Why Bratty Behavior Won't Always Get You a Spanking

This is Part 1 of a Series.

While the following information pertains most directly to Birchwood Isle Family Discipline Role Play, taking the following advice to heart will likely help you to achieve greater success in other ageplay or spanking role playing games as well, and this should be taken into consideration by those individuals who are looking to become more involved or who are currently having problems engaging with other role players.

First, let us define what "bratty behavior" is in terms of the spanking community and role playing groups. For our purposes, a "brat" is an individual whose sole purpose in a role playing group is to move from one spanking to the next with very little storytelling effort and almost no interlude between punishments. We all like discipline, or we wouldn't be hanging around in groups where discipline features strongly in the theme of the site. However, brats take this love of punishment to an extreme, and will only push harder when the punishment they receive doesn't meet their expectations (the expectation being physical correction instead of other forms of discipline).

Bratting (or bratty behavior) tends to occur specifically with certain types of individuals. 

• Those who are weak storytellers and who struggle to develop fully-realized characters. Generally speaking, these are "Mary Sue" characters who are under developed and have conflicting personality traits, like "eager to please" but also being "very naughty." Strong storytellers and advanced role players rarely have this problem, regardless of the nature of the group in which they are playing.
• Inexperienced age players who are at the beginning of their "career" in ageplay. Typically this is a correctable problem, because these types of brats simply don't know any better. A word from an admin or another member usually corrects this type of problem within a few threads, even if it's frustrating to deal with in the meantime.
• Selfish people who are only thinking of their own wants and not the entertainment of their role play partners. This usually actually goes for all  different types of bratty behavior, since there's always somebody who has to sacrifice in order to contribute to a flat (reads: boring) story that is going nowhere in order to provide the spanking that this type of brat really wants.
• People who have become frustrated with their role play for any number of reasons. Usually this is because it's been too long since they received their last spanking in a role play thread, and they're pushing to get one since they're desperate for that kind of interaction. Almost everybody has moments like this. It happens. These people aren't usually brats, but sometimes act bratty.

Most roleplayers have very little regard for the bratty type of age player, and most bratty age players fail to recognize these behaviors in themselves, probably because it is difficult to admit that they are engaging in very unpleasant interactions with other members of a site. Whether you recognize bratty behavior in yourself or not is irrelevant; the other members of the sites where you role play recognize it in you, and if you find that you're being avoided in the games you play, chances are that you are considered one of the brats in those games.

While it's understandable that there will be times that you need a "quick fix" and want to get your child character or inner kid spanked as quickly as possible, this should never be the "norm" for your role play because if it becomes typical, you'll be labeled fairly quickly.

There are several reasons why bratting and bratty behavior should be avoided in all spanking sites, regardless of how harsh or focused on discipline they may appear to be. 

• Most people who run these groups are submissives or have inner kids of their own. While it might not be obvious to most members, the majority of administrators are submissives or inner kids themselves and aren't interested in being the ones who issue the spankings to the entire group. If you're expecting the administrators to pick up where other members fail to do so, you're going to be sorely disappointed to find out that they are no more interested in spanking your child character or inner kid than you are in spanking theirs.
• Once you're labeled a brat, you're going to struggle to escape that label. All it takes is one bratty thread before the other members of the group have labeled you as a "brat" that they don't want to have to deal with, because they know the type. Brats generally flit from one spanking thread to the next with very little in between and very little story development, while contributing virtually nothing to the site.
• Brats aren't entertaining to the other members of the group. Trust me, everybody else looks at you and calls you "selfish" behind your back. Like it or not, if you elect to engage in bratty behavior instead of developing stories, you're showing that you're only interested in your own entertainment and not in the entertainment of the people reading your stories or interacting with you. 
• Brats are boring. A purely bratty thread is nothing if not boring! If your character is shooting straight from the hip for an immediate spanking, it's going to make the other members yawn and move on to the next thread to find something that's more interesting. Where's the lead up? The entertainment? You're boring if you walk straight into a crowded room and start screaming at the top of your lungs. People will look once, and go on about their business.

