Does Tough Luck Work?

My Dad was a master in the technique of " Tough Love " and it was your own " Tough Luck " if you didn't understand that he was. He believed in the old adage " Spare the rod and spoil the child " It didn't take but three times in my raising to convince me. The first time was a learning experience and the last two times were refresher courses. It sure did work too and worked well. I can now see how fortunate I was to have a Mom and Dad who cared enough about me. After my second refresher course I learned to respect "Tough Love" before it became Tough Caca.

It's not tough luck, it is tough love and no I was not raised with it but I did raise my son that way once he got into drugs. I went to ALANON and learned about tough love and it worked. My son is 40 today and has a great job and has been clean and sober for 15 years.

It is called tough love not tough luck

Touch of Blues here:

"If it wasn't for Bad Luck, I wouldn't have no Luck at all".

I was raised by my Mum when my Dad died at age 6. It was tough, but I worked hard with no silver spoon and retired at 52.

I was raised with a smattering of tough love and a large heap of acceptance :-)

Ditto: it is Tough Love, not tough Work :-)

Definition:

a disciplinary technique, as for a young person or a loved one, in which a seemingly harsh or unfeeling course of action is chosen deliberately over one demonstrating the tenderness or forbearance instinctively felt

I was raised with tough love. But it was love. I wonder what would have happened with me if not. I was a challenge.

Yes it did work and as a result it was not a technique I had to use with mine as it was up front and real and the communication effective.

Tough luck? I guess that would be bad luck. So I had plenty of it.

I heard that term often as a kid....."If you fall & can't get up...it's your tough luck...figure out how to crawl or yell for help...but don't be surprised if no one comes & you are left to your own resources." It taught me never to rely on others & to adapt to the world around me. It also created many trust issues. It seems to work for me. Thanks MOM & Dad 2!

Also known as the "Sink or Swim" method of childrearing.

Yes it works, if you stick to it, if you underline the message I love you, I dont love who you have become. If you are strong and committed to seeing it through, to getting the changes you want to see in your child.

If you end up caving in it doesnt work, it just makes things worse than they were before.

I was brought up on the "no love" plan. It wasnt a great success in terms of raising a confident healthy child. The only thing it did do was make me determined to prove I could be better than any one of them were.

Got me to quit drinking - don't know you could call it tough love exactly, got tired of fines, court dates, loosing my driver license, gave me allot of incentive to consider other ways of living with out booze.