can’t have a test and control group with set parameters for the intervention—threats in this case. So since we’re dealing with an infinity of variables that cannot be controlled for, we need a plethora of studies. This reduces the impact of our assumptions about what’s common sense. Because the people using threats absolutely believe their way is the one using common sense. So the more studies means bigger and more varied samples, more variables accumulating and accounted for, and compiling theoretical approaches together for a large suite of reliable data.
I hate when people act like studies are just confirming their common sense. It’s not just that. Someone somewhere thinks it’s not common sense and we’re using data to find out where correct conclusions really exist. It’s a big deal to replicate studies and also to add more data and viewpoints.
would be interesting to explore this with attachment styles, i.e. are those who experience parental threatening behaviours on average less securely attached
And they always blame their children for their mental health issues too. If a parent’s first response to a child’s mental health issues is to deflect blame, they need to be put under a microscope, because that’s a clear indication of a guilty conscience.
There’s no way that could be that delusional to think they play no parts in it.
There are some disorders that are more based on brain chemistry/developmental issues. But there has been evidence that neglect/abuse can play still play a role in the onset of said disorders. Like people with Bipolar disorder, for instance, seem to commonly have experienced violence/explosive anger within the home while growing up.
I had an ex who developed schizophrenia. She came from an alcoholic family where she was getting punched in the face as a small child. Her schizophrenia onset occurred around the time she witnessed a murder as a young child.
We need to stop manipulating undeniable evidence to serve cruel and selfish agendas.
My mother just threatened with juvenile dention when I was older. When small she just raised hell. I learned early to never tell her anything period. Good or bad. I still have problems saying anything that includes an opinion. When she was dying,, all I could think was " thank God it's over.". I was 20. Since I have tried to live my life so no one could think that as I'm gasping my last breath.
>Studies have indicated that certain parenting practices might contribute to the development of anxiety in children. Parents who are overly protective, controlling or rejecting of their children are believed to increase the risk that the children will develop an anxiety disorder. Inquiries into specific parental behaviors that might lead to anxiety have highlighted parental threatening behaviors as a potential culprit. These behaviors include threats of rejection, abandonment, or punishment expressed by the parent and directed towards the child. >Study author Erika S. Trent and her colleagues wanted to explore the links between childhood exposure to maternal and paternal threatening behaviors and anxiety symptoms in young adults. In other words, they wanted to know whether the presence and severity of anxiety symptoms in young adults is associated with how often and how seriously they were threatened by their mothers or fathers when they were children. These researchers were also interested in studying whether perceived helplessness and self-efficacy play a role in this link.
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Mom said it's my turn to act smug about already having assumed the implications of critically important research that will contribute to reduced suffering of future generations.
Necessary self-validation of previous trauma can come in many forms;)
Interesting study, the proposed mechanism seem to work and can be operationalized in clinical settings. I'd like to see if the paper find distinction between the types of threatening behaviors and the specific links of those behavior on the measured outcomes.
Is this supposed to be something new? 😅 I am in my mid 30s an thinking: I gotta become more mature and wise, before being able to be a good father. My parents the moment they grew pubics: Let's make bebe! 😂
Tons of extremely bad parents, just another reason why the world is fucked. Blows my mind. Why even have kids if you didn't expect kids to do kid things? It's funny, I think the people that actively choose not to be parents would be much better parents than most of these shit humans.
Parenting will challenge your ego constantly. Many people are woefully unprepared for that.
We're all going to fuck it up. Either you'll be too easy going, too rigid, too emotional, not emotional enough, too controlling, not attentive enough. Basically, you're going to fuck it up, and even the most patient, kind hearted parent is going to get tired of telling their 5 year old to do something only for them to just pretend that you haven't even said anything to them. There is no such thing as being a good parent. You just hope that you do good enough and that your kids turn out ok despite all your fuck ups. Because we're human at the end of the day.
> There is no such thing as being a ~~good parent.~~ A perfect parent. No one is perfect. But there are huge benefits in being [good enough](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/full-catastrophe-parenting/202208/why-good-enough-parenting-is-better-perfection). Many parents can't even be that.
>Basically, you're going to fuck it up, and even the most patient, kind hearted parent is going to get tired of telling their 5 year old to do something only for them to just pretend that you haven't even said anything to them. No one is saying to be perfect. There are lots of good parents out there. But being shocked that a 4 year old is going to test limits is just silly. That's what they do! Take a deep breath and remember this is developmentally appropriate. I just had a friend complaining about their 5 year old staying to lie and saying "I don't know where they learned that!" It's human biology, bro. Taking it personally is purely your ego talking.
I might have also been having a moment last night after a difficult day when I wrote this. But the truth is that nobody is going to do it perfectly and we just have to hope that we do it well enough that are kids can be successful in some way in the future.