If you're a new spanking roleplayer, chances are that you've fallen into the trap of playing a brat from time to time. That's understandable, because nobody has taught you how to do better. If you're an experienced role player, there is no excuse for this type of attitude toward the group in which you're playing. 

The problem, from your perspective, is that ultimately this isn't going to get you spanked, for one of a couple of reasons.

The first, and perhaps the most significant reason, is that you're boring. If you're the teenager who is smoking pot in their bedroom with the door wide open (in the first pot in your thread, which doesn't involve any other teenagers interacting with you) or the four year old who is finger painting on the walls, or the ten year old who has wandered away from the group home and has found the park where she is now playing (all of these involving no other children whatsoever and aiming straight for the adults in the group), you're going to bore the people you want to spank you.

What makes these things so boring? There's no story, and everybody can see what you want, straight out of the gate. We don't know why your teenager is smoking pot with the door open because you haven't bothered to tell us; you're too busy thinking about the spanking that you're hoping to get and not thinking about the reasons that your teenager might be stupid enough to engage in an activity that is bound to get them caught and in serious trouble. We don't know how your four year old got ahold of the finger paints that were carefully put away by the caregiver to prevent just such a situation. We don't know what reason your ten year old has for wandering out of the children's home alone to go to the park. 

We can deduce reasons using our own imagination, but ultimately we know that it's because you want them to be spanked.

The second important reason that this isn't going to get you spanked is that most of the people who use these groups are submissive people who prefer to be spanked than to do the spanking. If you don't give us a compelling reason to go out of our way to provide for your needs, then why should we? Give us a great story, an interesting character, and some indication that you'll be fun to spank, then we'll talk.

Those are the basic reasons that you won't get spanked for acting like a brat, but I would also like to make sure that you know that there are ways to prevent your character from acting like a total brat, or from creating a total brat.

• The most important thing is to not post an introductory thread in which you are anticipating your child character getting spanked. Bratty introduction threads really suck for the person who either currently has custody of the child character or the person who is accepting custody of the child character, because the adult is intended to spank a child that he or she has no real relationship with and who he or she may not have met before. This is very uncomfortable. If you've never played the adult in this situation, perhaps you should try it some time. I'll tell you; it's a cure for the urge to brat! Note that posting a bratty introduction thread sets your own personal standard for further bratty behavior.
• Create a story to get your child character into trouble instead of leaping straight for the running away/smoking pot/drawing on the walls type of thread. Do something. Do something that involves other kids. Interact with people and with your personal environment. Accept whoever steps into your thread even if it's not a person who you were anticipating. Don't reject the person because they are another kid looking to play or a teenager working the business that you've wandered into. Adults don't necessarily follow the kids around everywhere on every site, and they certainly don't on my site.
• Prove a willingness to play with child and teen characters, not just with adults. If your character only interacts with adult characters, this tends to be a bad sign, and it's a red flag for most admins that you're somebody who is angling for constant adult attention. Be autonomous. Some of my members are even able to pull off entire threads that they play by themselves with multiple characters that they own. This is the sort of thing that we're looking for. But do note that there are exceptions for very young children who are parent-dependent!
• Never force a teenage character to spank your child character or to otherwise parent them. This is another trick that brats use, particularly when there isn't an adult character available to interact with. When a teenager enters your thread, it's probably not so that they can parent you, but instead because they're looking for interaction too.
• Try playing a teenager instead of a younger child. Teens naturally get into a lot more trouble than their younger counterparts and it's a lot easier to get them into the type of trouble that you're looking for (spanking) because they are naturally mouthy and tend to break rules in an effort to show their personal autonomy. This behavior doesn't seem quite as bratty provided that it is natural and interactive (i.e. not just lighting up a cigarette to test the adults in the thread, who are more likely to simply drop it than to play it out).

None of the above are guaranteed to keep you from bratting, but if you're aware of your behavior you have a better shot at stopping it before it gets out of hand and you have alienated yourself entirely from the group.

Committment is Essential to the Healing of an Inner Child

It is the nature of the role playing world that people come and go. Attachments that aren't generally permanent in most role playing groups and people join and leave at will. Nobody can hold you into a group that you don't like or force you to post to threads when you don't have the time to be actively involved in the role play. This is normal. And we get that. Really, we do.

