I tease my teenage daughter. Sometimes I'll continue even after she's told me she's had enough.

The strange thing is that her father does the same thing, and so does her brother, and so does her cousin, and so does her aunt. She's a good sport and plays along most of the time so maybe that's what makes her seem "tease-able." Or maybe these people are just repeating how they've seen me interact with her.

Why do you continue after she's told you she's had enough?

Because she's a c***.

I'd say that about 85% of my interactions with people involve me at least gently mocking them.

evil_robots, admitting it is the first step :-)

I'd say that about 85% of my interactions with people involve me at least gently mocking them.

Ah, so it was you i spoke to on that suicide hotline.

She may be a good sport, but you're taking advantage of that--and doing a nifty job of teaching her that others have the right to mistreat her if it makes them happy.

In my case, I put it with it for just so long and then became the do-NOT-mess-with-me type I am today. Is that what you want? Well, the alternative's a woman who takes all kinds of abuse because she's been trained to expect no better. Think about it.

Me and little brother were mutual antagonists. We don't hang out much now. My mom antagonized me in ways that were not abusive, but were obnoxious, invasive and selfish, even though she loves me to death. I moved 3,000 miles away to get out from under her influence.

Parents can get away with it a little, but at some point their authority will diminish, because either you're going to build it from being just, fair and caring or lording it over people. If you aren't just, fair or caring, you lose your authority. If you lord your power over people, they will resent you and start thinking of ways to get out from under you.

If I were you, Pooham, I'd probably quit while I was ahead and maybe even apologize for messing with her like that. Besides, some day you'll be in a nursing home and she'll be in charge of how you get looked after. Heh heh heh!

PiquePlace:

Why do you continue after she's told you she's had enough?

Probably because we tease back and for a lot. It's something my daughter and I and the rest of my family do. So when she sometimes says she's had enough I tease again out of habit. It's not frequent, but it does happen. That's how my family is. Yes, there will no doubt be a lot of responses saying that I am psychologically damaging my child. People tend to jump to extremes. Has nobobdy else hear ever teased their kids?

This was just an example of antagonizing behaviour I chose to start off the poll. I could have used the example of purposely slowing down for tail-gaters.

So, anybody mind if I ask again, Have you ever antagonized anyone? Or they you?

"I could have used the example of purposely slowing down for tail-gaters."

I will confess to doing this.

I tease my teenage daughter. Every time the freecreditreport.com guy comes on the TV, I yell at her to hurry up and get in there cuz her boyfriend's on TV. She doesn't think it's funny--I do. Why do I keep doing it? Cuz she's a TEENAGER and takes everything so demmed seriously!!!!! So I picked the most ridiculous thing I could think of that has no basis in reality to tease her about. I also flip on my windshield wiper wash when being tail-gated.

Intellectual Hillbilly ... if your daughter asked you to stop teasing her about it, would you?

That's the crux of this discussion. Playful teasing is one thing, but continuing to do it when someone asks you to stop can be a problem.

Actually, I don't think "your boyfriend's on TV" is bad.

When I was small, my father, all my brothers, and sometimes one sister would tickle me mercilessly. Often, I'd escaped one only to be captured by another. "Birthday spankings" tended to be more like beatings, except they'd smile to convince our mom they weren't hitting that hard.

With my kids, I outlawed birthday spankings. The first line of defense against those who tried to give them to my kids was, "You didn't give them a present." When they claimed they'd give them one, I'd say, "Doesn't matter; you're still not doing it." And I taught the kids that anyone who touched physically them in any way (tickling, kissing, hitting, whatever) that they objected to, didn't respect them, and to let me know.

We did have a tickle game of sorts. They'd lie on the floor, and I'd pretend to tickle them, without making actual contact. They'd giggle and laugh, but more from nervousness or because they thought it was funny. As they got older, they'd just smile smugly at me, because they knew it wouldn't really tickle. When their "darling uncles" would actually tickle my kids, I'd tell them they could tickle the kids all they wanted, as long as no actual contact was made. That wasn't any fun, because they couldn't be the ones overpowering a lesser opponent that way.

Absolutely not. I guess it's somewhat hypocritical of me, because I agree that the boyfriend-tickler has crossed a line, but I don't see any emotional or physical damage being done to my daughter by my teasing. Plus, she is assured daily, nay, hourly of my unconditional and complete love for her. She's not going to deal very well with the pangs and turmoil of life when she grows up, if she can't take a little teasing. And the world doesn't stop turning because you don't like what's going on.

pooham:

I tease my teenage daughter. Sometimes I'll continue even after she's told me she's had enough.

The strange thing is that her father does the same thing, and so does her brother, and so does her cousin, and so does her aunt. ...

But do you take it as good as you give it though? What if one day she turns around and 'hey mom- your breast are dragging on the floor- I think you need holstein bras!' Are you going to laugh along with it? If the teasing is all around- it's healthy. But if it only goes one way - I would say it's a form of bullying.