"I'll snip all of your fingers off...."

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Do you think it's remotely normal for a parent to frequently and unprovokedly say things to their kids like :

Scenario :
After putting down a cup of coffee or a bag of sweets, then moving to leave the room for a few minutes.

Comment :
"Don't touch that or else I'll snip your fingers off."

(said to kids who are not known to meddle with things)

Have you ever heard of anybody doing that ?
Do you think it's normal ?
Or is it just completely weird and strange ?

This is a normal phrase that is used by parents. It is not meant to be taken literally at all.

Explanation: Said to make children think twice about doing something naughty. It simply means, "If you touch/do this, you will be in trouble."

I guess, but it seems to me that many children are too young to realise that it's not a literal comment, or might not realise that due to having Aspergers / autism.... and/or they have an unstable parent, who for all they know might well snip their fingers off.

I wonder how they communicate the rest of the time...
"(leaving the room) If you change the TV channel while I'm gone, then I'll gouge out your eyes with a knife"

"(leaving the room) If I catch you near the fire without that fireguard on, then I'll ram a red hot poker up your arse."

"(leaving the room) If I catch you near my book, then I'll take a saw and hack through your wrists."

With some people, that wouldn't even surprise me...

As a Child, I used to suck two of my fingers.

My abusive stepfather told me if he saw me sucking them again, he would cut them off.

I certainly believed him for to ensure they didn't find their way to my mouth whilst I was asleep, I handcuffed my arm to the side of the bed with a pair of toy metal handcuffs I had.

It did cure me of sucking my fingers though.

I think that's the point. For younger children, they will take it literally, and it will scare them into not doing something (hopefully). I personally don't like saying things like that. I had an abusive family, so maybe non-abusive families don't use this as much as I thought. You bring up good points with everything else.

If you want to go deeper, in some countries (and in the past), if you touched something that did not belong to you, you literally got your fingers cut off. It didn't matter if you were a child. Could this be the potential source?

Parents say stupid s**t when they get upset and frustrated. My mom has said things like "I will dump you off on the side of the road" when my brothers and I would be bickering or provoking each other. She also told me one time she would pack all my toys away. I took it all seriously. It's pretty normal to say these things if it only happens every now and then, not all the time. Parents have their moments.

I think it's weird. Threatening to chop a kids fingers off is just wrong.

My mother told us once to pack up all the toys we hadn't played with recently because she was sending them to charity. she was serious. So I took her quite literally. She later found out I'd packed a rather expensive Teddy bear that was a gift from my grandmother and was supposedly to be kept as an heirloom. I don't think she ever did that again.

Hmm. When I grabbed things at the dinner table without asking my father would sometimes grab my hand, pin it down on the table and hold a knife over my fingers and say, "If you do that again, I'll chop off all your fingers."

Just a slight variation on the theme of normal?

My mom never even used that phrase with us ever. I was surprised to read online what things parents can say to their kids and it's actually normal. But she did say other things which I already mentioned in my first reply.

I would never say such things to my kids, ever. I would never make threats I could not make good on.

My mother used to crack wise about feeding me Thorazine, or flushing me down the toilet.

By the time I was about 6, it was widely understood that this was a joke. Nobody had a problem with it.

I think most parents make frustrated wisecracks. Raising children is frustrating. Venting frustration keeps it from exploding.

My father-in-law used to SCREAM threats about beating the kids bloody.

At 34, I had a very public cow about this. I don't really know how to verbalize the difference...

...but there's a DIFFERENCE.

There's a difference between saying something wildly off the wall that the kids know is pure hyperbole, and making them think it might actually happen. I see a huge difference in saying something that is meant to be so silly and far from possible that it rounds back to just be a "I really don't want you to get into my coffee, or I am going to be kind of annoyed." Which is what a normal person would mean when saying something like that. (Or think about the way people say, "I'm going to eat you up!" and then blow on the kid's belly with little kids, no one thinks it means they are literally going to eat the child. The absurdity is part of the game.) The very absurdity of the statement is the signal that it is not to be taken seriously. HOWEVER, taking the absurdity out of it--actually using physical force, making the person think it is a real possibility--no that is not normal.

How to tell whether it is an abusive statement from a particular parent? Watch the kid. If they laugh and act like it is a game, then it probably is. (I can't think of something particular right now, but I know I say crazy things like that, and my kids know that I am playing with them and react in a playful manner.) If the kid withdraws and acts scared (because I can't imagine you not acting scared the next time after someone pinned your hand and threatened it with a knife) then it probably isn't a joke and you might be looking at an abusive situation.

The thing is, you can't tell which you are looking at by reading out of context lines on the Internet.

Logic ruled out. I knew my father would not really chop my fingers off because if he did then I wouldn't be able to go to school and then there would really be proof how mean they both were, and I know they were always worried about what other people thought of them. However, he did scare me, because I knew if I moved while the knife was on my knuckles, I would get cut. Plus, I could tell he was very angry at me and I was scared if I didn't listen he could do something else to hurt me if I defied him (like getting the belt out on me).

Another variation on the theme was where my mother would hold a cigarette about 1 cm. from my nose or arm and threaten to burn me with it. One time I yanked my arm away from her causing her cigarette and ash to fly, which got her even madder because I ruined her cigarette

Did he read you Der Struwwelpeter?

I looked that book up. What an awful set of stories! Why was that one of the most popular children's books in Europe in its time?