Discussion At what point does it become child abuse?

[Fallen]

Sry about my terrible English, it's not my first language

Here's something I've always wondered about

"What is considered child abuse?"

I thought of this question when I saw a bunch of people(on Reddit) talk about how they're dealing with childhood trauma. It seems like a pretty common issue that leads to being suicidal. I guess I'll start with my story. Since I was a child, I was often hit by my parents. They would always yell at me for doing something wrong, like drawing on the wall with crayons. They didn't do it for no reason, I understood why they did it, to teach discipline. Since my parents and I are Asian, it was acceptable to do these things, almost encouraged. When I was a bit older and told this these things to my (non asian)friends, the response is always something along the lines of "OMG, how could they do this to you. You need to call the police!" And I always thought it was weird how their parents didn't do that kind of stuff. As I grew older, I started to think "hmm, if what my parents did wasn't wrong, then why is it illegal?" I often hear stories about how abusive Asian parents are, yet those stories seemed ordinary to me. Yes I do know that I probably have some kind of childhood trauma seeing how distant I was with my parents and how they made me into who I am. So I want to ask you guys, at what point does it become abuse?

 

[killing me softly]

tough question, and i don't think there is a black and white answer.

on the one hand, there is the legal definition, which will of course vary by location. on the other, there is the societal/cultural definition. for example, in the states it is largely legal to use physical discipline so long as it is not deemed excessive and/or does not cause injury. however, many of the laws are fairly vague. some use terms such as "cruelly", "reasonable", "appropriate", etc. which are open to interpretation. despite the legality of using physical discipline, there is a growing societal opposition to any physical discipline, including spanking. the belief here is that it is ultimately ineffective, counter productive, and sets a bad standard. opponents suggest other non-physical methods offer better results.

while i personally don't use physical discipline i would not go so far as labeling it as abuse. for me, the line is whether the parent was acting out of anger, intended to hurt, rather than teach, their child. it's so easy as a parent to "lose it" out of frustration or anger and channel that towards your kid. to me, that's when discipline can quickly become blurred into abuse.

 

[HellinHeaven]

It is abuse if you use physical or psychic force to "educate" children, it doen't matter if you are a paedophile, a hitting parent, if you threat your children with words or even worse with disregard, if you are a psychiatrist and "treat" them with force, if you are racist teacher or an bullying classmate. Everything leads to deep wounds in children. The worst of all is if a child has nobody to trust, nobody to talk, nobody to escape from a situation. Conclusive I would say, if you treat a children on a way, that it has fear or exaggerated pain from you, you are mistreating them.

 

[Final Escape]

There's a channel on YouTube, it's called findingfreedommedia. The guy explains in extreme detail what child abuse looks like. What things that happen to you or are done to you is a violation. It's kind of tough to listen to. Stefan Molyneux has a book called Universally Preferable Behavior. It explains that there are universally acceptable behaviors that are preferred by everyone. Many parents will violate their children because it's inconvenient to actually reason and negotiate with your kid in a peaceful way. It's actually more work to have to respect your child and be considerate about their needs or feelings and what is best for them. If you want your child to respect you down the road and not become estranged then it's important to consider their needs and treat them well in the early years. It is the parent's job to earn respect and love from the child, not the other way around. Many people have children to serve themselves and their needs and if the child is defiant they think the child is the problem.

 

[NumbItAll]

I can't say I understand the logic/morality behind bringing kids into existence and then beating them into submission.

 

[Fallen]

I can't say I understand the logic/morality behind bringing kids into existence and then beating them into submission.

Well personally I think it depends on the reason to do so. If out of anger and done without proper reason, most people can agree that it is morally and ethically wrong. But if for the purpose of discipline, I've been told it's so that the kid would know to never do it again. Like "if you do this, that will happen again" this creates fear in the children so they won't repeat the action. And since they're children, they are likely to remember this and follow them into adulthood. What's sad is that sometimes parents go too far and scares the children, creating a rough relationship.
You also have to remember, not all parents wish to be parents, sometimes they didn't get to choose.

 

[Final Escape]

I can't say I understand the logic/morality behind bringing kids into existence and then beating them into submission.

That was a great quote :)

 

[NumbItAll]

Well personally I think it depends on the reason to do so. If out of anger and done without proper reason, most people can agree that it is morally and ethically wrong. But if for the purpose of discipline, I've been told it's so that the kid would know to never do it again. Like "if you do this, that will happen again" this creates fear in the children so they won't repeat the action. And since they're children, they are likely to remember this and follow them into adulthood. What's sad is that sometimes parents go too far and scares the children, creating a rough relationship.
You also have to remember, not all parents wish to be parents, sometimes they didn't get to choose.

They would have to prove that corporal punishment is actually an effective disciplinary tool. Studies consistently show it's the opposite in the long-term: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447048/

Either way, I think it's inherently unfair for someone to be beaten just because they didn't know what to do. But that kind of unfairness applies to many facets of life and is not just limited to parenting: we have to deal with a lot of suffering through no fault of our own.