"Healthy" Fear of Parents

[holothuroidea]

I do! We may be the few for whom anti-drug education actually worked, LOL. All the statistics say that it doesn't deter kids, so maybe it's a personality thing. I never had any desire to try drugs, and I suspect I would have been the same whether Nancy Reagan had pushed her "Just Say No" campaign at me or not.

I can't recall ever being afraid of either of my parents. Worried about disappointing them, sure, but not afraid of what they would do to me if I misbehaved.

I was definitely not afraid of my mom, or even of disappointing her, I was just afraid of drugs. :lol:

Maybe it wasn't DARE. It might have been watching too much Behind the Music on VH1, what with all the musicians dying from drug overdoses and all.

[sippin0nsunshine]

When teenagers who don't do drugs are asked why they don't, the most common answer should be, "My parents would kill me." This is a healthy fear. A fear that pushes one to do right instead of do wrong.

Umm, I've answered that way about why I don't/won't do certain things, but it was most definitely never literal! Any child/teen that feels their parents would literally kill them for doing something wrong, should be removed from that home and be placed with someone who cares for them and won't hurt them.

My children definitely feared us growing up

.

Yeah, because having your children fear you is an amazing thing. :evil:

My father was abused by my grandfather, and although he loved his father, he resented him for the pain he caused. Dad went on to abuse my older siblings, and to a lesser extent, me. Because of that, we feared him, and we all have crappy relationships with him to this day.

That, Lori, is what happens when your kids fear you. They will leave and never look back, and they might even hate you for it.

[Elle]

Your children can learn to fear you without physical abuse. Get your head out of the sand.

I didn't fear my own mother until I was an adult. Without her laying a hand on me, I called the police on her three times in a week, one of those times resulting in her being put on a 72-hour psych hold. She was threatening to kill me, and had made statements in the past about knowing how to kill someone using certain chemicals that wouldn't show as suspicious on an autopsy report or that wouldn't be checked for. Since her career field was geriatrics and she was occasionally involved in autopsy stuff, I know she knows that stuff. I was afraid she'd poison one of us, if she didn't stab one of us while we slept. I was afraid she'd take off with my daughter. She'd never hit my daughter run her life, but one day my small little girl ran as fast as her newly-able-to-walk legs could carry her and stood against a walk with her hands wrapped around her head so her arms were covering her ears crying in fear of my mother. (That resulted in the first 911 call.)

Honestly I'd prefer if my parents had beaten me on a regular basis than to go through what I only learned recently was systematic emotional and mental abuse by my mother that picked up in severity after my dad died. My mom played me. As a teen, I was afraid of disappointing them because I loved and respected them both, and I found out the respect toward her was based on lies. I've been in therapy because of her, and still feel worthless (funny how a parent can build you up and then tear you down - when you respect someone so much and want their approval, and they pull it all out from under you...it's hard) and like I owe her something, even though I've given her everything my family had. We lost one home over her, and she thought that was okay since she was just evicted from hers because the money I gave her for rent she spent on alcohol, and if she didn't have a home, I shouldn't. So we used our rent money to get her a new place.

Let's just say the trauma I deal with is from her, and I feared her plenty. And it was all without laying a hand on me.

[holothuroidea]

I am not inferring anything. I struggle with reading and writing, so I misunderstood you. I thought you were accusing me of abusing my children, then you explained that you were not. Again, I apologize for misunderstanding you.

She never inferred anything about you abusing your children. She just pointed out that it takes a very large amount of obliviousness to believe that your children wont learn to fear you unless you beat them within an inch of their lives. I tend to agree with her.

Maybe you didn't say what you meant to say.

[Elle]

OT: But most recent studies have show that at best DARE does nothing, at worst DARE increases the likelihood of drug use.

In the schools I went to, DARE was in 1st, 3rd, and 5th, grades, and yeah, there was a high rate of drug use among my peers. I think it helped me and my brother to stay away from everything because we were told we would get the spankings of our lives and be grounded until we were 18. (Nope, still didn't fear our parents, knew all we had to do was to not do drugs. Which lasted until I was 16 and tried pot anyway, and by then, my parents knew I was nearly an adult, and good luck enforcing being grounded to someone that age without building cages.)

At the ages we had DARE classes, it was presented as "drugs are bad, m'kay? Now here, come up with a 7-character license plate." That was really one activity we did. So drugs didn't seem so bad or anything, and telling us some of the nicknames, like wacky tobaccy (not tobacco, but to rhyme with "wacky"), made it sound fun. Man, if I didn't want to risk a spanking, I would have tried pot when my friends were when I was about 11 or 12.

