Parents that say "I'm gonna kill you!"

[Rami Rustom]

There’s this thing parents do where they threaten their kids with
really bad things like “i’m gonna kill you!”

I’ve seen this done and I’ve noticed that the kids don’t actually
believe the threat. So, what’s the point of the threat?

The purpose of the threat is to pressure the kid. But if the parent
knows that the kid doesn’t believe that the parent will actually kill
the kid, then… wtf?

I guess it’s the same as the parent saying “I’m mad at you”. The
parent wants the kid to know that the parent disagrees vehemently.
It’s not just a disagreement that the parent is ok with the kid
ignoring. It’s a more important one, enough for parent to be mad and
say things like “i’m gonna kill you!”

These parents don’t seem to know that making threats and not following
through with them is no good. That just teaches that you’re not
serious about the things you say you’ll do. (I'm not saying that
parents should follow through with their threats of murder. I'm saying
to don't say you'll do things that you're not willing to do.)


I think parents do this kind of stuff because they let less important
disagreements slide (settling/sacrificing) -- less important from
their perspective -- and they want a different approach for situations
with more important disagreements that they don’t want to let slide --
e.g. getting mad and showing it with threats of killing the kid.

So like if a parent fixed his problem of sacrificing (letting
disagreements slide) such that he doesn't do it anymore (even for less
important disagreements), then there wouldn't be an incentive to
escalate things when parent has a more important disagreement with his
kid.


What are other threats parents make that they don't intend to follow
through with?

— Rami

[Elliot Temple]

On Apr 2, 2017, at 11:11 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:

> There’s this thing parents do where they threaten their kids with
> really bad things like “i’m gonna kill you!”
>
> I’ve seen this done and I’ve noticed that the kids don’t actually
> believe the threat. So, what’s the point of the threat?
>
> The purpose of the threat is to pressure the kid. But if the parent
> knows that the kid doesn’t believe that the parent will actually kill
> the kid, then… wtf?

sometimes people exaggerate.

then Rami gets super super super duper duper duper confused.

Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com

[Rami Rustom]

i want to understand exactly what you think i’m confused about.

btw, i know parents are exaggerating when they say “i’m gonna kill you”. (though i imagine some people saying it are dead serious.)

is the issue that i didn’t point out that the parent is exaggerating in the context of saying: "But if the parent knows that the kid doesn’t believe that the parent will actually kill the kid, then… wtf?” if so, i’m don’t know why mentioning the exaggeration matters. why does it matter?

— Rami