The problem arises when dealing with emotionally real inner kids. 

So far, I haven't talked a lot about what I mean when I say "emotionally-real inner kid," so I'd like to give you a brief introduction to the concept, in case it's new to you.

An emotionally-real inner kid, by the definition that we use on Birchwood Isle, is a piece of an adult person (roleplayer) to which that roleplayer connects very deeply on an intimate and personal level. This piece of the adult can feel entirely separate, like another person entirely. I used to refer to them as "imaginary friends" because that was a very easy way to look at it. These pieces of us are incredibly fragile, and as we seek healing, they are vulnerable to being hurt by careless individuals who aren't sensitive to their needs.

For all intents and purposes, the hearts of these inner children should be treated with as much sensitivity as you would treat a real, biological child (even if there is an adult, and not a biological child, behind the character you're interacting with).

Most people in role play don't come into a group prepared to make a serious commitment to the game that they are playing and to the people they are playing with. However, in order to make the most of the experience of literate age play, players really do need to make the effort to make a commitment to themselves and others to enhance the game and to be willing to commit to the adoptions in which they are involved. 

Let me word this a little bit differently: If you choose to adopt an inner child, you have to be prepared to stick around for the long haul. If you turn your back on that child, you may very well be breaking the heart of someone who looked to you to protect them, to take care of you, to guard you. When that person vanishes suddenly, it is disruptive to the healing process the inner child is undergoing, and it does more damage than simply leaving a role playing site with which you were previously associated. 

If you're going to "play this game," you need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul. And if you absolutely must leave, make sure to notify the people with whom you have been playing that you won't be returning.

5 Problems with "Cute" Inner Kids

During the time that I've been involved in age play roleplaying groups, I've encountered quite a large number of "cute" inner kids. These "cute" inner kids are those who place a distinct strain on the group with behavior that the player finds endearing but which is upsetting to other members and the flow of the group.

There are a few notes that I've come up with regarding these "cute" inner kids that I'd like to share with you.

1. "Cute" Inner Kids are almost always brats. Most of the "cute" inner kids who have filtered through my ageplay groups are brats whose keepers feel that their behavior is acceptable due to the fact that they are simply so "adorable" that they should be instantly forgiven and the adult should make things right. They're those kids who remind you of the biokid who can flash a smile and instantly get her way, or who always finds a way to take more than he gives.

1.a. This is a problem because most age players want to be punished for misdeeds. This leaves the people playing the guardian role very confused. If they spank the "cute" inner kid, then a tantrum of epic proportions results and the guilt trip is laid on, putting the responsibility on the adult to make things right for the inner kid. I've encountered this specific problem with inner kids both in online role playing groups and in real life, and I usually choose to disassociate from them.

2. "Cute" Inner Kids don't relate well to other inner children. Like the majority of brats, their purpose for being appears to be to lean heavily on the adults and not to interact with other children. They are very often bullies who push other people (child and adult) around when they don't get their way, but it's very difficult to figure out what their needs are, because they are constantly changing. Other inner children have a difficult time relating to this kind of behavior and generally ostracize the "cute" IK because they aren't fun to play with.

2.a. This is a problem because it places an additional strain on adults to interact with the "cute" inner child. When other inner kids can't find reasonable interactions with the "cute" inner kid, the "cutie" begins to put pressure on other members of the group to post with them. In the absence of interaction with their fellows, they need somebody to post with, and therefore the adults become the "go to" source for entertainment for this very stressful inner child. Along with the high brats, this is the sort of Inner Kid that generally makes adult players leave groups or shut them down when they are the management.

3. "Cute" Inner Kids like to run, with the expectation of being chased. These are the children who take off running when an adult calls them in from play time, tossing a big grin over their shoulder that cries "chase me! chase me!" They are the inner children who hide in their closets when a punishment is imminent, forcing the adult to drag them out by their arm in order to give them the punishment that they were begging for in the first place. They are kids who have such a high expectation of being found "adorable" that adults will do anything that they bid them to do, in order to reward their cuteness.

