When an Akron, Ohio, mother was treated with disrespect by her daughter, she decided to teach the 13-year-old a lesson by publicly punishing her on Facebook.
Denise Abbott swapped out her daughter Ava’s Facebook profile photo for an image of the teen with an “X” over her mouth and the caption, “I do not know how to keep my [mouth shut]. I am no longer allowed on Facebook or my phone. Please ask why, my mom says I have to answer everyone that asks.”
Abbott says she was driven to do this after her daughter was rude and talked back to her in front of three of her friends.
“I was trying to think of something that would impact her so she would know what it felt like to be embarrassed in front of people,” Abbott said on the Today Show. “I think you need to have empathy to understand the situation.”
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Public shaming is the latest parenting trend. In the past couple months several stories of parents embarrassing their kids in public have appeared in the news. In April in Swansea, Illinois, Montrail White forced his 8-year-old daughter, Melissa, to stand outside High Mount School wearing a sandwich board sign reading “I like to steal from others and lie about it!!” Montrail came up with the punishment because his daughter was stealing at home and took Halloween rings from a teacher at school.
That same month in Miami, Tarvon Young, a fifth grade student stood outside Richard Allen Leadership Academy holding a sign that read “I was sent to school to get an education. Not to be a bully… I was not raised this way!” Also, in Miami, a seventh grader was forced to stand outside holding a sign after he received three Fs on his report card in March.
(And these are only a few examples. You’ll find more in the slide show below.)
All of these incidents bring up the question, Is public humiliation an effective form of punishment for children?
Parenting expert Dr. Janet Taylor doesn’t think so. “Just as we don’t want our kids to embarrass other kids, as parents we don’t want to embarrass our kids,” Dr. Taylor, a clinical psychiatrist, commented on Denise Abbott’s modern discipline approach on the Today Show.
In Swansea, Illinois, Nancy L. Perry, a social worker who counsels children and parents, seems to agree. When the Belleville News Democrat asked her about the Melissa Montrail incident, she said, “There is a possibility that the girl may have been psychologically harmed by being held up publicly by her father and labeled a thief and a liar.”
But Ava Abbott feels that her mother’s public disciplinary approach on Facebook was fair. Ava wrote in a letter, “It’s not embarrassing to me at all…It was my mom’s way of grounding me and it’s like any other grounding.”
What do you think? Should parents use public humiliation as a way to discipline kids?
