Can We Please Stop Gaslighting Our Children?

[MysterionMuffles]

Awesome article somebody posted on Facebook: http://groundedparents.com/2014/11/26/can-we-please-stop-gaslighting-our-kids/

[J. D. Stembal]

Plus rep to you, RJ. I enjoyed the article.. I've been introspective about my family and the holidays a lot recently.

 

For me the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, were spent with my maternal aunt's family who was very strict and religious. My cousin and I had to say grace, please and thank you for any request, and were pretty much expected to shut up when the adults were talking. I would get so bored during Thanksgiving, I would bring my own activities, like reading and drawing to entertain myself. I couldn't watch television, except for the football game. Until this day, I still feel completely disconnected with my family around the holidays. I also had a thought that the only reason children learn to put up with the holiday season is because they know they will receive gifts if they behave.

 

http://www.amazon.com/To-Train-Child-Michael-Pearl/dp/1892112000

 

This book, mentioned in the link, makes me want to scream. I posted a relevant thread in this sub-forum that is awaiting moderation. Children aren't fucking dogs! Why are we treating them as such?

[shirgall]

Awesome article somebody posted on Facebook: http://groundedparents.com/2014/11/26/can-we-please-stop-gaslighting-our-kids/

 

In case people don't read the article, "gaslighting" is encouraging people to mute or hide strong feelings or reactions by telling those people that the situation is not as bad as they feel. The archetype of the stoic tough guy who man's up and shut's up came to mind immediately when I saw the definition in the linked post, but the article explores gaslighting of women and children.

[MysterionMuffles]

Plus rep to you, RJ. I enjoyed the article.. I've been introspective about my family and the holidays a lot recently.

 

For me the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, were spent with my maternal aunt's family who was very strict and religious. My cousin and I had to say grace, please and thank you for any request, and were pretty much expected to shut up when the adults were talking. I would get so bored during Thanksgiving, I would bring my own activities, like reading and drawing to entertain myself. I couldn't watch television, except for the football game. Until this day, I still feel completely disconnected with my family around the holidays. I also had a thought that the only reason children learn to put up with the holiday season is because they know they will receive gifts if they behave.

 

http://www.amazon.com/To-Train-Child-Michael-Pearl/dp/1892112000

 

This book, mentioned in the link, makes me want to scream. I posted a relevant thread in this sub-forum that is awaiting moderation. Children aren't fucking dogs! Why are we treating them as such?

 

Wow so it is universal. We had to put up with shallow crap just to get some shallow crap, most of which fell by the wayside weeks later. Some gifts were never worth the trouble.

[Dylan Lawrence Moore]

Just wanted to point out on the reviews on that book linked. Most of the reviews are 1 star, but there's a whole bunch of 5-star reviews, which, as far as I can see, are satiric.

 

At least most can see it for the garbage that it is.

[RyanT]

Great article,

 

I've always defined 'gas lighting' in pretty narrow terms, were abusers and manipulators consciously devise these nasty little mind games.

 

So like a classic example would be to literally play acting a massive tantrum with the specific intention of then turning on the confused victim with a long list of accusations and assertions;

 

''You should know why I'm upset!''

''Are you too stupid to work it out!''

''Anyone else would have realized!''

''Obviously you don't care about me!''

 

....Really horrible behavior we usually associate with very sick malignant narcissists ect.  

 

Reading though this article though was shocked by the realization that kids are subjected to this shit all the time.

 

Should this really come as any great surprise though?

 

As the most helpless and vulnerable aren't they usually exposed to the absolute worst excesses of adults behavior?

[MysterionMuffles]

The most common form of gaslighting happens to most victims of abuse unfortunately...

 

"I don't remember you getting hit; therefore it didn't happen."

[RyanT]

Ah never experienced that one myself although have herd quite a few people on FDR who have...really fucking hideous and I think what pisses me of most about a lot of what parents subject their kids to is just the downright pettiness of it all?