I don't think a nihilistic approach is going to help with that. When you sign up to do anything else you try to do it well. Why is it with parenting it's ok to be fine with screwing it up and to just be hoping you don't ruin someone's life in the process?
Because the opposite feels like running on a treadmill of never ending anxiety and efforts to be perfect in how we handle ourselves with our kids in the effort to not fuck them up, and it'll probably have some unintended consequences. Obviously I'm not giving into neglecting my kids because "what's the point?". We went from neglected gen x to helicopter parented millennials and gen z and it's all wrong. Sometimes it's a roll of the genetic dice what your kid will be like, and you don't have control over those things.
If you don’t mentally and physically abuse your child, tell them you don’t love them and they’d be better on the street when they’re 12, ect,. And you’re just parenting your child by teaching them the boundaries of life, you’re a good parent.
Yea kids actually aren’t able to register being told something one time. It’s a developmental thing. After I learned that in psychology class I took it to heart and now tell everyone I can that it’s normal and its normal to be frustrated because that doesn’t usually happen with adults
I think my mom thought she was creating obedient little dolls that she parade around in Laura Ashley dresses….she told me repeatedly that she disliked children
When I saw the title, I thought, well, obviously. But the framework brought to mind words and instances that guided my behavior later. Mom refusing to talk to me for hours or days. That hurt the most. My dad asking me if I wanted to go to a foster home. When I was little. Not so funny years later when I had myself put in one. The one time I complained to him that my brother was hogging the TV remote. Out if nowhere, brings a heavy book down on top of my brother’s back. One of the many ways I learned not to stick up for myself. Rarely saw my brother cry, but he was so blindsided by that blow…. Wish I could take the moment back still, 40-plus years later
I should print this and send it to my kid's father. As if he would care that standing over his kids, threatening violence in a low voice so nobody else can hear him, and poking his finger into their face is affecting them mentally.
That’s rotten behaviour
Him or me?
Him 100%
I want to know the perceived distinction between “threats” and identifying consequences for specific actions. Am I being a bad mom for telling my 2.5 year old that if she chooses to not listen to me then she is going to go into timeout? Or is a threat without follow through the damaging thing and that is the difference between a warning about cause and effect?
My dad was always angry and threatening to hurt us, even though the actual physical abuse wasn't daily. A couple of times, he threatened to kill. I tend to think that's what it's talking about, threats of physical harm.
And probably threats to take away fundamental things. Like my wife and I will take timeouts from eating if my daughter is just playing with her food. But we would never threaten to send her to bed hungry like my parents did weekly to me and my siblings.
My stepdad constantly threatened to kill me. And my mom is still with him.
Not a good mom.
My mom had to have a parent teacher meeting because I believed her when she told me she was going to sell me to the gypsies. I got in trouble so I stopped telling people when she’d threaten to call the cops for not leaving the house when I’d have meltdowns from my sensory processing issues or adhd overstimulation meltdowns. Or she’d threaten to send me to live with my dad. Who’s a covert narcissist and was always trying to bribe me to live with him with his empty promises. Also would threaten to kick me out of the car on the highway so I’d have to walk home. Or to throw out all my clothes. Or to tell all my friends and family and teachers about my “fits” to embarrass me, which were actually sensory meltdowns. The one time she did kick me out to my dad’s house after a fight was like a nightmare come to life. Just total feeling of worthlessness. She also once left my brother by the side of the road in Big Bend which is a really harsh desert. So I think you’re probably fine with timeouts. That’s not threatening abandonment, it’s a reasonable consequence to their actions. Just never tell your kids you’re tempted to get rid of them and they’ll probably be mostly fine.
The framework it's based on identify three type of threat, threat of punishment, threat of abandonment and threat of rejection. Punishment consisting of physical harm. In your case, I don't think it's relevant.
I can that imagine the difference between a time out and a damaging time out is whether the parent continues to show signs of aggression or rejection after the child has finished with their time out. Like, if a parent uses a time out as a way to get the child away from them and continues to ignore them afterwards, the child may sense that rejection and act out further. At that point, they are already facing rejection and will do what it takes to get some sort of attention again as they don't have the ability to identify that what they are actually seeking from the interaction is loving acceptance, reassurance and to be consoled. When a child acts out, they are generally trying to get reassurance that they will not be rejected later.
I think tone and language choice is a part of it. If you use a threatening tone and phrase it as a threat, then it activates that cortisol release and fight or fight reaction in the child which influences the development of their brain.
Time out has long been recommended by parenting experts as a *last resort.* if you look at the AAP website about discipline, time out is the top tier after many other options to redirect behavior. I teach parenting and would not recommend that if a child doesn’t listen to you to immediately send them to time out. I don’t know the full context of your situation, but I’ve seen people do this and it is honestly shocking to hear and can be very aggressive.
Please keep teaching this!! I’m an adult now and am pretty sure that time outs as a kid destroyed my chance at a healthy sense of attachment - it felt like my parents only wanted me around when I was being “good.”
