So, What's A Mother To Do?

I couldn't help following up on that last post with this one. Now if they could get the five year old with the heroin together with this walking bill board - all we'd have to do is figure out how to tax them so the little buggers could start paying their own way!

I am curious what you think about this though. I can see both sides - but I am wondering if it worked. Read the article for some psycho-babble from the pros before weighing in. Does it have merit? Or are we simply too soft on kids today?

EDMOND, Okla. (AP) -- Tasha Henderson got tired of her 14-year-old daughter's poor grades, her chronic lateness to class and her talking back to her teachers, so she decided to teach the girl a lesson.

She made Coretha stand at a busy Oklahoma City intersection Nov. 4 with a cardboard sign that read: "I don't do my homework and I act up in school, so my parents are preparing me for my future. Will work for food."

"This may not work. I'm not a professional," said Henderson, a 34-year-old mother of three. "But I felt I owed it to my child to at least try."

In fact, Henderson has seen a turnaround in her daughter's behavior in the past week and a half. But the punishment prompted letters and calls to talk radio from people either praising the woman or blasting her for publicly humiliating her daughter.

"The parents of that girl need more education than she does if they can't see that the worst scenario in this case is to kill their daughter psychologically," Suzanne Ball said in a letter to The Oklahoman.

Marvin Lyle, 52, said in an interview: "I don't see anything wrong with it. I see the other extreme where parents don't care what the kids do, and at least she wants to help her kid."

Comments

[just_lurking]

Now that's some creative parenting! At least the Mom didn't put her in lingerie and send her to the redlight district.

[mikey]

I love it..what a creative way to make your point. Sounds like something I would have done. She made her point without violence, argument, fights....good for her. My father always used to say...if you don't work hard in school you'll end up pumping gas for the rest of your life...

KUDOS for this creative and clearly loving mother.

[Kelley]

Simply brilliant! More parents should dole out this version of tough love. Finally, a parent who is not afraid to steer her kid down the right road.

[Some 14 year old kid]

That's so cruel! x.x; glad it wasn't me...poor girl...If my parents decided to do that (which they won't because I will never let them find this!), they'd have to do it more than once....way too many times to the point where they give up...I'm a good student and all...good friend, but my family just annoys me so much sometimes that I mouth off to them, and they get annoyed and so on...yeah...but I'm a good kid...they just fail to see the good side of me...

[teacher in illinois]

I don't see anything wrong with this punishment. The world will be a lot more cruel to her if she doesn't graduate high school and ends up walking the streets! I'm a firm believer that children need to know when they have messed up! "Catching them when they are good" is a joke. I wonder if the police would ever use that as their motto-- could you imagine? Ignoring the crime and somehow giving rewards to people when we abide by the laws? Oh, and let's make sure that we don't embarrass anyone by handcuffing them in the middle of the streets when the get arrested. Maybe we should set all the criminals free...just think of the psychological damage we are doing to them by keeping them in prision! However, people expect teachers and parents to treat misbehaving students in this manner. When is someone going to realize that the lack of punishment is the reason that we have so many problems in schools today? Why teach kids that this type of thinking is okay? I want this mother to know that I fully support her. Stay strong! By the way...I teach science and PSYCHOLOGY.

[Bitsey]

Shouldn't a parent first try to discover why their daughter is doing so poorly in school? She could have an undiagnosed learning disability. Subjecting her to extreme, public humiliation is of no benefit to the child but certainly has given her mother some publicity.