 

Such as that

 

'I'm prepared to leave you doubting your grip on reality...because this conversation makes me feel uncomfortable' 

[TheFreeMarketIsAnarchy]

I agree this stuff is horrible especially because of how often parents seem to do it. So many parents seem to think that they don't have to listen to their child's description or expression of how they experience things like stressful holiday plans. It's a strange almost Orwellian thing that says I am the authority over you to the extent that my opinion on what you experienced is more valid than your own actual experience. This is crushing for a child's sense of self and independent worth I think. It makes them think 'Why should I bother ever expressing my true emotional reality?' because it will simply be denied or overlooked (or even used against them as a bullying tactic if it is particularly inconvenient to the parent). I've never heard the specific term gaslighting used to describe it before, thanks for the article share Rainbow Jamz!

[MMX2010]

In case you missed it, the best review of Michael and Debi Pearl's book.

 

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2SHL0PTJJQUEH/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt/179-4903651-0970625#R2SHL0PTJJQUEH

 

It's long, but please read., November 9, 2013

By 

Tiffany Case "tiffanyc"

 

This review is from: To Train Up a Child (Paperback)

I originally wrote a completely different review of this book. It was a bitterly, scathingly sarcastic "positive" review that I wrote in the grip of white-hot anger. I've known about the Pearls and their book for years now, but I had just found out that it was being sold on Amazon. I am going to copy and paste my old review in the comments section below, so people can still see it, but I want to come back and write something different. I'm changing my review for two reasons:

First, satire and mockery are what I'm good at. But I am not going to convince anyone this way, just harden them in their own belief that there's a "war" on Christians in the USA and that they need to double-down on the most extreme views and practices. I'm instead going to try and explain where I am coming from, as honestly as I can. The people who already agree with me will up-vote this and listen, but I'm hoping someone else might listen too.

Second, I see that most of the debates here are hung up on the details: Is it ever okay to hit your child? With objects, or only with your hand? Which objects? How young can you hit them? Before age one? Before six months? How much? One or two blows? Ten? Fifteen? Until they "submit"? Is it okay to make them skip a meal? A day of meals? Two days? To put them outside in the cold? Outside without a jacket?

It turns into a debate about just exactly where to draw the line between spanking and abuse, and then a debate about whether that line even exists. For those of us who come from a regional culture where corporal punishment is okay (and I'm one), it can sometimes feel like an attack on our values and the values of our parents from people who live far away and live very different lifestyles. A lot of us got "whupped" as kids, and you won't win any points calling our parents abusers.

I want to explain why someone who is not necessarily a hardliner about anti-spanking (though we don't spank, and I can explain why later on) can still find the Pearls disturbing. Because I believe that abuse isn't in the details of this book. I believe it's at the heart of it.

I'm not going to talk anymore about switching babies or Lydia Schatz or plastic tubing. Instead I want to talk about the Pearls and their view of this world. This comes from reading their book and their blog, and from knowing a bit about the world they live in:

....1.....
First, Michael and Debi look at a child and see evil. You can read this on their blog and in their book. They talk constantly about children manipulating people, trying to get the better of you, lying, crying in an effort to "control" their parents. This is not some crazy reading of their philosophy. You can find this on any page of anything they ever wrote.

I know what I'm going to hear in the comments, which is, "Toddlers and children are completely capable of manipulating and lying!" Of course they are. Anyone knows this. Part of your job as a parent is to teach them honesty and respect. But the Pearls see something different: they see an adversary in a child. They see an opponent. They see an enemy that has to be absolutely defeated and subdued.

Can you understand the difference between guiding a child and defeating them? All the Pearls ever seem to talk about is "breaking" a child, "breaking" their will, proving you are stronger, "defeating" the child, being stronger. Who isn't stronger than a child?

....2....
Second, the Pearls claim to know what babies and toddlers are thinking, but what they see in children is just a reflection of themselves. Psychologists use the word "projection" for this. It's like when Jim knows that he stole credit for Joe's idea at work. When Joe says "good morning," even though it's an honest hello and he has no inkling of what Jim did, Jim's own guilty conscience makes him see sarcasm or anger.

Instead of looking at what children actually can think and know and understand at a given age, the Pearls project cunning intelligence and evil motives. They look at a baby too young to recognize himself in the mirror, and see a master manipulator who cries not because he's uncomfortable or lonely or can't sleep, but because he wants to get the better of his parents. They look at a tiny toddler who can't yet even understand that different people know different things, and they think that the child is using her mother's fear of embarrassment to manipulate her into a hug.

