Anything that crosses the line into child abuse simply sucks for a while, then you show up to school with some bruises and a meeting with someone who can call CPS.
One could argue that the problem here is that society’s threshold for what constitutes “child abuse” is too low.
I may be over-extrapolating from my childhood level of persistence and stubbornness. You might be able to make many children fold by staying on the non-abuse side of the line, but it doesn’t take that ornery of a kid to force your hand. You have to be unreasonable in the first place to push them to that negotiating strategy, though.
I may be over-extrapolating from my childhood level of persistence and stubbornness. You might be able to make many children fold by staying on the non-abuse side of the line, but it doesn’t take that ornery of a kid to force your hand.
What do you consider to constitute “abuse”? A lot of people consider any spanking “child abuse”, I strongly disagree with this, unfortunately depending on where you live this can result in calling of CPS.
You have to be unreasonable in the first place to push them to that negotiating strategy, though.
I’m not sure what you had in mind, but, to use the examples from up thread, expecting a child to do school work and/or brush his teeth are not unreasonable demands.
I was talking about anything that you can convince a social worker to call “abuse”. That’s a conservative line, though. How about any situation where the child is better off dealing with child protective services than their parents on an ongoing basis? That puts a solid floor on how unpleasant you can make your child’s life in order to get what you want.
I’m not sure what you had in mind
My parents big thing was basically compliance fetishism. Individually the demands weren’t too unreasonable, but they wanted to get what they wanted when they wanted at all times with no exceptions. Washing the dishes isn’t an unreasonable demand, but being available to go do anything they want at any time is. Uninterrupted blocks of time are valuable, and I never had that growing up unless I stayed up later than my parents or got up before them (I tried both, this also got them upset with me).
This probably has more to do with the social status of the parents then what they are doing to the children.
True enough, you can get away with a lot more things if you have enough status. (Well, except occasionally when the status is based on fame of the kind that makes people think they have more right to moral expectations...)
Given some of the horror stories I’ve heard coming out of CPS, this is an extremely low bar.
If systematically escaping and seeking sanctuary at any opportunity is not effective then I could perhaps recommend the victims wishing to escape consider acquiring non-permanent but visible injuries to, for example, the arms, legs, neck and cheek and leverage that (and suitable testimony) to employ social pressure against their captors. This is best accompanied by being extremely likeable and accommodating with all other authority figures wherever possible.
Of course virtually no children are able to effectively create and execute long term plans to exploit the social power structure around them toward strategic ends. That’s why most of them need parents.
The biggest threat in such a situation is the possibility that more free will will be taken from you via the forcible administration of drugs. Sufficiently high status parents could easily get the child diagnosed with one of various mental disorders and given a cocktail of antipsychotics and antidepressants, reducing their ability to behave as proactive agent. And they could (and probably would) do so while remaining completely secure in their belief that they are doing the right thing.
The biggest threat in such a situation is the possibility that more free will will be taken from you via the forcible administration of drugs. Sufficiently high status parents could easily get the child diagnosed with one of various mental disorders and given a cocktail of antipsychotics and antidepressants, reducing their ability to behave as proactive agent.
In my experience it’s much more common for teachers and/or social workers to try to get the child medicated over the parents’ objections than the other way around.
In my experience it’s much more common for teachers and/or social workers to try to get the child medicated over the parents’ objections than the other way around.
The described circumstances are atypical to say the least (I don’t know if a real child has ever executed the described strategy), and it is the parents that are already assumed to be hostile agents.
One could argue that the problem here is that society’s threshold for what constitutes “child abuse” is too low.
I may be over-extrapolating from my childhood level of persistence and stubbornness. You might be able to make many children fold by staying on the non-abuse side of the line, but it doesn’t take that ornery of a kid to force your hand. You have to be unreasonable in the first place to push them to that negotiating strategy, though.
What do you consider to constitute “abuse”? A lot of people consider any spanking “child abuse”, I strongly disagree with this, unfortunately depending on where you live this can result in calling of CPS.
I’m not sure what you had in mind, but, to use the examples from up thread, expecting a child to do school work and/or brush his teeth are not unreasonable demands.
I was talking about anything that you can convince a social worker to call “abuse”. That’s a conservative line, though. How about any situation where the child is better off dealing with child protective services than their parents on an ongoing basis? That puts a solid floor on how unpleasant you can make your child’s life in order to get what you want.
My parents big thing was basically compliance fetishism. Individually the demands weren’t too unreasonable, but they wanted to get what they wanted when they wanted at all times with no exceptions. Washing the dishes isn’t an unreasonable demand, but being available to go do anything they want at any time is. Uninterrupted blocks of time are valuable, and I never had that growing up unless I stayed up later than my parents or got up before them (I tried both, this also got them upset with me).
This probably has more to do with the social status of the parents then what they are doing to the children.
Given some of the horror stories I’ve heard coming out of CPS, this is an extremely low bar.
True enough, you can get away with a lot more things if you have enough status. (Well, except occasionally when the status is based on fame of the kind that makes people think they have more right to moral expectations...)
If systematically escaping and seeking sanctuary at any opportunity is not effective then I could perhaps recommend the victims wishing to escape consider acquiring non-permanent but visible injuries to, for example, the arms, legs, neck and cheek and leverage that (and suitable testimony) to employ social pressure against their captors. This is best accompanied by being extremely likeable and accommodating with all other authority figures wherever possible.
Of course virtually no children are able to effectively create and execute long term plans to exploit the social power structure around them toward strategic ends. That’s why most of them need parents.
The biggest threat in such a situation is the possibility that more free will will be taken from you via the forcible administration of drugs. Sufficiently high status parents could easily get the child diagnosed with one of various mental disorders and given a cocktail of antipsychotics and antidepressants, reducing their ability to behave as proactive agent. And they could (and probably would) do so while remaining completely secure in their belief that they are doing the right thing.
In my experience it’s much more common for teachers and/or social workers to try to get the child medicated over the parents’ objections than the other way around.
The described circumstances are atypical to say the least (I don’t know if a real child has ever executed the described strategy), and it is the parents that are already assumed to be hostile agents.