As a family born into a Hispanic household, I was always well aware of the consequences for behaving badly. I was fortunate enough to never have been hit as a child, but I definitely know that there were times I deserved it. One family in Missouri decided to share a TikTok video showing how they discipline their daughters, and it’s a bit more unorthodox than you could imagine: running or doing pushups. Personally, I think I would have liked these options a bit more than having to stay in my room for the weekend, but the past is the past!
The video was shared by @thevierrasix, a family of six: mom, dad, and three daughters, with a fourth on the way, who share their lives on TikTok. Many of their videos consist of parenting advice and trips taken with the whole gang. In this video, however, they decided to share an odd parenting tip concerning disciplining their daughters. Whenever they need to be punished or disciplined, they choose between doing a lap in the front yard or doing pushups. The video even goes on to list ten reasons why this is a good idea.
Various commentators were all for this decision, with praises coming from all directions. One of the top comments even says, “Hey! You shouldn’t do this, your kid might associate exercise with emotional regulation and they might be super fit and emotionally regulated as an adult!!!” Others follow this same, tongue-in-cheek humor, with another top comment saying, “i would be careful with this. if you make her too strong she might beat you up.” Personally, my favorite comment hit a little bit closer to home than all the others, “My parents did this and if we were fighting we had to run holding hands 😂.”
Other commentators were less amused by this, saying that doing this will affect how they view exercise and will begin to associate it with punishment. In response to those comments, @thevierrasix made a response video explaining that the children aren’t in any sort of danger or being abused in any way. He describes in more detail what the running consists of, which is really just running to a tree in their front yard and back three times.
At the end of the day, parenting looks different for everyone, and one parent’s ideas might not be suitable for another. Considering that the children aren’t in danger and simply just need to be punished at times, I don’t see the problem, and will probably use this same idea with my own children one day!
