When parents deny children basic human rights of bodily autonomy, agency, and privacy, their children learn that their bodies are not their own but always under the authority of someone else.
cfctoo.com/blog/broken-arrows-our-bodies
Children raised in households that use violence to control them grow up believing that they deserve physical harm and that their bodies are not their own.
The practice of deliberately humiliating and breaking a child’s spirit lays harmful groundwork for their future relationships as adults, teaching them that love means submitting to abusers who claim authority over their bodies.
CFC teaches parents a law of sowing and reaping: whatever godly principles a parent sows into their young children's hearts will bear the fruit of godly character in the future.
What the parents fail to see is that their methods of violence and control are tools of warfare designed to crush a plant rather than cultivate anything good.
Tragically, these violent methods teach only warped messages of love and authority and, in so doing, beget further violence. Children must not only endure the fruit of violence in the present moment but will grow to expect it in the future as well.
Diana’s story highlights the ways in which CFC parents dictated their children’s physical and emotional responses during corporal punishment:
cfctoo.com/stories/dianas-story
"At first, I maintained a stoic silence because it felt more humiliating to cry. Occasionally Mom was in a hurry and I could get away with it, but this time she was determined to break me. Whack whack whack.
"The wooden drumstick swished through the air, striking my butt cheeks with all the determination held in my mom’s petite arm.
"I stayed silent and tense, thinking for a split second that I was glad I had managed to hide the thick rubber plumber’s hose under the couch cushions because it had a far more vicious bite than the drumstick.
"I returned to the present as Mom demanded, “Are you sorry?” I maintained my silence. “That obviously didn’t hurt enough,” she responded, forcing me to bend over the bed again.
"She continued for several more rounds, the swats growing harder and faster as her need to crush my resistance intensified. Finally, the humiliation and rage broke my silence, and I cried angry tears.
"Even though I knew what would happen if I couldn’t stop myself from crying, I was flooded with rage and couldn’t control the explosion.
"Mom’s response to my rage followed the predictable pattern. “You’re not allowed to have a temper tantrum,” she said. “I’m going to spank you again until you stop crying.”
Diana’s mother begins beating her daughter with the expectation of a specific performance of penitence. When Diana does not perform contrition with the required number of tears, her mother sees the wooden drumstick as the only available tool.
When Diana’s angry tears finally come, her mother threatens more violence in order to control her daughter’s emotional response.
Diana’s mother uses what CFC claims is her God-given authority to physically and emotionally dominate her teenage daughter such that any protest or autonomy, physical or emotional, is interpreted as rebellion against that authority.
Note that Diana’s mother sees authentic emotion as a “temper tantrum” to be trained out of her daughter. Children in high control religious communities must exercise hypervigilance over their bodily reactions in order to survive the immediate abuse and escape further punishment.
Diana dissociated, thinking about other things, in order to keep her tears in check and so protect herself in the best way she could. Diana censored her emotions to satisfy her mother and stifled her self-preservation instincts, accepting bodily harm, to survive the moment.