Sometimes being a parent means filtering what we say to our kids...
Do you believe in spanking your child?
It can be tiring and stressful to juggle having children and handling all of life's other challenges.
So when you act out and shout at the kids in the heat of the moment, some parents would say that is understandable.
But the underlying truth is that that may cause some sort of response in your kids that perhaps you never intended.
One such response from the kids may be fear. They don't know nor understand that you have had a difficult day.
Most of the time they don't understand that when they break something it costs you money, money that perhaps you don't have.
Which leads us to this story of a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from her home this week out of fear of getting a beating.
She is said to have broken the post box at her home, which obviously upset her parents... and perhaps that led to some sort of reprimanding that scared her.
According to the Reaction Unit South Africa (RUSA) team, they received a call for assistance to locate the child in Waterloo.
After interviewing the mother of the young girl, they found that the child was playing with her friends in the yard and broke the post box.
"The woman informed her daughter that the father was going to beat her when he arrived. The mother continued with her chores and realised the child was missing at approximately 17:00. The woman raised the alarm and launched a search with members of the community." (Facebook)
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Many parents communicated their feelings on the matter.
Jane Naidoo: "This is really bad maybe poor communication n love
with parents n child. Sorry to know she ran away cos she is afraid of her father. I am speculating that the father has previously used violence on thus child. Anyway thankyou RUSA."
Lizelle Heuer: "Can you imagine a 7 year old so afraid of her father she runs away 
social workers needs to step in here for this little girl. Accidents can happen, children can break things, they shouldn't be fearing their parent wanting to beat them!"
Danielle Lattimore: "The way some of these parents act you would swear they were never kids at some point. Breaking the post box is nothing to beat a child over. Stop taking out your stress and problems on your kids! Check on that child tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised if they beat her up for causing all this commotion by running away. Ridiculous"
Image Courtesy of Pexels Website