Legal Ways of Hurting Children and Teens

Introduction

This page is in its infancy, but I hope to create the world's longest, most comprehensive list of all the things parents can legally do to hurt, damage and psychologically destroy "their" children and teens.

The reason for this list is to raise awareness of the lack of legal protection given to children and teens.

We at EQI have worked with suicidal teens for over 15 years and we believe the laws must change in order to save lives.

Here is a partial list:

Tell them they are going to go to "Hell" for all kinds of reasons.

Keep them from seeing their best friends.

Keep them from using the Internet at home. See more on this.

Read their chats, read their mail, read their diaries

Throw away their journals, poetry, artwork, love letters.

"Ground" them. (Even though involuntary confinement is illegal for anyone who is not "your" child or teen

Call the police when "their" "children" try to escape and have the police forcibly return them back to the jail known as their home. But is is not "their" home at all. The parents own the house and therefore, with the help of the government, make and enforce the rules.

Insult them. Call them all kinds of names. Lazy, inconsiderate, selfish, worthless, crazy, ... on and on. See more names parents can legally call their offspring

Threaten them.

Make false assumptions about them.

Not believe them when they are telling the truth.

Deprive them of things

Send them anywhere, move them anywhere

From A Teen

Ways to Punish A Teen - From a New Zealand Psychologist

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This list was sent to me from a teen in the USA. August 2008

Threaten to take away or kill your pets.
Hurt your friends
Belittle your problems
Compare you to siblings or other "greater" children
Force religion upon you.
Control every and any situation
Dictate relationships
Purposely embarrass you
Destroy "your" things, (things they bought for you so technically the object is "theirs")
Labels my parents call me: Anorexic, Bulimic, Crazy, Schizophrenic, Ungrateful, Fat, Pig, Idiot, Stupid, "emo", Ridiculous, whore, worthless..

One thing I would add is that some parents don't just threaten to take away or kill a teenager's pet, they actually do it. I remember once Loo's mother gave away her dog without even telling her. Loo just came home and found out the dog was gone. When she asked where it was, the mother said she gave it to a friend from church.

Antagonistic, Arrogant, Born loser, Bossy, Brat, Clumsy, Klutz, Crabby, Cranky, Crybaby, Defiant, Devil worshiper, Dodo, Drama Queen, Dramatic, Dunce, Egotistical, Finicky, Fool, Good-for-nothing, Greedy, Grouchy, Grumpy, Hellion, Holly Terror, Hot-tempered, Hothead, Idiot, Immature, Ingrate, Lame-brain, Lazy, Lazy-bones, Loser, Mean, Melodramatic, Moody, Monster, Moron, Nitwit, Obnoxious, Ornery, Pain, Pain-in-the neck, Pest, Picky, Pushy, Prude, Rebellious, Rude, Sassy, Sinner, Sissy, Scatter-brain, Self-centered, Selfish, Slob, Sloppy, Smart-aleck, Sore-loser, Spoiled , Stubborn, Too sensitive, Terror, "Too" anything, Troublemaker, Wallflower, Whiner, Worry-wart

This convo was with a 17 year old female in the USA in October of 2006

steve says:
can you think of anything to add to the list of legal ways parents can hurt u?

Teen says:
The only one I would add that I can think of right now is labor

Teen says:
My dad basically orders me to do a lot of the work around the house cuz he is too lazy.

steve says:
ah. its a huge problem in some countries

Teen says:
He says he'll beat me if I don't do it... I would disobey just to see what happens but he scares me too much

steve says:
wow
so that is one way to... to threaten u
even if he doesnt hit u its still scary
has he ever hit u?

Teen says:
He hit me a few times when I was little... mostly spanked.
But the way he says it.. I know he'd do it, threatens to take off his belt and just do it right there

steve says:
wow
thats totally illegal
but threatening u probably isnt technically illegal
so basically u do the work out of fear, true?

Teen says:
Yeah, exactly
It should be illegal
He's got me under his control that way

I just did a search for "Legal Ways of Hurting Children and Teens and found this first...

http://www.aftab.com/cyberbullyingpage.htm

Then I tried this...

"Legal Ways of Hurting Children and Teens" using quotes... no results

Then I tried "Legal Ways of Hurting Children"

No results

Then "Legal Ways of Hurting Teens" and "Legal Ways of Hurting Teenagers" No results.

Then I tried "Legal Ways of Hurting" and got only this. By the way if you read this next link think about the difference between rights and needs.

http://www.animeacademy.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-16196.html

So what this tells me is that not many people are thinking about legal ways to hurt children and teens. I hope my site moves us forward on this.

Today I am talking to a 14 year old in England. Her Internet was taken away as a punishment. This is a new favorite punishment of controlling and sometimes vindictive, hurtful parents.

