Lani Ngonethong

I SAY THIS WITH LOVE. While it may seem harsh, tough love disciplines with kindness and understanding.

Picture this: you lost your wallet at a sports game and it gets stolen. When your parents find out, they suspend your account and do not let you spend any money and ground you for three months. While this may seem overly harsh, this is an example of tough love. Tough love is the use of severe constraints to teach children to take accountability of their actions. When used correctly, tough love can build responsible and well developed adults.

In this example, a harsh punishment is used to enforce responsibility of possessions, in the hope that the kid will be careful about what they find valuable. While this is one example of tough love, it can show up in a variety of situations.

Critics of tough love often claim that it causes a toxic relationship between a child and their parents and that more gentle parenting that prioritizes a child’s happiness is more useful. Supporters of the method, on the other hand, believe that it is necessary to push children to acclimate to a world where they live alone. The latter, which prioritizes honesty, is more effective in raising a child to learn how to live alone.

In a study run on 9,000 families in the U.K., it was discovered that children with tough love parents were found more likely to have discipline and control in their emotions, as well as have better social skills. The key to tough love, as the author of the study, Jen Lexmond, claims, is a mixture between tough love and empathetic parenting. Complete authoritarianism alone does not work and needs to be combined with understanding and kindness.

Returning to the example of the lost wallet, a positive example of tough love would find a median between overly strict and too forgiving. Grounding the child for a month while also consoling them if they feel bad about their mistake would maintain the real life punishment while preventing the child from feeling resentment towards their parents.

For tough love to be at its most effective, it needs to be accepted by both sides. Children should be understanding if their parents are putting their foot down in some cases. As long as the discipline does not cross lines of verbal or physical abuse, it can often help build critical life skills as children grow into adults.

While overt bullying from parents can go beyond what is healthy, a careful approach to tough love is the way to go when teaching a child critical life skills.