Why Fear-Based Discipline Doesn't Work — and What Arab Parents Can Do Instead
- Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A.
- Jul 20
- 6 min read
By Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A. | DHA Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Dubai
Originally aired on MBC1 Sabah Al Khair Ya Arab, July 19, 2020
In many Arab homes, authority means fear. The father is respected because he is feared. The teacher is listened to because of what will happen if they are not. Rules are followed not because a child understands why they matter, but because the consequences of breaking them are frightening.
I understand this system. I grew up in the same culture. And I believe, based on fifteen years of clinical work with adults and couples in the UAE, that it needs to change — not because it lacks love, but because of what it produces in the adults those children become.
A Cultural System Worth Examining Honestly
The fear-based authority model is not unique to the Arab world. It is a hierarchical power structure that has existed across many cultures and throughout history. In many contexts, it functions as a coherent social system — children know their place, they behave predictably, and the family runs according to clear rules.
I am not arguing that authority itself is harmful. Parental authority is important, and I support it. The respect a child has for their parents is a beautiful and functional thing.
What I am questioning is fear as the mechanism through which that authority is enforced.
When a child complies because they are frightened — when the deterrent to negative behaviour is the emotional state of terror rather than an understanding of consequences — something is lost in the developmental process. The child learns to manage external threat, not to build internal judgement. They learn to read the parent's mood, not to evaluate their own choices (Barber, 1996; Gershoff, 2002).
What We Want to Build Instead
The goal of parenting — from a clinical perspective — is to raise an adult who can function well in the world. And functioning well in the world requires an internal moral compass, an ability to evaluate decisions, and a capacity to choose well even when no one is watching.
Fear-based discipline does not build this. It builds compliance in the presence of authority — and unpredictability in its absence.
What I encourage parents to move toward is a system of internalisation: helping the child gradually develop their own understanding of why certain behaviours are good for them and others are not. The deterrent shifts from I am afraid of what will happen if I do this to I understand that this behaviour has consequences I don't want, and I know better than to choose it.
This is not a soft or permissive approach. It is a more sophisticated one — and it takes longer, and requires more consistency from parents. But the outcome it produces is a young person who makes good decisions because they have genuinely learned to, not simply because they are afraid.
The Most Important Word in Parenting: Consistency
One of the questions I am asked most often by parents is: How do I get my child to listen to me if I don't raise my voice or frighten them? They just ignore me.
My answer is always the same: consistency.
When a parent's response to behaviour is measured, predictable, and proportionate — when the same behaviour reliably produces the same consequence, regardless of the parent's mood, energy level, or whether it is a good day or a bad one — children learn. They learn the rules of the system. And they stop fighting it, because fighting it produces nothing new.
The problem arises when rules are applied inconsistently. A child who watches television for three hours on days when a parent is tired and distracted, and then is suddenly limited to thirty minutes on days when the parent is feeling motivated, does not experience this as good parenting. They experience it as arbitrary and confusing — and their resistance is, from a developmental standpoint, a completely rational response to an unpredictable environment (Baumrind, 1991).
Decide what the rules are. Apply them consistently. Explain them clearly, in age-appropriate terms. And follow through, every time, without drama or escalation. Eventually — and it does take time — children organise themselves around the system. Not because they are afraid. Because they understand it.
When Love and Fear Come from the Same Person
One of the most clinically significant patterns I see in adult patients is what we call disorganised attachment — and it often has its roots in a childhood where love and fear were inseparable.
A child who is hit by their mother, and then shortly after held and cuddled by the same mother, faces an impossible neurological dilemma. The person who is their source of safety is also their source of threat. There is no resolution to this paradox — the attachment system and the fear system cannot both be fully activated without producing profound internal conflict (Hesse & Main, 2006).
The consequences of disorganised attachment in adulthood are wide-ranging and serious. Adults who developed this pattern as children often struggle to know how to be close to people without also being frightened of them. They may find themselves repeatedly drawn to partners who replicate the same dynamic — intimacy and unpredictability, love and threat, in the same person. They may experience intense anxiety in relationships, oscillating between closeness and fear of it.
None of this is inevitable. It can be worked through in therapy. But it is far better not to create it in the first place.
I am not suggesting parents must be emotionless or robotically controlled. A parent is human. There will be moments of genuine reactivity — particularly when a child's safety is at risk, or when exhaustion and stress have accumulated beyond what anyone can manage perfectly. A small dose of fear in isolated moments is not the same as a fear-based system. What I am arguing against is the model itself: the belief that fear is a legitimate or effective primary tool for raising children.
Raising Children for the World They Will Actually Inhabit
There is one more consideration that I raise with parents regularly: the world Arabic children are being raised to enter.
It is a globalised world. It is, in many of the contexts these young people will work and live in, a highly individualistic one — with different norms around authority, different expectations of how disagreement is expressed, different standards for how people treat one another in professional and personal relationships.
A child raised primarily through fear, who has never been given the experience of having their own judgement respected, who has never practised saying no to something that does not feel right — this child enters that world without essential tools. They may struggle to recognise when they are being mistreated. They may find it difficult to assert themselves in environments that require it. They may accept conditions in the workplace or in relationships that a more inwardly secure person would not tolerate.
The way we parent is preparation for the world our children will live in. That world demands emotional intelligence, self-knowledge, the capacity to set and hold limits, and the inner security to make choices based on values rather than fear.
These qualities are built at home. They are built slowly, with patience, through thousands of consistent, loving, respectful interactions. They cannot be installed through intimidation.
References
Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67(6), 3296–3319. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131780
Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431691111004
Gershoff, E. T. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128(4), 539–579. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.539
Hesse, E., & Main, M. (2006). Frightened, threatening, and dissociative parental behavior in low-risk samples: Description, discussion, and interpretations. Development and Psychopathology, 18(2), 309–343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579406060172
About the Author
Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A. is a DHA Licensed Clinical Psychologist based in Dubai and UAE Director of the Transcendental Meditation Organization. With over 15 years of experience supporting adults and couples across the UAE and GCC through anxiety, stress, burnout, and relationship challenges, she is a regular contributor to MBC, Sky News Arabia, Dubai TV, and BBC Arabic, and the creator of the Anxiety Reset online course series.
Are you navigating a difficult dynamic with your child or teenager?One-to-one support with Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi can help you shift patterns and build a stronger, more secure connection.Book a session →Explore the online courses →Follow on Instagram →
Related Posts
Comments