Are parents being judged too harshly for being... parents?

[Parasondox]

Hello to you all,

I want to know what you all think about this news story;


Seeing as in some countries, I am speaking from the UK's point of view, parents are under the spotlight more than ever. in the past 10-15. In a lot of the cases (not all), it seems like children have more rights than parents. You can argue if that's the case or not. If the parent punishes their children non violently, it's somehow abuse rather than teaching the child that doing something bad would lead to be disciplined for said action.

What do you think and how are things like in your country and where you are from originally?

What are your thoughts on the news story and what are some bizarre stories you have heard.

Parents, guardians, carers, child minders etc. Feel free to comment and let me know.

Thank you.

 

[Aximili]

In the past 10-15 years, what's really been going on is parents have come to understand that physically punishing their child is considered abuse so they've been coming up with bizarre, non-violent forms of punishment and they can't figure out why people are put off by them. Like you read about parents locking their child in a broom cupboard for hours at a time, making them stand next to traffic with signs about their 'sins' strapped to them, and other just really bizarre things that a respectable member of this country would know is socially unacceptable.

 

[skywolfblue]

On the one hand there's the hyper-punishing schools who will expel kids for drawing PICTURES of guns, and on the other theres a bunch of parents who won't ever say no to their kids. I sometimes wonder what the heck ever happened to common sense these days.

I have to say good for the girl's mom, I'd say the punishment was spot-on.

 

[mistahzig1]

It's just that publicly humiliating a child because he/she was publicly humiliating another child is like beating up someone because he beat up someone.

It's inflicting the same (if not more) physical/emotional damage to the perpetrator, which doesn't solve anything. Studies dealing with these issues are overwhelmingly clear that this philosophy is not successful as a deterent.

An Eye for an Eye thing is soooo 2 millenia ago, no?

 

[Colour Scientist]

I'm not a parent but I don't think disciplining your child should ever involve public humiliation.

They could have just made her sell her iPod and donate the money to charity without posting it on Reddit for upvotes.

I think it's poor parenting to post an image of your child on a public forum with the intention of shaming her and having complete strangers shame her.

 

[EeveeElectro]

If the mother was bulling her child, the sign would NOT say, "[I'm a nice, smart young girl who did something bad]" it would say something along the lines of "I'm a stupid nasty little girl who bullies people."

I don't think she's humiliating her, she's punishing her for doing wrong. Assuming the school did nothing to try help, I think this was a pretty fair punishment. The mother wasn't nasty in teaching her daughter a lesson. Donating the money to charity was a nice gesture too. People are far too sensitive. :/ I've seen some parents REALLY bully their child, and this is nothing compared to that.

Edit: It's not something I would do because I know what some people on Reddit are like. If she had posted it on her personal FB page, I don't think this would cause such an uproar and would have been more acceptable.
I imagine the child would have somewhat agreed to this too. If the mother forced her to do this against her will using whatever means, then it could be investigated.

 

[JoJo]

Probably, everyone and their dog has an opinion on what is good parenting and bad parenting, and not always with the best experience or evidence to back their claims. Particularly, people tend to make assumptions from hearing about that one case of a parent shaming their child on the news or of a school suspending a student for drawing a gun and assume everywhere is like that whereas in fact these are the extreme minority, hence why they make the news in the first place. Most parents and most schools are fairly average in discipline.

I disagree strongly though with your claim that 'it seems like children have more rights than parents' in the UK at-least, parents have almost complete control over their child's life provided they provide adequately for the child and don't abuse the child. Physical chastisement is still fully legal as long as it doesn't leave a mark on the child, which also for the record is illegal if used against adults or even pets. Given how few they have already, what rights exactly would you take away from children? The right to not be beaten up? The right to not be starved? The right to an education? I'm curious which of these you think is unneeded.