Here is part of our convo...

steve says:
do u think it should be legal for parents to do that?
steve says:
im making a list of legal ways parents hurt teens
SJ says:
nope
steve says:
if u were talking to a judge and he said why shouldnt it be legal what would u say?
SJ says:
i would say ..... erm ..... i dont think parents have the right to take things that are precious away from their children and i know that most parents care about their children but sometimes they need to give them some room and stop controlling them and let them go

Now what can happen when the Internet is taken away as punishment?

For some suicidal teens it is their lifeline. They use it to get emotional support. For others it is a place for them to learn about many things that are not taught in school. It is obviously a tremendous learning resource, so when this is taken away the teens are denied an opportunity to educate themselves.

One day I would like to see a law which makes this kind of punishment illegal around the world. The Internet is uniting young people worldwide, it is educating and informing them, it is helping save lives. This kind of arbitrary punishment does nothing to develop a young person. It is simply a convenient way of hurting a teen and manipulating them into obedience by reminding them who's the boss.

Competent parents don't need to use inflict this kind of injury onto a young person. This kind of punishment is used by lazy, controlling parents. Instead of having rational discussions with teens, who are often much more level headed than the parent, as we see in the video of the verbally abusive mother, the parent simply throw their weight around by doing things like grounding the teen or banning them from the Internet. This is not responsible parenting,. It is not healthy parenting. I hope one day it will also not be acceptable parenting.

S. Hein
Oct 14, 2006

Here is a quote

But all forms of deprivation - regardless of their length - teach children that their parents have the power to make their lives miserable by taking away what has meaning to them. Who would trust, or even like, someone with such power?

James Kimmel, Ph.D.

Copy of article

Case 1 - The Prom

Recently I got an email from a teen in the USA whose mother is trying to arrange a date for her daughter on a special high school dance called "the prom". The teen doesn't want to go with the person her mother is pressuring her to go with. She wants to go with someone she feels in love with. The mother though belittles this idea, saying that the teen just wants to go with a guy she can have sex with after the prom (which admittedly is quite customary nowadays in the USA.) But that isn't the reason this teen wants to go with someone she has romantic feelings for. The mother probably knows this but is trying to do whatever she can to get her daughter to go with the person her mother wants her to go with. So what is the mother's motive in meddling in her daughter's romantic life? The other guy is a son of a friend of the mother's. The mother probably wants to earn points with her friend. This or some similar motive is the driving force behind the mother's pressure. But whatever is motivating the mother, it obviously isn't her daughter's happiness.

Proms

If you live in the USA you know what this is, but if you don't you might not know what this means. It is basically big dance at the end of each school year, especially for teens in their last year of high school. I suppose the word "prom" comes from "promotion" which is something like graduation or finally getting out of what I call "P2", prison number 2 for many teenagers who are legally forced to go to schools against their wills. I never went to a "prom" and I am proud of that. Here is the way one teenager, described it:

Prom

Oh, yeah, School has been more of HELL this week than anything. Prom is this
weekend, and it is all I hear about. It gets kind of annoying. People waste
so much money on a dance. They buy 200 and  300 dollar dresses, spend 50+
dollars on hair, then you have nails  which is another 50 dollars...lol, and
this doesn't count limo's that are rented, expensive dinner's at fancy
restaurants, and photo's...all together, a student will pay like...500 dollars
or more on a dance! It is crazy! Then, half the time, the people don't even
enjoy it or even remember it because they get so plastered at after prom
parties!  Prom is so over rated. Society says that you are supposed to go.
That it is supposed to be something a girl looks forward to all her life.
lol, I must be abnormal or something, because I think it is a load of
bullshit!  My mom is disappointed that I am not going to Prom. I think she
wants me to go because she didn't go...and also...in the normal society, it
is the parent's job to be all happy about their kids "finally growing up and
going to her prom!" and all that crap. lol
   Anyhow, as you can see, this really annoys me, lol! I can't count how many
times I have explained this to people when they asked me if I was going to
prom. I explain this to people, and they look at me like I am crazy...oh, and
on top of all of this, I don't like the music that they play at these dances,
and, I don't like to dance for the most part, lol. So, do I sound bitter and
angry? I hope this didn't ruin your good spirits!

From Nicole Norris page

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Case 2 - My brother

When my oldest brother was in his forties he told me about how when he was a teenager he wanted a car. This didn't surprise me at all since my brother has always loved cars. What surprised me is what my mother told him and why she tried to talk him out of getting one. My mother made the wrong assumption about why he wanted the car. She told my brother he only wanted one so he could have sex in it. This hurt my brother's feelings and he has never forgotten this injury to his dignity.

Those who have legal power over teens can send them or move them pretty much anywhere they want to without the consent of the teens. They can even send them to the "boot camp" type places in other countries which Jordan Riak has reported on his site. (see below for link)

This ability to send them wherever they want to, whenever they want to is similar to how slave owners use to sell their slaves.

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Tranquility Bay

Here is a quote from the article...

Inside, 250 foreign children are locked up. Almost all are American, but though kept prisoner, they were not sent here by a court of law. Their parents paid to have them kidnapped and flown here against their will, to be incarcerated for up to three years, sometimes even longer.

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See also Teen Prisoners