Emo Gremlin

Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 (1987) Dir. By Shinji Aramaki Animated By: Hideaki Anno & Kōji Akimoto

The studies done by the trained psychologists in this joke show that little kids don’t associate being hit with the thing they’ve done wrong. Very small children only understand consequences that are directly caused by the thing they did. Steal a biscuit, biscuit tastes good. Then for no reason mummy hit me. Very different to stole a biscuit, now no biscuit after dinner because I stole a biscuit.

And they also show that when a child is old enough to understand why they are being hit that non-physical punishment is equally as effective and less mentally harmful in the long run.

Do you know who benefits the most from hitting as a punishment? The parent. It gives a satisfaction rush. Parents do it because it makes them feel good.

Basically kids have two stages: too young to understand why they are being hit so physical punishment is useless for anything other than teaching a child that bigger stronger people can hit you whenever they like (Which sounds like the same lesson you would learn from abuse)

And the second stage is old enough to be reasoned with so many punishment options are available and you chose physical violence because it makes *you* feel better, which is an abusive action.

Punitive justice holds that people must be kept in line via pain and fear; we’re used to seeing physical punishment like this thread talks about, but this also manifests in other ways: emotional punishments like shame, financial punishments like fines, social punishments like isolation and ostracization… carceral justice is a part of this (the criminal justice system, callouts and harassment campaigns, emotional abuse and berrating, etc.). It’s all the same core concept: people are fundamentally bad, and they will not choose to do the right thing. They must be forced.

Your kid stole a biscuit: hit them so they fear pain next time they think about it.

Restorative justice had roots in indigenous practices, and it’s based on the idea that people fundamentally want to do the right thing. They are trying, and they will try. If they’ve done wrong, they should be given the opportunity to understand that, take responsibility, correct that behavior, and do better next time.

Your kid stole a biscuit: explain to them why that’s wrong (in an age appropriate way, ex: “there aren’t enough biscuits for everyone now”) so they understand why they shouldn’t do it again.

Transformative justice adds to this core idea and says that not only can people fix things after they’ve done wrong, but that the circumstances leading to that situation need to be fixed as well. It has roots in addressing social issues (ex: illegal drug use is often caused by untreated mental illness), but it works on an interpersonal level as well.

tell them to stop

make a loud, startling sound to get their attention (ideally just shout their name, but “HEY” works), then tell them to stop

if they are attempting to harm someone else, help to remove that person from the situation ASAP and get somewhere safe until they calm down

if they are about to do something dangerous and you are in physical range of stopping it, but you cannot speak in time, physically block their path (ex: put your arm in front of a hand reaching out to touch something hot)

never grab a kid, never try to physically restrain a kid, and never hit a kid. there’s no situation in which there is not a better, safer alternative for everyone involved. prommy.

if you do hurt a kid for whatever reason, yes, immediately apologize. you can explain why, but make sure they understand that it’s not okay to do that, you shouldn’t have done it, nobody else should do it to them, and that if anyone ever does that to them, they should tell a trusted adult immediately. it’s a violation of physical autonomy at minimum, and it is INCREDIBLY important to make sure kids understand the respect they’re entitled to (as well as owe to others). bonus points for explaining those alternatives to them!

hate exercising and realizing i've let go of a lot of anxiety and anger because i've overturned my fight-or-flight response.

hate eating right and eating enough and eating 3 times a day and realizing i'm less anxious and i have more energy

hate journaling in my stupid notebook with my stupid bic ballpoint and realizing that i've actually started healing about something once i'm able to externalize it

hate forgiving myself hate complimenting myself more often hate treating myself with kindness hate taking a gratitude inventory hate having patience hate talking to myself gently

hate turning my little face up to the sun and taking deep breaths and looking at nature and grounding myself and realizing that i feel less burdened and more hopeful, more actually-here, that i am able to see the good sides of myself more clearly, that i am able to see not only how far i have to grow - but also how much growth i have already done & how much of my life i truly fill with light and laughter and love

“Most films made for children are flashy adventure-comedies. Structurally and tonally, they feel almost exactly like blockbusters made for adults, scrubbed of any potentially offensive material. They aren’t so much made for children as they’re made to be not not for children. It’s perhaps telling that the genre is generally called “Family,” rather than “Children’s.” The films are designed to be pleasing to a broad, age-diverse audience, but they’re not necessarily specially made for young minds.”

“My Neighbor Totoro, on the other hand, is a genuine children’s film, attuned to child psychology. Satsuki and Mei move and speak like children: they run and romp, giggle and yell. The sibling dynamic is sensitively rendered: Satsuki is eager to impress her parents but sometimes succumbs to silliness, while Mei is Satsuki’s shadow and echo (with an independent streak). But perhaps most uniquely, My Neighbor Totoro follows children’s goals and concerns. Its protagonists aren’t given a mission or a call to adventure - in the absence of a larger drama, they create their own, as children in stable environments do. They play.”

“Consider the sequence just before Mei first encounters Totoro. Satsuki has left for school, and Dad is working from home, so Mei dons a hat and a shoulder bag and tells her father that she’s “off to run some errands” - The film is hers for the next ten minutes, with very little dialogue. She’s seized by ideas, and then abandons them; her goals switch from moment to moment. First she wants to play “flower shop” with her dad, but then she becomes distracted by a pool full of tadpoles. Then, of course, she needs a bucket to catch tadpoles in - but the bucket has a hole in it. And on it goes, but we’re never bored, because Mei is never bored.”

“[…] You can only ride a ride so many times before the thrill wears off. But a child can never exhaust the possibilities of a park or a neighborhood or a forest, and Totoro exists in this mode. The film is made up of travel and transit and exploration, set against lush, evocative landscapes that seem to extend far beyond the frame. We enter the film driving along a dirt road past houses and rice paddies; we follow Mei as she clambers through a thicket and into the forest; we walk home from school with the girls, ducking into a shrine to take shelter from the rain; we run past endless green fields with Satsuki as she searches for Mei. The psychic center of Totoro’s world is an impossibly giant camphor tree covered in moss. The girls climb over it, bow to it as a forest-guardian, and at one point fly high above it, with the help of Totoro. Much like Totoro himself, the tree is enormous and initially intimidating, but ultimately a source of shelter and inspiration.”

“My Neighbor Totoro has a story, but it’s the kind of story that a child might make up, or that a parent might tell as a bedtime story, prodded along by the refrain, “And then what happened?” This kind of whimsicality is actually baked into Miyazaki’s process: he begins animating his films before they’re fully written. Totoro has chase scenes and fantastical creatures, but these are flights of fancy rooted in a familiar world. A big part of being a kid is watching and waiting, and Miyazaki understands this. When Mei catches a glimpse of a small Totoro running under her house, she crouches down and stares into the gap, waiting. Miyazaki holds on this image: we wait with her. Magical things happen, but most of life happens in between those things—and there is a kind of gentle magic, for a child, in seeing those in-betweens brought to life truthfully on screen.”