Laura Tavoularis

I agree that the damage is different, but I think sometimes the words can do a worse damage than the physical abuse. In my own case, I could see easily that the physical abuse was "wrong". I was able to feel like I was fighting for justice against an unjust (and larger) attacker. However, the words -- I believed. I don't know why I couldn't see them as just as wrong. But somehow, deep down I believed them. And that has affected my entire life.

Now, granted, the physical damage was never severe enough to cause "real" damage that anyone would notice. I was able to keep the feeling that I could "fight back", which really meant "get away", and never felt ultimately hopeless.

Maybe it depends on the child.

Laura T
<<I don't want any child to be slapped but I think being told "you're lazy"
"you'll never amount to anything" "You never do anything right" "why do you
always have to bug me" can and does do just as much damage to a child. ..


Less damage. Different damage.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Julie Solich

>> I agree that the damage is different, but I think sometimes the words can
do a worse damage than the physical abuse.>>


I was smacked as a child. I don't feel bad when I remember those times-I
never have. I do remember most of the hurtful or careless comments that came
my way however. It has always been the things people have said to me that
have scarred me.

I have smacked my kids. (Don't anymore and NEVER will again) But I have
always been very careful about what I say. Even when my husband and I were
having serious marital problems I would try so hard to be careful about what
I said because I have found that words stick and I never wanted to say
anything I didn't mean or would regret saying.

Maybe because I have tried hard to be truthful and kind, I have assumed
that others are the same, and if so why wouldn't every nasty thing ever said
about me be true. Sorry, I'm thinking out loud here. I'll go and think
'quietly'.


Julie
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Mary

<<I agree that the damage is different, but I think sometimes the words can
do a worse damage than the physical abuse. In my own case, I could see
easily that the physical abuse was "wrong". I was able to feel like I was
fighting for justice against an unjust (and larger) attacker. However, the
words -- I believed. I don't know why I couldn't see them as just as wrong.
But somehow, deep down I believed them. And that has affected my entire
life.>>



I've been thinking about this words versus hitting thing. I do believe the
damage being done is very different, but I'm also not so sure the hitting is
sometimes worse. I can remember two separate (thank you Sandra!) occasions
as a child when I was struck by my mom. I remember them both well. Although
the first one I can't remember what I did to get spanked. It was
humiliating for me. And although I can remember them, I'm not so sure after
a while they were traumatic for me. I remember lots more of what has been
said to me. I had a much harder time dealing with those words, and some
still very much with me today, than the hitting. Maybe it was how I was as a
child, maybe it was that there were only two occasions and nothing on a
regular basis.

But I also look into my adult life and know that I was in a very verbally
abusive relationship. He never laid a hand on me to hurt me, but the verbal
abuse was so bad that there were times when I would just think in my head
that I wished he would just hit me and get it over with. Then it would be
over instead of continuing for hours and even days. And just to clear up
that thought, I had been in a physically abusive relationship before that
one, and for me, it wasn't half as bad. Maybe I'm just weird.

And even though I'm not sure it's always worse, I do not believe in hitting
of any kind to "discipline."


Mary B.
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