I know the idea is to talk to kids before they're likely to encounter drugs, but there are many flaws with the program. For a couple, it ends before kids are likely to need support, and there aren't resources in place for kids to get help. Telling kids to just talk to their parents or teachers if it's offered to them doesn't help if the parents are cracked out all the time and the teacher is an asshole who the student is afraid of.

[SomewhatFundy]

I didn't fear my own mother until I was an adult. Without her laying a hand on me, I called the police on her three times in a week, one of those times resulting in her being put on a 72-hour psych hold. She was threatening to kill me, and had made statements in the past about knowing how to kill someone using certain chemicals that wouldn't show as suspicious on an autopsy report or that wouldn't be checked for. Since her career field was geriatrics and she was occasionally involved in autopsy stuff, I know she knows that stuff. I was afraid she'd poison one of us, if she didn't stab one of us while we slept. I was afraid she'd take off with my daughter. She'd never hit my daughter run her life, but one day my small little girl ran as fast as her newly-able-to-walk legs could carry her and stood against a walk with her hands wrapped around her head so her arms were covering her ears crying in fear of my mother. (That resulted in the first 911 call.)

Honestly I'd prefer if my parents had beaten me on a regular basis than to go through what I only learned recently was systematic emotional and mental abuse by my mother that picked up in severity after my dad died. My mom played me. As a teen, I was afraid of disappointing them because I loved and respected them both, and I found out the respect toward her was based on lies. I've been in therapy because of her, and still feel worthless (funny how a parent can build you up and then tear you down - when you respect someone so much and want their approval, and they pull it all out from under you...it's hard) and like I owe her something, even though I've given her everything my family had. We lost one home over her, and she thought that was okay since she was just evicted from hers because the money I gave her for rent she spent on alcohol, and if she didn't have a home, I shouldn't. So we used our rent money to get her a new place.

Let's just say the trauma I deal with is from her, and I feared her plenty. And it was all without laying a hand on me.

I absolutely believe that emotional and mental abuse can make a child just as fearful as physical abuse can, I just thought that we were discussing physical abuse only so that is what I was referring to. That is all. I am sorry you had to go through all of that. It's beyond horrific, and I cannot even imagine dealing with those emotions. My mother's mother was very narcissistic and cruel. It led to years of emotional trauma for my mother. Luckily I never had to actually meet my "grandmother", but seeing the fallout from her actions in my mother was enough to convince me that I had lucked out by being born after her death.

[SomewhatFundy]

She never inferred anything about you abusing your children. She just pointed out that it takes a very large amount of obliviousness to believe that your children wont learn to fear you unless you beat them within an inch of their lives. I tend to agree with her.

Maybe you didn't say what you meant to say.

I guess not, although it wouldn't surprise me if I was being unclear. I actually just started taking a "reading comprehension/basic writing" course in school right now before i'm even allowed to take regular English. That's how poor my comprehension is. It's kind of humiliating to be that bad at it, but i'm doing the best I can.

I know very well that children can be fearful of parents without them beating them. Many parents are emotional/mental terrorists towards their children and never spank them. I just thought that spanking was what the OP what specifically discussing, so that's what I was responding to.

[holothuroidea]

When we had DARE in 5th grade it was very in-depth and educational. It was a multi-week program that took a half hour out of the school day. I think it replaced gym or health class or something. We went through all the different types of drugs and the effects they have on your body and how to recognize them. Everyone had to do a presentation on a drug for the class. I never felt like it was silly at all.

It was a good program.

[Maude]

There's no such thing as 'a healthy fear of their parents.' A child should be taught to do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because they fear the consequences. I don't steal or go around murdering people not because I fear prison, but because I believe in treating other people the way I want them to treat me. I value other people and their lives.

[B5SnowDog]

Umm, I've answered that way about why I don't/won't do certain things, but it was most definitely never literal! Any child/teen that feels their parents would literally kill them for doing something wrong, should be removed from that home and be placed with someone who cares for them and won't hurt them.

My answer as a teenager was, "It doesn't seem like all that much fun and I don't think it's worth risking the consequences." Fearing my parents had nothing to do with it.

[Kitty]

My answer as a teenager was, "It doesn't seem like all that much fun and I don't think it's worth risking the consequences." Fearing my parents had nothing to do with it.

Same here. I think that's the case for most teenagers.

