I thought tough love was letting someone suffer the consequences of their own actions, rather than putting it right for them. Like when a child is consistently late for school, you don't make excuses for the child to the teacher but just let the child get told off by the teacher.

Clearly there are a lot of definitions for tough love and it can easily be abused.

Now that you mention it, I think you're right. No matter what, I don't think the idea is for the person doing the though loving to be nasty to the recipient. That's something else entirely.

This post was last modified: 02-12-2011 11:59 PM by d_olson27.

I agree with both your posts there 100%. Whew. I was expecting a pro-aversives person to come and tear me down. They seem to be everywhere.

my parents gave up using the tough love on me, they said
it always backfired on them. I don't remember what
it was, I think they refused to help me in some way
and I was homeless for awhile and just wandered around
town after beingkicked off myold property because
Iwas just hanging around the house outside and they
said I had to leave so I sat in the street for a long time
and then they said I cood not go there so I wanteered around
town asking frends for food in eschenage for fisinxg stiuff
and dad finally said enough and put me up in another place,
this was before I moved with my brother.

Okay, I reread the thread and agree with all of you. (When I said "both your posts", I meant the two BEFORE the last two before my post there... two people posted at the same time I did.)


Go FartMan, I guess you got them good there!

This post was last modified: 02-13-2011 07:27 PM by Ana54.

Waitaminute, I just wanna add that humiliation is never a good consequence for someone's actions no matter what they did. As you all know, I'm against negativity (and here I am being negative about negativity... hypocritical lol) so really I hsould say I'm 100% pro-positivity all the time. I know there is always a positive redirection. I think the first thing a child or anyone else or anything else should know before ANYTHING else is that God loves them and will always be there for them, and then they will be able to handle negativity positively. But until then, and even after, let's try to be positive even with the most negative.


If something someone did that you're saying is disgusting really means a lot to them, they WILL be offended. Sometimes deeply so, and that is why you have to make sure they can take it.

This post was last modified: 02-13-2011 07:32 PM by Ana54.

What about if someone is making smacking noises when they chew? Most people do find that disgusting, and hearing it tends to make eating less enjoyable.

I'm not opposed to allowing embarassment that naturally follows something to be used as a disincentive. Of course, some people might need a little more instruction to know how to avoid that embarassment in the future.

One other thing that tends to get used sometimes is what my sensei refers to as "minor ridicule." It's pretty much just throwing a few good-natured jokes at someone after they did something relatively minor. The goal is for the target to get a laugh out of it as well.

I don't know if any of those fall into what you're referring to as humiliation, but I find all of them to be acceptable. I don't agree with people telling everyone something like "Hey, look at this wierdo over here!" That's not cool.

Oh, and I believe that it should always be clear that it's the action that's bad and not the person.

Laughing with them is alright.

I would say be really careful about this.  Minor teasing like this is used a lot in every day life and even though the person you are teasing is 'laughing with you' that doesn't mean it's not affecting them.

I worked with a guy once who used minor teasing to change behaviour. He was my supervisor and the one I had to go to to ask questions. I remember bringing an invoice that I had recieved in the mail to him and asking him what I do with it, he said 'you eat it'.  Obviously he thought I should have worked out what to do with it myself, but I had tried that and I didn't know, so I just stood there feeling humiliated as the other girls I worked with laughed at me.  He said nothing more, so I told him since I didn't know what to do with it I was going to leave it on his desk. That's when he told me what to do with it.

Laaughing AT someone is different from laughing WITH them... they have to find it funny too.

Yes, thanks for clarifying. And some people also take any jests in their direction personally. It's important to take that into consideration.

People laugh when they are embarrassed as well. It doesn't necessarily mean they are finding it funny just because they are laughing.  

These 'jokes' are often used inappropriately. The intention is to belittle a person and make fun of their behaviours that are considered weird or not normal to try to embarrass them out of doing them. My sister used to get these kinds of 'jokes' all the time.  She moves slowly and does things slowly. People think by making fun of her that will make her move faster, but she is incapable of moving faster or doing things faster. She is doing what she can.

I meant "only laugh if the person making you laugh is laughing"... if they want you to have a laugh with them you should let yourself. If not, you shouldn't want to.

This post was last modified: 02-14-2011 02:19 AM by Ana54.

It really helps to be able to read body language and facial expressions. I know that's not easy for most people here, but it's not absolutely impossible.