Tough love

For other uses, see Tough love (disambiguation).

Tough love is an expression used when someone treats another person harshly or sternly with the intent to help them in the long run.

In most uses, there must be some actual love or feeling of affection behind the harsh or stern treatment to be defined as tough love. For example, genuinely concerned parents refusing to support their drug-addicted child financially until he or she enters drug rehabilitation would be said to be practicing tough love.[1][2]

"Tough love" boot camps for teenagers have been described as child abuse, and the National Institutes of Health noted that "get tough treatments do not work and there is some evidence that they may make the problem worse".[3][4]

There is evidence to suggest that what the British call tough love can be beneficial in the development of preferred character traits in children up to five years old. However, the British definition used by these researchers is more similar to the concept of "authoritative" parenting, whereas American ideas about tough love are closer to the notion of "authoritarian" parenting, which has been linked with negative outcomes in other research.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Vine, Sarah. Tough love or TLC?, The Times, 31 August 2007.
  2. ↑ Jardine, Cassandra. "The ultimate betrayal or just tough love?", Daily Telegraph, 4 March 2009.
  3. ↑ Szalavitz, Maia. "The Trouble With Tough Love", Washington Post, 28 January 2006.
  4. ↑ 2004 Youth Violence Prevention, National Institute of Health.
  5. ↑ "Tough love 'is good for children'", BBC News, 8 November 2009.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/27/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.