
11-19-2007, 06:53 PM
One of the worst punishments I ever had wasn't really a punishment, but my mom exploding on me. She doesn't yell much, so when she screams, it's scary, very scary. She got so mad at me once, for having a horrendously messy room, that she screamed at me and threw my trashcan at me.
Then there is this one voice she uses sometimes, when she's really angry, but restraining herself. My brother, sister, and I are all afraid of that voice, and it freaks us out just to hear it, even if it isn't directed at us. I remember once my mom used it towards my niece, and my sister and I both got upset and had to talk to her about it. It's so hard to explain, but the cold, hard voice of my angry mother is one of the most terrifying sounds to me.
On a related, but different note, I recently listened to a lecture from Arun Gandhi, one of Mahatma Gandhi's grandsons, and Arun told some very interesting stories about how his parents trained and disciplined him. Whenever he or his siblings did something wrong, his parents would punish themselves, not them. They felt that they must have done something wrong in raising their kids, for them to act that way, and so they took punishment upon themselves. The effect this had was that the kids felt very bad about what they had done, and they learned the lesson to boot, and didn't do it again. This method seems somewhat manipulative, and it definitely could be, but I think Arun's parents were very sincere about it. They were raise by Gandhi after all, and he was fairly amazing. (I'll refrain for ranting more Gandhi stories.)
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