The textbook definition of “tough love” is permitting a child to experience a difficult or challenging situation in order to learn how to navigate it in the future. For example, if a kid consistently leaves their lunch at home, their parent may not drop it off at school, so a day’s hunger teaches them to be more diligent in the future. When employed in the right circumstances, allowing natural consequences like this can teach children valuable lessons.
Some parents, however, engage in incredibly toxic behaviors towards their kids under the guise of “tough love” — sometimes without realizing the harm they’re causing, and other times with full awareness that their actions are actually abusive and cruel. Here are 9 examples of such “tough love” behaviors that cross the line.
1. “I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Countless children grow up with their pain — both physical and emotional — being invalidated, minimized, or even dismissed by parents, grandparents, and other caregivers. When the child complains of ailments ranging from growing pains or sprained joints to menstrual cramps or emotional overwhelm, some caregivers mock them and tell them to “toughen up” rather than listening and taking action to care for them.
Yet, if these same caregivers experience pain themselves, they expect medical care providers to offer support, guidance, and possibly medication to help them through it. When it comes to their own child, however, they simply brush off this suffering with the threat of further pain if the child has the audacity to keep bothering them for help.
It’s possible that later, when the child is actually diagnosed with a broken bone or other severe health issue, these parents complain that they “didn’t know” the child was hurting and figured they were just seeking attention.
2. Punishment in the guise of “teaching a lesson.”
To err is human, but in toxic families, mistakes are grounds for punishment instead of learning opportunities. When a child has the audacity to forget something or break an item accidentally, they’re punished severely instead of taught how to fix it or how to make amends.
Here’s a personal example: when I was growing up, I lost my house key somewhere between school and home. According to my parents, this was proof that I was irresponsible and showed that I should never be trusted with a key to the house again. So I had to sit outside, rain or shine, and wait for a responsible adult (i.e., them) to let me in. Ironically, a few weeks after I lost that key, my mother lost her own car keys. Her keys were replaced a few days later, which just reinforced the unfairness of the situation.
3. Taking a child’s bedroom door away.
Young people have a right to privacy and personal security, especially when it comes to their own rooms. Unfortunately, some parents choose to punish their kids — especially their teenagers — by taking their bedroom doors away to deny them these basic rights.
This is a controlling and humiliating behavior that many child development experts consider emotionally harmful. When parents do this, they’re showing their child in no uncertain terms that any privacy they have is theirs to grant or take away at whim. They want the child powerless and strive to ensure that the lesson is driven home.
4. Not stepping in when their child is being harmed.
Let’s say that a younger child consistently gets bullied or pushed around by their older siblings. Instead of stepping in and defending them, some parents (or grandparents) may let the bullying, harassment, and even physical violence continue in an attempt to force the younger kid to “stand up for themselves”.
Similarly, if a child is being mistreated by a teacher, coach, medical professional, and so on, the parents may mock them for their weakness and tell them to fight their own battles instead of running to mommy or daddy like a big baby. Yes, it’s valuable to learn to advocate for yourself confidently, but this is rarely the way to do it. More often than not, the only lesson the child learns here is: “My parents won’t stand up for me when I’m being hurt.”
5. Corporal punishment.
If your partner hit you, would you stay with this person knowing that they’ve abused you and will likely do so again in the future? Would you ever be able to trust this person again? Hopefully, the answer is “no”, because once someone has proven to you that they’ll hurt you when they’re upset, or to teach you a lesson about not upsetting or disappointing them, the trust is irreparably broken.
And yet, some parents hit their children on a regular basis to punish them for perceived slights, with the expectation that things will be absolutely fine from there on — provided the child behaves exactly as desired.
These parents might even insist that striking their child “hurts me more than it hurts you,” followed by the expectation that the child hug them and tell them that they love them afterwards. If this dynamic were described between spouses, everyone would be shouting to the heavens about how toxic and abusive it is.
It’s no less toxic or abusive between parents and their children. In fact, it’s worse because the child isn’t just unable to defend themselves against their abuser: they’re completely dependent upon them for survival. This might have been an acceptable form of punishment in decades gone by when parents knew no better, but we do know better now. Know better, do better.
6. Reneging on agreements, especially involving money.
Some parents intentionally renege on agreements they made with their kids to teach them that life is going to screw them over. Here’s a perfect example: let’s say the parent asks their child to help them with a major chore, and promises to pay them 100 dollars for it. Once the chore is done, the parent then pays the child 50 instead.
When their kid gets rightfully upset, the parent says that money was taken off for gas, food, drinks, and supplies, and now they know what it feels like to have taxes taken off their paycheck, hurr hurr. This arrangement wasn’t agreed upon ahead of time — which might have been a good learning opportunity — but was instead dropped on them as a surprise, damaging their trust and faith in their parents from then on in.
7. Moving the goal posts.
Many parents who would be livid if their employers moved goal posts after they achieved a given directive see no problem doing the same to their kids. In fact, they often change the parameters of deals they’ve made with their child after said offspring has done the agreed-upon share.
And when the child complains about it not being fair, they’ll get the “life’s not fair, kid!” talk, followed by orders to do the thing without complaining further. It’s a sad reality that some parents don’t see their children as people, but rather as extensions of themselves, and tools to use at their will.
8. Isolation and denial to force desired behavioral changes.
Some parents who want their children to behave a certain way may deny their children’s basic needs in an attempt to manipulate them into doing things their way. Even when this comes from a place of good intentions, it can end up causing extreme damage to the child, both physically and mentally.
Take the example of a child with sensory food aversions, which results in severely restricted eating. Some parents may admonish that child for being a “picky eater”, instead of validating and accommodating their very real aversions. The parent may insist that the child sits at the table until they’ve finished their dinner, and they won’t be allowed to eat anything but that until they’ve done so.
If they don’t manage to choke it down for dinner, they’ll be served it again at breakfast. And then for dinner again the next night. This may continue until the child breaks down and eats it, only to get ill… at which point the child will be punished for being difficult and wasting good food. There is no winning here.
9. Criticism disguised as guidance or “helping.”
Unfortunately, many parents think that pointing out all their kids’ flaws is some sort of motivational tool to “help” their children be the best they can be, at least from the parents’ perspective. Criticism and condemnation under the guise of “encouragement” are used for everything from academic grades to extracurricular activities like athletics. Basically, they mock, put down, and harshly critique their kid to “motivate” them to do better.
This type of toxic behavior drives young people to everything from anxiety to depression, to eating disorders, and even self-harm. Parents may try to excuse these actions, claiming that they are trying to help their kids succeed for the best life possible, but in reality, this kind of “tough love” can do so much damage that some of it may be irreparable.
Final thoughts…
These behaviors may have been considered normal parenting long ago, before we understood the long-term impact they have on children’s emotional and psychological development. But we know better now: these “tough love” approaches damage trust, create anxiety, and undermine the parent-child bond.
Choosing cruelty over kindness and punishment over instruction at any given opportunity usually just results in a child who will withdraw and sort their own lives out as much as possible. What’s more, this behavior also encourages deceit, as the child will use evasion or withholding information to avoid further punishment.
It’s a sad reality that parents who frequently engage in these behaviors find that, come adulthood, their children go no contact, seemingly for “no reason.” But there is always a reason if you look closely enough.