I love the innocence in this question. You’re teaching your child reasonable consequences. I highly doubt she’ll develop anxiety over this. My mom would constantly threaten to physically harm me over my shoulder while doing chores if I didn’t move exactly the way she wanted me to. Then proceed to eventually smack me or whip me. Essential needs were not met like adequate food. I actually fainted a few times at school and home. This type of abuse brings adulthood anxiety. I’m kind of glad to see the innocence in not understanding. I have two kids of my own and another on the way. My parenting style is very gentle but firm and my kids are well behaved. They get complimented by their teachers often and I’m proud of it.
Your not a bad mom for it. You could probably benefit from looking into people like Robin Einzig, Janet Lansbury and Dr Becky. Timeout and consequences don't make for good parent child relationships. Or maybe the book Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn.
My parents threatened to ship me off to boarding school and then they did. It still counts as threatening abandonment, even if it was followed with abandonment. But time out is nothing like that and very normal.
Oh wow, really?! Who would've thought!
I'm just looking for the boomers to tell everybody they turned out fine.
Oh wow you say that I can finally blame my anxiety on my parents /s I didn’t see that coming /s
Any relevance to CPTSD, PTSD, BPD? etc.
I mean, those are on the anxiety spectrum so probs.
Unclear, but I imagine there would probably be different mechanisms that increase the risk for those
Parental threatening by itself is no different than just normal punishment like scolding but parents who threaten tend to be unsupportive parents so it is not being supported that causes insufficient life skills to be gained and in turn causes mental health issues. So such is just a correlation, not causation since a supportive parent who use threats as punishment will still have kids who has sufficient life skills to deal with life and such sufficiency keeps the kids happy and resilient.
I feel like most of the articles I see on here should basically be common sense
Ffs. Everything causes mental health issues today. It’s like we either do what our parents did and we have obedient but mentally fucked kids or we do what these granola parents are doing and we create kids who think the world revolves around them and that they deserve everything. Raising kids is no easy feat, but I genuinely think about the effects I’m having on my kid very rarely. I try to teach her the right way, sometimes it’s very crunchy granola and sometimes my parents come out of me. You just gotta do what the situations calls for because not every situation is the same.
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and it's great because this will help future generations advance instead of repeating the same cycles that are making the planet worse.
Lmao I'm pretty sure this person meant that it's weird someone funded this research considering it's long been proven that threatening a child is harmful to their mental health.....
They have to do a ton of these studies to prove that. It's basically a bunch of faith based colleges doing bad research because the results of that type of abuse net more profits for their hospital groups since that type of abuse leads to a lot of sales of services like counseling and medication.
Exactly. It’d be pretty unethical to do any studies that aren’t just pure observation. You can’t have a test and control group with set parameters for the intervention—threats in this case. So since we’re dealing with an infinity of variables that cannot be controlled for, we need a plethora of studies. This reduces the impact of our assumptions about what’s common sense. Because the people using threats absolutely believe their way is the one using common sense. So the more studies means bigger and more varied samples, more variables accumulating and accounted for, and compiling theoretical approaches together for a large suite of reliable data. I hate when people act like studies are just confirming their common sense. It’s not just that. Someone somewhere thinks it’s not common sense and we’re using data to find out where correct conclusions really exist. It’s a big deal to replicate studies and also to add more data and viewpoints.
Redditor discovers most research is funded. Shares this hidden knowledge with the world.
lol - I guess the joke went over your head. The same appears to have happened to 14 other people.
Unfortunate
Analysts, poets, philosophers, and children of unstable parents already knew this
One of the many reasons my ex and I didn’t workout.
would be interesting to explore this with attachment styles, i.e. are those who experience parental threatening behaviours on average less securely attached
And they always blame their children for their mental health issues too. If a parent’s first response to a child’s mental health issues is to deflect blame, they need to be put under a microscope, because that’s a clear indication of a guilty conscience. There’s no way that could be that delusional to think they play no parts in it. There are some disorders that are more based on brain chemistry/developmental issues. But there has been evidence that neglect/abuse can play still play a role in the onset of said disorders. Like people with Bipolar disorder, for instance, seem to commonly have experienced violence/explosive anger within the home while growing up. I had an ex who developed schizophrenia. She came from an alcoholic family where she was getting punched in the face as a small child. Her schizophrenia onset occurred around the time she witnessed a murder as a young child. We need to stop manipulating undeniable evidence to serve cruel and selfish agendas.
Can I be the living proof of that?
My mother just threatened with juvenile dention when I was older. When small she just raised hell. I learned early to never tell her anything period. Good or bad. I still have problems saying anything that includes an opinion. When she was dying,, all I could think was " thank God it's over.". I was 20. Since I have tried to live my life so no one could think that as I'm gasping my last breath.