I always thought my school went about drug education pretty well, but there's still lots of drug use in Hometown. Then again- yes, I'm bringing up this again- the people who did drugs had parents who either used threats or physical force to keep their kids in line (which really doesn't work past about 7th grade) and then stopped caring. Or they never cared to begin with. This doesn't explain everyone, but it does explain most.

I think taking away the enigma and glitz of drug use works better than anything. After-school specials and DARE-type programs mostly rely on cliches and scare tactics, then the media/other drug users come in and fill in all the blanks as to WHY anyone would ever do them, let alone more than once.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Actually, the answer that I think kids should give is "I am aware of the ways in which various drugs can kill me".

If not using drugs is just about obedience, then kids are at risk the moment that they decide to be rebellious, or the moment that they believe that their parents won't find out about what they are doing.

[Cran]

Did I fear my hitting mother? Yes. Because she hit me out of helplessness and abusiveness.

Was the fear of her the reason I did not do drugs? No.

She would hit me anyway, so why should I pay any heed to actions she did not condone?

I did not do drugs because I was educated on the subject, knew that drugs come to nothing good and wasn't in a crisis so terrible I felt drugs where the only option making life bearable.

People who think teenagers only get into drugs because of "partying" and "disobedience" have missed some clues, methinks.

[alba]

I'm not far out of the teenage years myself, and I can confidently say that most teens don't actually fear their parents. Seriously, they're not really afraid of pissing their parents off, but disappointing them. Teens who have negligent parents wouldn't care, teens with abusive parents would fear anger. Teens with good relationships with their parents just don't want to disappoint them. Lori has no idea how teenagers or younger children think, because she's an abusive bitch who thinks she's hot shit and knows everything.

Kids don't need to fear their parents, they do need to respect them but that's completely different from fear.

This.

When a teen says "My parents would kill me", it doesn't mean "I'm scared my parents will murder me", it means "I don't want to disappoint my parents". In some cases teens might take into consideration possible consequences of doing drugs, like being grounded so as to keep them from the friends with whom they were doing drugs, but that's still not fear so much as weighing the rewards against the consequences. For most teens, it's not worth losing the opportunity to hang out with your friends for a joint, and they recognise that their parents establish these consequences for a reason.

I don't know where Lori gets the idea that teens aren't doing drugs out of concern their parents will find out, though. When I was a teen (not that long ago), in my peer group people didn't do drugs because they'd learned about the negative effects. Maybe I was just friends with the goody-goodies, though.

[brashchick]

My siblings and I did fear my father. He then became terminally ill when 4 of us were teenagers and one was only 7. Three of the four teenagers (myself included) mainly felt overwhelming relief that he would soon be gone. Is that what Lori wants ?

It really screwed up communication with my extremely naive mother, because she kept thinking "my poor children are in shock and they are not grieving" and it took her years to figure out we weren't grieving because his death was a good thing. Truthfully, he was kind of remorseful in those last months. He kind of got off easy in terms of facing the consequences of his own behavior. Sounds harsh, but it is the truth. I hope he found some peace and I am still glad he died.

[BelieveinScience]

In the schools I went to, DARE was in 1st, 3rd, and 5th, grades, and yeah, there was a high rate of drug use among my peers. I think it helped me and my brother to stay away from everything because we were told we would get the spankings of our lives and be grounded until we were 18. (Nope, still didn't fear our parents, knew all we had to do was to not do drugs. Which lasted until I was 16 and tried pot anyway, and by then, my parents knew I was nearly an adult, and good luck enforcing being grounded to someone that age without building cages.)

At the ages we had DARE classes, it was presented as "drugs are bad, m'kay? Now here, come up with a 7-character license plate." That was really one activity we did. So drugs didn't seem so bad or anything, and telling us some of the nicknames, like wacky tobaccy (not tobacco, but to rhyme with "wacky"), made it sound fun. Man, if I didn't want to risk a spanking, I would have tried pot when my friends were when I was about 11 or 12.

I know the idea is to talk to kids before they're likely to encounter drugs, but there are many flaws with the program. For a couple, it ends before kids are likely to need support, and there aren't resources in place for kids to get help. Telling kids to just talk to their parents or teachers if it's offered to them doesn't help if the parents are cracked out all the time and the teacher is an asshole who the student is afraid of.

I found DARE to be a joke same thing with ENABL (Education now and babies later)

[holothuroidea]

I guess all DARE programs are not created equal. Mine was in 1995, maybe that makes a difference. It was definitely not a joke. I don't remember anything like ENABL but our sex education was very thorough and helpful, too.

