"Tough Love"

A behavior-modification approach to discipline.

"Tough love" is a phrase popularized in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States and Canada to describe a form of parenting or guidance for troubled children that holds the children responsible for their actions and compassionately forces them to face the consequences. The tough love movement was founded in the early 1980s by Phyllis and David York in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area after their experiences with their troubled teenage daughter. Finding a lack of support in the social service, psychiatric, and criminal justice systems, the Yorks formed a group, known as Toughlove, with other parents of troubled teens. The Toughlove movement caught on quickly: the number of groups rose from a mere half a dozen in the Philadelphia region in 1981 to over 1,000 worldwide by the mid-1990s. Although the Toughlove movement is intentionally decentralized, there is a national network center in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, called Toughlove International.

"Tough love" is a response to children who are already involved in destructive and/or dangerous activities. The Toughlove Network is not a child-rearing clinic but rather a crisis-treatment center. Parents who have lost the respect of their children are guided to a firmer, more effective approach to parenting by other parents who have faced similar situations. The parents in Toughlove groups support each other in their efforts to regain authority in their homes. Others in the group will be present during planned confrontations, accompany parents to meetings with school or police officials, or even take others' children into their own homes while resolutions to conflicts are being worked out. In effect, Toughlove groups act as surrogate extended families in a society where most families have become isolated into nuclear units, many with only one parent.

The tough love approach to crisis treatment avoids blame, dealing with the present situation only, not its possible causes in the past. Treatment is always based on action: parents are guided and encouraged to take specific actions to address the situation, rather than simply blowing off steam by talking about it, or distracting themselves with over-analysis. Parents are empowered through the intentional decentralization and lack of hierarchical authority structure in Toughlove groups to act on their own and reclaim their personal authority. By helping parents gain or regain self-respect, tough love helps the entire family regain its necessary balance.

While tough love encourages individual empowerment and responsibility, Toughlove groups also provide much-needed support to both parents and children. The Toughlove movement emphasizes cooperation in all things, between parents, relatives, teachers, friends' parents, and the children themselves. Toughlove groups also reach out to the wider community, forging connections with social service agencies, police departments, juvenile detention centers, schools, and others to create cooperative solutions to troubled teenage behaviors. Working together, Toughlove groups in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the world have established drug rehabilitation centers for youths, alternative schools, and group homes. To be effective, "tough love" must be supported by others involved in the teens' lives. Otherwise, the teens simply escape the consequences of their actions by turning to an ally.

Phyllis and David York, along with counselor and educator Ted Wachtel, describe "tough love" and the tough love movement in their books Toughlove and Toughlove Solutions. Crises such as unhealthy sexual activity, incest, drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse of parents and/or other family members, running away, and suicide are addressed, as well as potential discipline problems involved with blended and step-families, adopted children, single parents, and divorce and exspouses. Attention is also given to problems specific to grandparenting.

"Tough Love"

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