*This is a work of non-fiction sourced from social media and verified experts/specialists.*
No matter how much parents love their children, they agree that parenting is hard. Children will test your patience limits, keep you awake at night, and make you run around the house during the day. However, lashing out at kids, especially those of age that don't understand your frustration or emotions, isn't the right way to parent. Yelling at kids and other forms of aggression will show the kids that they should handle frustrating situations by becoming angry.
A Reddit author brought this to our attention by sharing a parenting story on social media. In the post, the author's brother-in-law did something awful, and the author finds it confusing and outraging.
"That's effective parenting."
The author says he has a "quite stereotypical rancher-type" sister-in-law (22), Rosa, who married a rancher-type guy (24), Hamish. The couple has three children under three despite living in a tiny mobile home because they're conservative. Due to limited space, the older two kids sleep in the office while the youngest sleeps with the couple. Needless to say, the author doesn't see eye-to-eye with Rosa or Hamish but they're amicable during gatherings.
However, something they said during a recent gathering shook the author. He wrote:
"Just a week ago, their oldest child (3M) began to fuss and cry at night, calling for his mother or father. This would naturally wake up the other child in the room, which meant that the night was getting interrupted for everyone in the house except the youngest baby. This went on for about five days without a solution from them. I don't know what they tried or how ineffective it was, but "nothing was working" apparently."
The author, who confesses he isn't an expert in parenting, but was startled by what Hamish did to get the kid to stop. He wrote:
"He (Hamish) picked up the toddler and put him outside at 2 AM in the dark, and locked the door so he couldn't get in, and left him out there screaming in terror and abandonment for 10 minutes. He then told his son, "If you cry again at night, Dad is going to put you outside in the dark again." It worked- the kid apparently doesn't cry anymore at night. But he's also terrified of the dark and can't handle being in any room alone."
Although this disturbed the author, his in-laws and other family members' reaction gave him the shock of his life. She shared:
"That's awful, but do you know what's arguably worse? Hamish and Rosa told this story to the rest of my in-laws (Rosa's family), and they were PROUD of it as if it was a good parenting strategy! And the rest of the family seemed to endorse the behavior and say, "If it works, it works! He'll grow up to be a well-behaved child."
What do you think? Is Hamish right to have locked away a three-year-old boy outside for crying at night? Is it an effective parenting method to frighten children till they behave?