Mom is Pulling me and my sisters' hair!

So, your mom pulls your hair..........do you think it is abuse? If so, do as one of the members posted in a comment said and call the child abuse hotline, or contact family services. If you don't think it's actually abuse then rinse your plate and move on. What it comes down to is a reasonable level of physical interaction involved in punishment of a child by a parent. While pulling hair is a bit odd for a parent, if she didn't rip out half your scalp, throw you against a wall or to the floor by your hair, or otherwise do more than what could constitute as a similar action to a spanking or something of that nature, then it was odd but not a problem. If she did injure you, or cause true physical harm other than a momentary pain, then you're in the realm of considering abuse of some sort. The argument over physical punishment for children has been going on for years, but ultimately it is only something really debated in recent times. The APA did a study on the effectiveness of corporal punishment and it came to the findings that when administered seldomly, with limitations between punishment and abuse, and while the parent is in a non-aggressive mood, then it can be an effective means of discipline (http://www.apa.org...). Of course there are fine lines here, but that is always a means of contention. Now, the next issue lies in the fact that if I am to assume correct age from your profile, you are 16 years old. While the study above states that corporal punishment can be effective with proper use, it is also true that it is minimally effective, if at all, after the age of 9-10 (http://www.psychpage.com...). Because of this, you now have a much different issue at hand. The overall problem is that what your mother did may not have been harsh enough to constitute crossing the line of punishment/abuse, or maybe it was, but regardless of if it crossed that line, you're now at the age that physical reprimand no longer bears a significant amount of weight in developing discipline. Your mind has developed to a point that you can discuss things and hash things out verbally. Ultimately, from the reaction you stated, and I'm going to guess that it was a heated moment of sorts, as with many teenagers whether they like to admit it or not, the situation was probably an instinctual or overly emotionally flared moment. Both parties probably escalated too far, and you should address this with your mother, one on one. If you really go injured and thrown aross a room or something, then consider contacting someone, but if she just pulled it and it hurt a bit, it was probably just an escalation that shouldn't have happened. While I'm not advocating that parents should just go around escalating events with their children like this, I think that if you're at an age where you're able to come to a site like this and open up a debate on child abuse to discuss it, you can just as well sit down with your mother and talk this out. If she is unwilling AND continues to pull your hair and do things like this then you should consider contacting someone, but if this was an isolated incident and up to now you've never approached your mother about things like this then just do that. You need to be assertive and stand up for yourself and confront the issue with her directly. It will utimately show her that you're maturing and able to stand up for yourself and thatyou won't take behavior from her like that. In doing this remain calm, don't yell or berate or argue. Simply sit down and talk. If she tries to escalate, hold your ground, talk assertively but not aggressively. Emphasize, don't yell. Do that and you'll be fine. If it doesn't stop, try again or contact someone.