this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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Funny how you can make a lot of good points, but suddenly twisting the exposure of narcissistic and abusive parents into some kind of farce.
Go off.
Some parents are abusive and deserve what's coming to them, but pre-teens don't really understand or know what abuse really is and what it takes for the state or government to get involved.
An example is a parent yelling at her daughter. Taking her phone and forcing her to have no outside contact with her friends for say the weekend.
Now, that kid will call that child abuse. Tell all her friends that she is getting abused. Post about it when she gets her phone back, etc. Convince her friends to build up courage to call child services or seek out adults that appeal to those vulnerabilities. Those adults turn those into something else and exploit them sexually or in some other twisted means.
I've seen this with one of my own kids' friends. I've worked in the state child care system and have seen abuse with the unfortunate outcomes.
Real abuse should be exposed, but kids can twist punishments into abuse, and social media can reinforce this. Not improving the relationship, but driving it apart. That's what I was trying to convey.
The same thing was said around corporal punishment in the past. We have learned that there are more effective, less damaging methods of teaching than yelling, and isolation. I have two kids, I have used physical force when they were too young to understand words (smack on the bottom while in diapers etc). I have raised my voice, I have grounded them from electronics etc. I am doing the best I can with the information I have at my disposal. When they ask questions, they get answers.
At any time I know my children could report me or my spouse to government agents, who would come investigate, review and if I was in the wrong, I would be corrected. But if I was not in the wrong, life would continue. The stigma that comes along with it? Thats the cost of having children really.
If the pre-teens you are dealing with dont understand what abuse is, that sounds like an opportunity for education, not justification.