This is reprehensible!
I see several issues here:
1- For a parent to announce to the child that they are going to engage in a physical fight is to provide a normalizing template, a working model, for the child in dealing with conflict. “Identification with the aggressor parent”
I see several issues here:
1- For a parent to announce to the child that they are going to engage in a physical fight is to provide a normalizing template, a working model, for the child in dealing with conflict. “Identification with the aggressor parent”
2- For them to implore the child to join the fight, making it seem necessary to protect the parent is to create a crisis that potentially threatens their attachment system and their psychological integrity. Their secure base is threatened and they’re not being a safe haven.
3- For the child to have to choose whether to comply (“I’ll save my mother; I’ll be an aggressor”) or decline (“I’ll save myself; I’ll be passive”) is to place a burden of choice (and inevitable guilt & shame) on them that likely exceeds the developmental capacity of them to bear
4- When the child is swept up in excitement, they’re likely mirroring the parent’s excitement. It’s possible they couldn’t separate themselves from the parent for reasons that are unique to each child. The child may not afford to test the relationship and so works to protect it.
5- When they object, they test their individuation and place strain on their capacity to self-regulate. It’s as if they’re testing the integrity of their relation with the parent: “Will this result in losing my parent or their love?”; “I’m stressed; my parent isn’t containing me”
I can think of many other ways to see how this experience has the potential to be harmful. Even if the parent turns around and asserts it was a prank: They modeled lying, pranking, and placed the child in a potentially terrifying situation. So they’ve modeled pathogenic parenting
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