Topic : 12/30 Extreme Discipline?

As a 50 year old women with 2 grown children, I can do little to change the past. I am an only child, and was abused much worse than this child, both physically and verbally by a father with an iron hand who has passed away. I never understood what it meant to be daddy's little princess. The day my father passed away, I opened a book that I had given my father for his grandchildren. He was to write things about his life. The only thing that I remember is what he wrote about me. Two questions were posed. #1. How did you feel when our mother was born? He wrote, "I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen". The 2nd question was, What was her personality like?....he wrote one word, "Bad". The next morning I woke up and had two thoughts of my own. #1, "I never have to be afraid of him again (I still was till that day), and #2, Things will never get better between us".  I have come to terms with many things in my age, but the hurt can never be fully removed. What I learned from his examples were anger, and to defy authority. The day I left home, I said, "NO ONE WILL EVER TELL ME WHAT TO DO AGAIN". Of course this has caused me a few issues, but I still have respect for policemen and God. However, I have little respect for men. You will say that I have attracted the same type of men as my father, but that is absolutely untrue. I have been divorced for 16 years from a man that was good in so many ways, but when he couldn't find the words to overpower me, he resorted to physical overpowering. And in fairness to him, I have a lethal tongue because men have always tried to "Lead" me into submission and can be good at biblicly proving that this is the way it is supposed to be. Unfortunately, I verbally abused my own children when they were young because I didn't know how to do it different. And I often wonder how my own father was abused. DR PHIL, what I want to see from you is specific examples of how to parent. Not the same old, Blame Pointing and Judging; but MANY Specific Ideas. Saying that this girl should be made to feel loved is great....BUT HOW DO YOU DO THAT? And get them to mind? Supernanny does a great job giving examples for young children, but how do you do it with teenagers who naturally rebel?????????? Everything is NOT as Black and White as your show generalizes it to be. We can all see many things that are right or wrong, but people and families are as individual as snowflakes.

I agree, many children today go  undesciplined.  That's why they wear baggy pants down to their knees and shirts big enough to fit a 400 lb person. No offense!  It's getting worse and worse everyday. I grew up in the 80's and even back then it wasn't as bad as it is now.  Kids wore clothes that actually fit them, they actually did what they were told and so on...   However, that isn't the case with this girl.  Her father is/was such a corpral punisher that she is deathly afraid of him.  To me, she in no way portrays the behavior of a rebellious teen.  She's tired of receiving zero respect when she's demanded to give it.  What scares me the most is he is setting her up to be a battered wife down the road. 

 

Yes, most of the baby boomers made it thru their childhood and looking back they now respect their parents. Well some anyway.   Unfortunately, the same can't be said for today's generation.  They're of the mind-set, that all they're going to feel is hate and resentment.  That's why we have to show them respect while disciplining them at the same time.  That's not to say children won't still resent their parents but it'll  hopefully make them not hate their parents when they're grown.

This nightmare couple were proud that they had started to turn a corner two weeks ago by realizing they need professional help and coming on Dr. Phil?  Meanwhile their daughter has been raped and they have made no move to get her help!  And the father, despite knowing something of her ordeal, still punishes this child for not being comfortable hugging him!  Did no one connect this?  Are they ever going to figure out the universe does not revolve around them?  Dad abuses and Mom watches his behavior and only ONCE threatened to take the kids and go?  I was in tears from the beginning and neither one of those parents shed a tear during the whole show, although the camera did catch the father rubbing his eye once.  They do not deserve to have children in their care.

Dad obviously has some emotional problems.  He left me cold, and frankly, I think he needs a lot of therapy to overcome his problems.  He talks about how he was raised with some bitterness, but seems all to happy to pass that cold, non-loving, abusive way he was raised ON to his own children.  How emtionally backwards is that? 

 

And Mom, what a ton of denial going on in that head.  She doesn't want to leave her husband, so she rationalizes his abusive behaior in order to live her safe life.  She is equally to blame for the problems, and I find her equally repulsive.

what is going to happen to this country as the children take it over?  For all those bleeding hearts out there in America please think where this country is going by allowing a child to control his or her parents. That is what is slowly happening.  There is no justice for parents, what a child say goes.

 In this incident there was two seperate situations in this topic -  the  alleged sexual abuse of the daughter and the father;s discipline practice. This country was built on the family and the children listening to the parents. the father in this topic gave his daughter a choice on sitting on the couch or doing what he wanted - it was her choice to stay there and miss supper. but, maybe we should really be looking behind the scene could it be that the daughter is stubborn towards the father in some type of sub-conscience way because of the sexual abuse. Parent are open to neglect and abuse charges at every turn, so much that America gave Child Protective Services the same immunity as the District Attorneys.( they can use innuendos,fragments of statements, and push a child into making a statement that he is afraid or cried

to make a case. This is getting to be big business.  We need to make our child respondible for their actions, .

I was very surprised with your show today and a bit outraged at the school system.  Where I live if an educator or counselor suspects abuse or hears about abuse of a student and doesn't report it to the authorities he/she could loose their job and even their license.  If the girl on your show today went to the counselor at her school 3 months ago why wasn't it already reported to the authorities?  It also amazes me that it takes being on a show like yours for some people to do what they know they should have done when the abuse was reported to them.

 

I am wondering if the reason the girl feels so distant from the father and doesn't want to hug or kiss him is because he is the one who sexually abused her?

Personally i think BOTH parents need to be removed away from those kids and instructed on parenting and proprer discipline. Case Closed

Why anyone who went through the British boarding school experience for boys would ever espouse it as a paradigm of the way to discipline  a child just leaves me bewildered. I remember reading that noted esthete Cyril Connolly, as a child, begged his schoolmasters to be allowed to use a modest part of his modest allowance to buy a peach. It was forbidden.

 

If such is a fit way to raise a child, I would choose to be reared by the more kindly and nurturing chimpanzees or elephants.

 

I hope that a benign and loving deity will lead these unfortunate people to a better resolution of their troubles. What stronger language could this child use to express her needs and what might be going on with the others?

Why anyone who went through the British boarding school experience for boys would ever espouse it as a paradigm of the way to discipline  a child just leaves me bewildered. I remember reading that noted esthete Cyril Connolly, as a child, begged his schoolmasters to be allowed to use a modest part of his modest allowance to buy a peach. It was forbidden.

 

If such is a fit way to raise a child, I would choose to be reared by the more kindly and nurturing chimpanzees or elephants.

 

I hope that a benign and loving deity will lead these unfortunate people to a better resolution of their troubles. What stronger language could this child use to express her needs and what might be going on with the others?

I was amazed at the lack of remorse both Mother and Father had for their 13 yr. old little girl who has beeen abused.   I would have expected both parents to be in tears.  If that were me I would be balling my eyes out.