....3.....
Third, Michael and Debi don't just think you have to defeat a child, they think that control over children has to be total. A lot of people here have quoted the part of the book where Debi hands a toy to a fifteen-month-old she is babysitting (that's about the age most kids are just walking). The baby doesn't want to play with the toy. Debi hits him with a switch again and again until the baby "plays" with the toy she wants him to play with. (The Pearls describe the baby as doing this "begrudgingly" - which again, shows how they project evil intentions onto children and babies with no understanding of how a child's mind grows and develops in stages.)

Pearl wants parents to keep switches highly visible in every room of the house, in every car. The intimidation and the threat of violence, for him, has to be constant. Pearl and his acolytes talk so much about having a home that is "peaceful" and "joyful." "Peace" is not the silence of a battlefield where all the enemies have been killed. "Joy" is not the smile of a hostage who smiles to keep the blows from falling.

This isn't a minor quibble about how strict or how permissive to be. People will always disagree about this. This is about thinking that complete control is possible and desirable.

The Pearls are right about one thing: The only way to make sure your child never, ever, ever does something you don't explicitly will them to do is to break them utterly. Is this what you want? A broken doll you can pose in the way you like?

....4....
Love.

The Pearls talk about love. They talk about Christ. They have a lot to say on the subject.

I used to work with abuse survivors. One woman I remember so vividly, her husband cut her face because she was "flirting" with their seventy-seven year old next-door neighbor. He said he was doing it because he loved her so much, he had to teach her. In fact, most every abuse survivor I met heard how she made him do it, and he loved her so much.

Talking about love gets you nothing, in my book. It's words. Too many evil people in history have quoted the Bible.

So let me instead ask the mothers reading this something: Did becoming a mother change you? I was blessed to be raised in a loving home with a large and loving family and true friends and to have a marriage that has been based on true and lasting love. I was blessed with faith as well. I knew love before I had a child. Nonetheless, the intensity and selflessness of the love I felt as a mother was new, and it is extraordinary. I feel more pity and patience and empathy now for other people than I had ever felt before in my life. Motherhood made me softer AND it made me stronger. Those things are NOT a contradiction.

For most of us, a mother's love is the first and purest love we experience. It is the earthly model we have for God's mercy.

Yet the Pearls mock mothers. They mock and cruelly shame and belittle. A mother's love, for them, is soft. It is weak. It's pathetic.

Everybody has been in the store at one time or another, seen the mother caving to the bratty, screaming kid and felt disgusted. The Pearls take this embarrassment and fear of shame, and tell mothers to doubt everything their eyes and ears and heart tell them about their child. They tell you your instincts and common sense can't be trusted. They tell you to push down the horrible way that your child's cries make you feel. They tell you to avoid your doctor and your neighbor and your relatives who are not "saved." They tell you to listen only to them. They shame you and control you with the fear of being "that mother."

I ask: Does Christ speak to us by changing our hearts with selfless love? Or does he speak through a book written by a dogmatic, prideful, and cruel man?

I read so many things in these reviews and comments from mothers who feel this mix of pride and shame about their children's behavior. Women who describe doubting the Pearl's teachings "at first," or saying that they don't take the teachings "too far." Women who bend over backwards and try to hard to justify the teachings in this book, despite clear and serious doubts. It makes my heart hurt. This book doesn't just do violence to children; it does violence to the good and decency in a parent's heart.

.......
I have not been a victim of abuse myself, but I know a lot about abusers and what they leave behind when they've ripped through a person. It's part of what fuels my anger at the Pearls. You can say that I'm blinded by anger, but believe me that I know whereof I speak. I can see these people for what they are. I've heard it and seen it too many times to be fooled. This is the philosophy of an abuser - not a strict parent, or Christian parent, or a spanking parent - an abuser. The projection of evil motives onto someone you're hurting. The need for complete and total control. The fetishization of domination and pain. The inability to empathize or understand what another person is feeling. Filling up your lack of understanding and empathy with a mirror image of your own evil thoughts. Turning sacred words like "love" into a lie and a disguise. Using the language of loving family to hide a heart that can't love another freely, just force their dolls act out a fantasy of what they think a loving child should look like.

Abusers. Not because of the things they tell you to do, but because of how they frame the entire relationship between parents and children.