Community Chat

[Lipstickdiva]

Those of you who feel this is wrong are offering no advice as to how you think the situation should have been handled, only judging what this mom did as wrong.

How would you all have handled the punishment? I'm curious.

[Topaz Gem]

On 1/15/2014 shorelady said:

Too much time is spent deciding how NOT to offend the offender when dealing out punishment. Much too often, no consideration is given to those who suffered at the hands of a bully (cyber or otherwise). The bully is treated with kid gloves and told "that wasn't nice". Same said bully will turn around and do the same thing again and again. After all, there is no punishment for such behavior so why not continue.

The mother in this particular case had tried other variations of punishment, which didn't seem to work. I highly doubt this child will be scarred for life. Maybe she now understands how hurtful her actions were and that thankfully her mother won't tolerate this behavior in the future.

Good post, shorelady. Being humiliated is part of life. I think it's an extremely effective form of punishment if done correctly.

My cousin 'humiliated' her son when she caught him stealing a pack of gum from the store. He was very young, but understood right and wrong. She got home from the grocery store and asked him where he got the gum. He didn't know what to say, because he knew that his mother didn't buy it for him. Instead of taking him privately into his room and very softly and in a lilting voice, telling him that it wasn't a nice thing to do (as many posters would no doubt recommend), she humiliated him by marching him right back to the store, and making him return the gum to the manager in person. He never stole again and is now a productive member of society, college grad going for his masters degree, and supporting a family with a wife and two children. He wasn't scarred for life in the least.

[serenity4ever]

On 1/15/2014 LipstickDiva said:

Those of you who feel this is wrong are offering no advice as to how you think the situation should have been handled, only judging what this mom did as wrong.

How would you all have handled the punishment? I'm curious.

I would have looked inward as to why my daughter was bullying someone. I would ask myself if something was causing the behavior because of the way I was raising her. There are many studies out there that children who bully other kids are they themselves bullied at home.

I would immediately go for family counseling and try and find out what causes this type of acting out on the part of my daughter. Until the mom gets to the root of the problem, this child will continue to have problems. Humiliation doesn't work and just ask any child psychologist about the damage humiliation can do to a child.

[Sushismom]

On 1/15/2014 LipstickDiva said:

Those of you who feel this is wrong are offering no advice as to how you think the situation should have been handled, only judging what this mom did as wrong.

How would you all have handled the punishment? I'm curious.

If you read my post immediately before yours, you'll see I agree with the punishment of having her daughter sell her iPod and donate the money.

[nun ya]

On 1/15/2014 serenity4ever said:

On 1/15/2014 LipstickDiva said:

Those of you who feel this is wrong are offering no advice as to how you think the situation should have been handled, only judging what this mom did as wrong.

How would you all have handled the punishment? I'm curious.

I would have looked inward as to why my daughter was bullying someone. I would ask myself if something was causing the behavior because of the way I was raising her. There are many studies out there that children who bully other kids are they themselves bullied at home.

That may be true, but sometimes kids just bully for the fun of it. They get in a group and all bets are off. I have seen good kids from good families bully other kids when they knew better.

[Lipstickdiva]

On 1/15/2014 Sushismom said:

On 1/15/2014 LipstickDiva said:

Those of you who feel this is wrong are offering no advice as to how you think the situation should have been handled, only judging what this mom did as wrong.

How would you all have handled the punishment? I'm curious.

If you read my post immediately before yours, you'll see I agree with the punishment of having her daughter sell her iPod and donate the money.

And if you read some of previous posts, it has been pointed out this woman tried other forms of punishment like grounding, manual labor, etc. The mom said "you name it, I've done it." None of that helped. So all of a sudden making her sell her I-Pod and donating the money is going to do the trick?

I guess it's worth a shot but what if that doesn't work?

[viva923]

I think mom did OK on this punishment. that child has to be taught that bullying is wrong,wrong,wrong!!!!!!!

[JJsMom]

On 1/14/2014 serenity4ever said:

So the mother bullies the daughter humiliating her and expects the daughter to change her ways. Seems like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree....

That was my first thought too.

She could have made her sell her iPod without humiliating her publicly. I can't stand these parents who do this to get a pat on the back. It's so self-serving.

[straykatz]

Humility/being humble is not a natural born trait/virtue...we need to be taught it....some people see humiliation as abusive discipline...In this particular case I view humiliation to be a lesson that needed to be taught.....look around....the majority of our youth have no shame....they are spared any action or word that might hurt their feelings.....because of this we are rasing overly sensitive people who can't be responsible for their actions - even when those actions hurt another.

[Lipstickdiva]

I can't seem to see where they say how old this girl is? Am I missing that?

As an aside, we have some judges in our area who have been handing down punishments where the offender is made to stand outside on a corner holding a sign indicating what they did and how wrong they were. Of course we're talking grown adults.