3.a. This is a problem because running threads are very stressful for adult players. Whenever a child runs away from a punishment or when he is called in from playing, the adult player is forced into a situation where she has to stop everything else that she's doing, and chase that kid down. This is also one of very few situations where power playing seems to have been deemed unacceptable when it comes to the adults, but where inner kids find that it's perfectly fine for them to dodge a grab by an adult without the consent of the adult player. In this way, the "cute" inner kid breaks several group rules for the sake of their cuteness.

4. "Cute" Inner Kids tend to have higher expectations of the group administrators and adult players. Most "cuties" seem to think that they have a greater right to expect that their threads receive faster replies than the threads of "non-cuties." They are highly competitive for quality time with the group's adults and demanding when they don't get exactly what they think they deserve. They post fast (often long posts, written quickly) and expect an immediate reply even when their roleplay partner has ten other threads ahead of theirs to reply to. When asked to wait, they often become belligerent.

4.a. This is a problem because group administrators and adult players do a lot of work for the group and "cuties" are rarely grateful. Most adult players and administrators also have inner children of their own that they want to have time to post. The demands being made by the "cute" inner kids take precedence since it's easier to post to them and quiet them down than it is to stall their threads while the admins or adult players post their inner kids.

5. "Cute" Inner Kids often feel that they have priority over less cute inner kids. They will post repeatedly, in multiple threads, taking up a lot of available thread space and refusing to post their required adults when their kid threads are receiving replies fast enough to keep them from having to log out. These "cuties" believe that the entire rest of the group is highly dependent on their presence in the group and that without it the group will fall apart. The adult who is currently in the process of spanking them is desperate for their next post, even though she hasn't had a chance to post her kid in three days while keeping up with the "cutie." 

5.a. This is a problem because it builds resentment for the "cutie" and makes other players not want to play with him. Then, when other players cease to play with the "cute" inner kid, he applies more pressure shortly before making a passive aggressive exit to the group, followed by spreading the word to his friends that the group isn't a very good place to be. 

The solution to all of these problems is for the keepers of those "cute" inner kids to take a step back and view the situation from the point of view of the people caring for them. Women usually have a harder time with "cute" inner kids than men do. Both biological genders are inclined toward having "cute" inner kids. 

This situation requires a good, long look in the mirror to determine whether or not you are a force that is dragging your group down or if you are a force that is building it up and making it an enjoyable place for everyone to play. If your inner kid is placing a strain on group administrators and other member adults, then it's time to reassess the way that you play and the places in which you are playing.

What do you do, as an admin or adult player, when you encounter a "cute" inner kid in a group you're in? What's your solution? Do you muddle through and continue spanking? Ignore their threads? Ask them to leave? Please share!

When There's Not Enough Adult to Go Around

I've been running age play and spanking groups for over fifteen years now. While I've loved every minute of it, the fact is that no matter how well run the group is, at some point there simply are not enough adults to go around. In the year and a half that Birchwood Isle has been open, I've learned a lot about the strain that is placed on group managers to provide the number of adults necessary to maintain a group while still keeping up with a high level of role play and quality discipline.

Over the past year and a half that we've been running our group, my co-admin and I have learned to be very reliant on one another. Members come and go, and when it comes to finding long-term placements for long-term kids, we often try to put them with our own adults in order to ensure lasting placements. This means that if we feel that a child character has "staying power" they usually find a quick home in a family that is controlled by one or both of us.

The problem arises when we begin to realize that not only are our own child characters getting flushed out in this process, but that we cannot possibly maintain a high level of quality in our discipline and parenting when we're taking care of dozens of (external) children ourselves. Our goal as admins should never to be to totally avoid the other members of our sites in order to play with one another, but instead to find a balance that allows everyone involved to make the most of their play time and helps the members and the admins to get the most enjoyment out of the game.

Our current solution to this problem is to actively seek adults before we take on any more children. With the two of us running the two children's homes on the island and being in control of roughly two dozen entire families between us, we desperately need help. At the moment our strategy is to put out advertisements looking for adults to fill the roles that we have available and then to accept those applications which look good to us. Hopefully if we can build solid cooperation and a team of people truly willing to work with the kids (and not just who create adults to buy more kids), we will have a group that works together to make this the best experience for everyone involved.

