Bajonista

I would suggest you find a domestic abuse agency for Mike's mom. Clearly this man is using financial abuse (controlling the bank accounts and money) and emotional abuse (discrediting his partner, putting her down).

I worked in a Residential Treatment Center for children between the ages of 4 and 16. "Quiet rooms" are still allowed in my state. Legally they can't be used as a direct consequence for misbehavior, but in practice it was different, and it certainly gets written up differently.

Resident was allowed to bring himself under control in the quiet room while being supervised by staff. Resident spend x minutes in the room. Resident displayed behaviors x, x, and x. Resident indicated they were calm and ready to leave with behavior x and by verbalizing.

Yeah, it actually looked something like this

Resident hit staff in the face, called staff a "motherfucker" and told staff to "go fuck themselves". Staff got pissed and threw the kid in the locked room and waited until the resident was finished crying themselves hoarse, became exhausted from running around in circles in a panic and stopped peeing on the floor and walls, before returning resident to the unit.

I personally used the room twice with clients, but that was only when they were actually a danger to themselves and others, and other means of protecting staff and residents were making the client more aggressive and out of control. (Many of our residents were sexually abused, so you can imagine how scary it was for them to have an adult hold them down, even if it's to keep them from cutting their wrist to ribbons with a piece of broken glass some fucking idiot left around for them to find.)

I quit after 3 months of that. I was actually criticized for refusing to use the room and physical containment as a punishment. Most of the people I worked with were actually decent people, and I never personally witnessed abuse CPS would do anything about. However, within a few months of my leaving a kid was injured, the staff involved was charged with child abuse and the state effectively shut the facility down.

Only instead of sending pictures of live cats over the internet for karma, they collected points for the afterlife by showing their neighbors dead cats.

Have you ever heard of the concept of "chosen family"?

I'm lucky to have a mix of blood kin and chosen people who are supportive, but it's totally possible to build a non-blood related family too. Building a community of people who love you and accept you is important. Families all look different and they include people who you choose.

CPS has guidelines for spanking. Generally in my state if the spanking doesn't leave lasting marks (cuts, bruises, etc.) or stray outside the "target area" (back of thighs and butt) then it's not considered child abuse, even if it is administered abusively (like when the parent is angry the child did something, spanking for something like spilling a drink, etc.)