 

[DasDestroyer]

I can't see the video because my tablet doesn't seem to support embeds, but I'm guessing based on the comments that it's the story about the mom who made her daughter sell her iPhone for charity and had her hold a sign saying so, for bullying another girl.
Aside from the selling the iPhone, which was more than likely bought with the mother's money anyway, what she is doing doesn't seem to me to be as anywhere near as nasty as some bullying can be, and while I don't know what exactly the girl did in the first place, it seems to me like this will help teach her some empathy. It's not an eye for an eye, it's giving her a taste of what it would be like to lose an eye so that she doesn't go around poking them out in the first place.

 

[RJ 17]

Well I'm a firm believer that a good spanking suffices as a valid form of punishment. There's a difference between giving a spanking and giving beating, and I'd argue that the former is not abuse. Still, with the coming of the Politically Correct age, you're no longer allowed to touch a child at all without someone screaming abuse, so out goes spankings.

Now I've seen many stories like this where the parents - since apparently spankings are right out - have turned to publicly shaming their child. Personally I find this to be yet another perfectly good form of punishment. Just as spankings instill the thought "Since I don't want my ass to be sore, I'm not going to do this", so too does the "shaming" punishment instill the thought "Since I don't want to be embarrassed in front of all of my friends, I'm not going to do this."

What are parents supposed to do? Let their kids do whatever the hell they want? "Oh little Susy's been naughty so lets send her up to her room for time-out for the next 10 minutes or ground her for a week. Either way she'll be hanging out up there just doing what she does all the time anyways: dicking around on her phone." Yeah, that's a real punishment. That surely gets across the message that they shouldn't be doing whatever it is that they did.

Here's a reminder for all the people that cry and moan about this kind of punishment or spankings for that matter: punishments are supposed to make the punished think about what they've done in a manner that makes them (hopefully) change their behavior. Don't want to get spanked? Don't want to get embarrassed? Then I guess you shouldn't have been throwing rocks at passing cars.

From dictionary.com:
pun·ish [puhn-ish] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal.
2.
to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.): to punish theft.
3.
to handle severely or roughly, as in a fight.
4.
to put to painful exertion, as a horse in racing.

Also there's an informal definition relating to "punishing a quart of whiskey" but that doesn't apply here.

 

[Zhukov]

That's it?

When I saw the preview image I thought the sign was going to say, "I'm a horrible person who enjoys the distress of others" or something. "I'm a good kid who made some poor choices and now I have to sell my phone" is about as mild as it could possibly be,

I'm not sure if putting it on Reddit was such a great idea though. Wouldn't the kid's Facebook page be more fitting? Other than that, seems like a good case of the punishment fitting the crime.

I wouldn't exactly call it public humiliation either. More like a public apology. Although the word "sorry" wasn't actually in there since it wasn't being addressed to the original victim.

 

[Jamieson 90]

A parent who takes responsibility for their kids actions is better than any parent who doesn't in my eyes

Probably, everyone and their dog has an opinion on what is good parenting and bad parenting, and not always with the best experience or evidence to back their claims. Particularly, people tend to make assumptions from hearing about that one case of a parent shaming their child on the news or of a school suspending a student for drawing a gun and assume everywhere is like that whereas in fact these are the extreme minority, hence why they make the news in the first place. Most parents and most schools are fairly average in discipline.

I disagree strongly though with your claim that 'it seems like children have more rights than parents' in the UK at-least, parents have almost complete control over their child's life provided they provide adequately for the child and don't abuse the child. Physical chastisement is still fully legal as long as it doesn't leave a mark on the child, which also for the record is illegal if used against adults or even pets. Given how few they have already, what rights exactly would you take away from children? The right not to be beaten up? The right not be starved? The right to an education? I'm curious which of these you think is unneeded.

Yeah most people have the misconception that smacking is illegal in the UK when it's not. You can smack your child so long as you don't leave a mark (reddening of the skin doesn't count).