For right now, if you're interested in applying to play an adult character at Birchwood Isle, please click here.

What kinds of solutions do you have to your problems as an admin? Do you have ideas to help solve the problem of too few adults in a group with too many kids?

Character Abandonment

So far, this blog has dealt mostly in the discussion of features of the role play rather than addressing matters of age play, emotionally real inner children, and re-parenting. For those who are looking for information about reparenting and age play in terms of the emotions and effects of our inner children, you are in the wrong place. Try the blog I co-author with Kit: Lessons Learned from Our Inner Kids.  There are some topics, however, which cross over and cover both areas of interest to potential readers of this blog, and the matter of character abandonment is one of them.

I am not going to go into vast amounts of detail regarding the nature of emotionally-real inner children. There are other places and times for that and I may edit this post in the future with more information that will help you to better understand.

What I want to talk to you about today is character abandonment in ageplay groups. It happens all the time. You're playing a child (possibly an emotionally real inner kid) and one day, you meet the adult of your dreams. She has every characteristic that you like in a parent. She is loving and kind, but firm in her discipline. She knows just when to let you get away with misbehavior and when to crack down on you. You even love the way that she disciplines you and you're sure that she's "the one." You begin to develop feelings for this person, and you may even begin to feel irrational. You love her, and you want her to love you back.

With (in our case) or without (as is the case in most groups) administrator approval, you proceed with the adoption. You are glowing. It's going to be wonderful. You've finally found the mommy for you. You know that things are going to be okay from now on. Your inner kid will be eternally satisfied and able to be herself with this mommy. You have no more worries at all.

Then she changes. Maybe she has an inner kid of her own, or she's just growing worn out taking care of you. Maybe the discipline disappears altogether, or, more likely, it becomes more harsh. Where you could get away with "just being a kid" now your mommy punishes you if you look at her funny. You're hurt, and you're confused, and you're likely to be afraid to ask what's going on because you know what's coming next...

She leaves. There is probably no verbal warning at all, just the signs that you've been seeing coming at you for so long. And then, like a puff of smoke, she's vanished. She may tell you that she can no longer handle your child, or she may simply leave the group for greener pastures never to instant message you again. All that matters is that she is gone.

In most cases, this type of event occurs when someone leaves the group. It's something that good administrators are always on the lookout for. We (that is, Kit and I), like to see members join us who are looking forward to being with us and our group for an extended period of time of many years (i.e. as long as we plan on being around). While we know that this isn't always possible, it is important to us that we foster not only one another (as you'll see on our blog) but the members of our group and the group itself. This is your job as an administrator: keep the riffraff out!

When a member leaves your group, they leave a ripple effect. If they are a parent, they leave behind children who will suffer a feeling of abandonment. Even the most hard-core spanking groups have members who are otherwise "fragile" in terms of their connection to their child characters. But the children left behind aren't the only issue. There are spouses, and friends, and a story needs to be developed in order to explain your leaving. A skilled administrator can set this up in a way that allows welcome members to return or which alienates those who are not welcome. We recently had to do the latter on our group.

Bear in mind that exiting child characters also have an effect, even if they do not have families. They will likely have friends who are being left behind, and there is a similar wake of devastation that affects those who remain.

Nobody in their right mind believes that you should stay in a group forever (unless you are part of the management team). If you aren't happy, there is no reason why you should stay. But I do believe that your first step is to try to resolve your differences with the staff of the group and then to do the best that you can to sever yourself acceptably from the characters you are involved with. Have a good fight with your friends. Divorce your spouse. Leave appropriately and without leaving everybody else to pick up the pieces that you left behind. Wrap your threads up, be polite, and remember that one day you might want a recommendation from the people you're hurting. They'll hurt either way, but if you are polite and appropriate in the way you disconnect yourself from them, you are far more likely to build fences rather than burning your bridges.

How Do You Ageplay?

The discussion topic for April is this: How do you age play? You will see that there is a poll in the right-hand side bar. You can choose more than one option because some of us have more than one way that we find an outlet through age play.

Please use the options to the right as a guide for your responses, and leave your responses as comments to this post. I'm interested to hear what you have to say!