[BelieveinScience]

I guess all DARE programs are not created equal. Mine was in 1995, maybe that makes a difference. It was definitely not a joke. I don't remember anything like ENABL but our sex education was very thorough and helpful, too.

ENABL consisted of a college student coming into our classroom and showing us a video of a couple of teenagers who were pregnant and homeless in our area. Then going this will happen to you if you get pregnant while in high school. It was just a joke.

[Koala]

Only 7 replies so far and most of them don't seem to be what Lori is looking for. Only 1 of them really backs her up. I'm thinking even Lori's fangirls aren't going to back her up on this one. Lori's probably doing a lot of deleting this morning.

[J'ean Skirt]

We should count one day and see how many posts Lori has done on the following topics:

Highlights:

Does she really think that the fear of their parents killing them is what keeps kids off drugs? Really? Fear should not be the motivator for doing "right instead of wrong". If it is, what happens when the parents aren't there or the kids don't think they'll find out?

I had a "healthy fear of parents" ... that just meant I worked extra hard to not get caught rather than actually not doing things they would kill me for. I mean, it was very clear to me if my parents ever discovered I was sexually active before marriage they would "kill" me. This was something that was the worst, most unacceptable thing I could have ever done.

I just made sure they never caught me.

[holothuroidea]

ENABL consisted of a college student coming into our classroom and showing us a video of a couple of teenagers who were pregnant and homeless in our area. Then going this will happen to you if you get pregnant while in high school. It was just a joke.

We had sex education and hygiene class for a quarter semester every year starting in 4th grade. So these classes were a month or so long and they replaced part of gym class. Things got progressively more in depth as the years went on, but it was always very honest and thorough. We were even taught about homosexuality, and it was presented as just a variation of normal.

It really makes me mad when schools make a joke out of sex ed, or refuse to teach it all together. A lot of kids don't get it at home.

[genericJname]

I

grew up with a parent who I had absolutely no fear of punishment from. I didn't do drugs. I think it was because I was educated (in public school) about them and I knew it was a stupid thing to do. Does anyone else still have a DARE bumper sticker?

I'm another anomaly for whom DARE worked. I spent a night not sleeping after the DARE officer in 2nd grade taught us about LSD and how it would make you jump off buildings, thinking you would fly.

[Witsec7]

I

I'm another anomaly for whom DARE worked. I spent a night not sleeping after the DARE officer in 2nd grade taught us about LSD and how it would make you jump off buildings, thinking you would fly.

And 61 years later, I've never attempted to jump off a building. Art Linkletter sure go that meme circulating.

[holothuroidea]

I

I'm another anomaly for whom DARE worked. I spent a night not sleeping after the DARE officer in 2nd grade taught us about LSD and how it would make you jump off buildings, thinking you would fly.

LOL yeah I remember that. I think they gave us a statistic for how many people who try LSD have bad trips and it being 10% or something. "If you and 9 of your friends take LSD together, one of you will have a bad trip. What happens in bad trips? You jump off buildings, you cut yourself, you drown in a pool, or at the very least you have the worst nightmare you can ever imagine." :shock: No hallucinogenics for me, kthx!

[ADoyle90815]

This.

When a teen says "My parents would kill me", it doesn't mean "I'm scared my parents will murder me", it means "I don't want to disappoint my parents". In some cases teens might take into consideration possible consequences of doing drugs, like being grounded so as to keep them from the friends with whom they were doing drugs, but that's still not fear so much as weighing the rewards against the consequences. For most teens, it's not worth losing the opportunity to hang out with your friends for a joint, and they recognise that their parents establish these consequences for a reason.

I don't know where Lori gets the idea that teens aren't doing drugs out of concern their parents will find out, though. When I was a teen (not that long ago), in my peer group people didn't do drugs because they'd learned about the negative effects. Maybe I was just friends with the goody-goodies, though.

That's also true in my case, when I was a teen, the reason most of my friends and I didn't do drugs was because we didn't want any of the negative effects. It wasn't just that we didn't want to disappoint our parents, it was more about the effects. One example was about some teens who were huffing gasoline when someone lit a cigarette in a room full of fumes, and they were all so high they didn't realize they were on fire. They apparently survived, but remained scarred from the severe burns for the rest of their lives. This is why I thought that episode of My Strange Addiction about huffing gasoline was especially disturbing.