repeat after me:

It doesn't matter how many times you say the words I love you to your child if she doesn't actually feel loved.

There are many indicators of this, the most obvious being the so-called 'acting out'. Acting out is what a child does when she has no other way to communicate what she's feeling - she hasn't developed the sophistication to either mask her feelings in some way or to ask that they be met more directly.

And she shouldn't have to. It's the parents' job to help kids through these developmental stages, to help them clear the emotional hurdles that they can't manage by themselves. No one was born knowing this stuff, it's something we all had to learn. And often we learned it from people who were no more qualified than we were to give such advice - rather, they were just older/bigger/stronger/more powerful.

I almost didn't go to dinner with the fam tonight - I almost called my brother and bailed out. I did bail out last week. I just can't do it any more, this business of pretending that everything's ok when it's patently not.

I don't expect them to be perfect parents; I just expect them to recognize when they're wrong about something. And yes of course I realize that's just my opinion; many people/parents would see nothing wrong with their behavior. It's what everybody does with their kids, right?