A Utah fourth-grader named Kaylee was forced to wear unstylish thrift store clothes as punishment for bullying another student. (KTSU-TV/Fox)
When a woman from Murray, Utah, learned that her stepdaughter was criticizing a classmate’s wardrobe, she made a trip to a local thrift store.
Ally* purchased dowdy, ill-fitting outfits that she knew her stepdaughter, Kaylee*, would never choose, and she forced the fourth-grader to wear them to school as punishment for being a bully.
What do you think, is Ally’s idea a brilliant way to teach a kid a lesson or is this woman an evil stepmother?
Kaylee was relentlessly harassing one of her classmates over the course of three weeks and verbally tearing apart the girl’s clothing, according to KTSU-TV/Fox. Kaylee’s stepmother, Ally, told the Salt Lake City TV station that Kaylee went as far to call the girl a “sleaze” and a “slob.”
When Ally received a note from the school alerting her of Kaylee’s bullying, she talked about the issue with her stepdaughter and was perplexed when the young girl seemed apathetic to the damage she’d caused. The bullied student was so hurt that she wanted to leave the school.
Ally decided to get creative to teach Kaylee a lesson. The stepmom spent about $50 at a thrift store and purchased clothes she knew Ally would be embarrassed to wear. The clothes were poorly fitting and dated. (Anyone with a daughter might know that fourth grade is often the year when a girl starts to show interest in fashion and care about what she wears to school.)
“I thought this was a perfect moment for us to really teach her, this is right, this is wrong, which path are you going to take? And then it’s her choice,” Ally told KTSU.
In the past couple years, the media has covered many instances of parents publicly shaming their children as a way to teach a meaningful lesson. Parents have done everything from force their kids to stand on street corners holding signs reading “I am a bully” to posting humiliating images on their children’s Facebook pages. A debate is unfolding over whether this type of punishment is effective.
Child psychologists most often advise against it. “Public shaming may be effective in teaching our children what specific behavior they should stay away from in the future to avoid future humiliation,” Jennifer A. Leigh, Psy.D., told She Knows Parenting. “However, shaming can damage the parent-child relationship. Children quickly learn they cannot trust their parents. Children need to feel safe and secure and to be able to trust their parents.”
KTSU asked Dr. Douglas Goldsmith of Utah’s Children’s Center about Ally teaching her daughter a lesson through humiliation and he said, “What happens with that is the person walks away at the end saying, ‘Now I’m really angry, that was humiliating and now I’m angry.”
How did Kaylee react to her public shaming? When her stepmother presented her with the thrift store outfits, she cried.
But the fourth grader followed her stepmother’s instructions, wore the unstylish threads for two days, and put up with her friends saying meaning things about her clothes. In the end, Kaylee admitted that she learned a lesson, has decided that teasing other kids is mean, and promises to be more kind to her peers.
How’s the relationship with her stepmother? Only time will tell.
Publicly shaming kids is the latest parenting trend. Take a look at these examples that made national news.
(*Ally asked media to keep her last name and her daughter’s anonymous.)