OT: I think the parents could have gone about this in a better way. A for effort but poor execution; publicly humiliating your child will only cause more harm than good.

 

[Colour Scientist]

I wouldn't exactly call it public humiliation either. More like a public apology. Although the word "sorry" wasn't actually in there since it wasn't being addressed to the original victim.

I kinda disagree with you here.

I think it would be preferable for the emphasis to be on a heartfelt apology to the victim in question and explaining why the victim is owed an apology, as opposed to the "taste of your own medicine" route.
She shouldn't have to issue a public apology because she doesn't owe anyone else an apology and the photo was put there specifically to embarrass her.

Putting the photo of the girl on Reddit for the purpose of embarrassing her is public humiliation, maybe not to a well-adjusted adult, but certainly to a pre-teen girl.

 

[Zhukov]

I wouldn't exactly call it public humiliation either. More like a public apology. Although the word "sorry" wasn't actually in there since it wasn't being addressed to the original victim.

I kinda disagree with you here.

I think it would be preferable for the emphasis to be on a heartfelt apology to the victim in question and explaining why the victim is owed an apology, as opposed to the "taste of your own medicine" route.
She shouldn't have to issue a public apology because she doesn't owe anyone else an apology and the photo was put there specifically to embarrass her.

Putting the photo of the girl on Reddit for the purpose of embarrassing her is public humiliation, maybe not to a well-adjusted adult, but certainly to a pre-teen girl.

Ehhhhhh...

If that constitutes public humiliation then I'm not sure I have anything against it.

I also think there's something to be said for the tasting of one's own medicine. A punishment may or may not stick, but if (and admittedly it's a big "if") you can make a bully feel some kind of sympathy (for lack of a better word, you know what I mean) with their victim then that's going to be a whole lot more effective.

You can make a kid apologise, but you can't make them mean it. I remember as a kid being made to say sorry to various people for various misdemeanours and I never meant it one little bit. It was just a matter of saying the words so mum would lay off.

Not much else I can say that I didn't already. The actual message is extraordinarily mild and Facebook probably would have been a better place for it.

 

[Hero of Lime]

In this case I can't see the problem. Making examples of bad behavior can be effective, especially for children who can say "I'm sorry" and not mean it. This "humiliation" (if you can even call it that) will make the child, and others realize you can face real consequences for hurting people. I seriously doubt this girl will be dealing with some kind of negative effects from this for the rest of her life, in the future she will probably look back and laugh at the situation.

I should point out I would never do any public humiliation or shaming, but if my child is proven to be bullying or doing something wrong to others, I would encourage him or her to face the consequences, even if it is a bit embarrassing.

As for the general question of parental rights, in some cases I feel as though parental authority is undermined. Obviously there are a lot of really bad, abusive, and substance abusing parents out there that the children need protection from. However, there are times when good parents seem to come under fire for fairly innocent reasons like being too over protective, or disciplining their children in a tough but fair manner.

 

[BarkBarker]

I need more context to garner the situation, some kids can be cunts for no reason, and at 13-ish years old there is no "I didn't know better", for all I know the mother raised her as a ***** by generally looking the other way but stops at cyber bullying, so frankly it's pretty damn near impossible to gauge this situation appropriately.

 

[anthony87]

Bring back spanking. It'd eliminate the need for whatever the hell that is in the OP.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yes.

I'm increasingly sure that many of the people who howl "ABUSE" at a father flicking the back of his kid's head have never seen a real abuse case in their whole lives.

 

[Yopaz]

I've been vocal about this before and I don't think making punishment public is a good idea.

Had it been a public apology I would have been OK with it. Make her write it on Facebook rather than to have her face plastered to a message.

Selling her iPod for a good cause is something I can agree with depending on how the situation is. However if she was "bullying" a friend I would consider the context. I don't know if she said some nasty things or did anything worse, because you know, young kids say all kinds of nasty shit to each other when they're upset with them.

 

[FalloutJack]

The real question is this: Why are they ill-equipped to solve a problem?

The gripe about my folks that I have is not that they're abusive. It's that they dunno what they're doing. Not a clue as to how to do what they do. Many parents - as Bill Cosby would say - don't actually want to solve a problem, but that they want quiet. And while this makes for a funny anecdote by the comedian in question, the darker side of that is that unresolved tensions of all kinds remain lying about and mishandled, leading to MORE misbehavior and certainly resentment.

Essentially, when you try to handle a problem with an answer that doesn't fit the issue in the first place, your credibility is tanked. The reason beating is so looked down upon is obvious, but more to the point it teaches the wrong lesson. It teaches anger. It doesn't teach the lesson that makes kids want to stop the behavior. It makes them want to be sneakier about it and not get caught. And don't tell me they aren't crafty enough. After all, I had parents, so I know how to fool them. I'm a writer now, and back then I was a talented liar.

But to get off of the consequences of adults who don't know what the hell they're doing for a moment, you can tell that it's bad when I have to be the dynamic one who opens up the Serious Family Discussion to prevent us all having a falling out. Seriously, that's ridiculous. Why am I the one doing the diplomatic job of someone who is supposedly older and wiser than me? Well, I get bragging rights, but still, it emphasizes my point properly:

Parents should be judged harshly. They are responsible for roughly one-half of your development in terms of personality and life lessons. There are reasons for which a law against negligance exists. True, the job is not easy, but you are dealing with your living legacy, your offspring in a world of offsping to continue that cycle we call life. If you didn't do everything you can to prepare said offspring, you have only yourself to blame.

 

[chinangel]

Well I'm a firm believer that a good spanking suffices as a valid form of punishment. There's a difference between giving a spanking and giving beating, and I'd argue that the former is not abuse. Still, with the coming of the Politically Correct age, you're no longer allowed to touch a child at all without someone screaming abuse, so out goes spankings.

Now I've seen many stories like this where the parents - since apparently spankings are right out - have turned to publicly shaming their child. Personally I find this to be yet another perfectly good form of punishment. Just as spankings instill the thought "Since I don't want my ass to be sore, I'm not going to do this", so too does the "shaming" punishment instill the thought "Since I don't want to be embarrassed in front of all of my friends, I'm not going to do this."

What are parents supposed to do? Let their kids do whatever the hell they want? "Oh little Susy's been naughty so lets send her up to her room for time-out for the next 10 minutes or ground her for a week. Either way she'll be hanging out up there just doing what she does all the time anyways: dicking around on her phone." Yeah, that's a real punishment. That surely gets across the message that they shouldn't be doing whatever it is that they did.

Here's a reminder for all the people that cry and moan about this kind of punishment or spankings for that matter: punishments are supposed to make the punished think about what they've done in a manner that makes them (hopefully) change their behavior. Don't want to get spanked? Don't want to get embarrassed? Then I guess you shouldn't have been throwing rocks at passing cars.

From dictionary.com:
pun·ish [puhn-ish] Show IPA
verb (used with object)
1.
to subject to pain, loss, confinement, death, etc., as a penalty for some offense, transgression, or fault: to punish a criminal.
2.
to inflict a penalty for (an offense, fault, etc.): to punish theft.
3.
to handle severely or roughly, as in a fight.
4.
to put to painful exertion, as a horse in racing.

Also there's an informal definition relating to "punishing a quart of whiskey" but that doesn't apply here.

It's more the case that parents have proven, multiple times that they have no clue how to discipline kids. There are plenty of stories of parents beating children unconcious, throwing things at them, hitting them, even killing their pets.

Basically while some/most parents may agree that physical discipline 'helps to teach', the simple fact is that most parents also have no clue how to administer a proper corporal punishment, and will claim that 'they did their best'.

The simple rule of thumb is to never punish when you're angry...but parents don't get that I suppose.