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Tough love?
by An Australian mother caused a bit of stir a few months ago, charged with willfully humiliating her child in a public place. A concerned member of society snapped a photo of a tween-age boy sitting in a public park with a computer printed sign hung around his neck which read...
"Do not trust me. I will steal from you as I am a thief."
The photo was then published in a national newspaper, and subsequently discussed on radio, TV, around water coolers and in mothers groups for the next few weeks. As you can imagine, there was an outcry. Surely, public humiliation was too harsh a punishment for the child, no matter what the crime?
And then we heard the mother's side of the story, which basically said, "Judge me, if you dare." She was a single mum working hard to support her three children. She had been down the road of crime and everything that followed as a teenager herself, and it had taken her ten years to pull herself back together. She wished, she said, that she had had a mother at that age who would have taught her right from wrong.
This mother has reached her wit's end. Her popular, intelligent 11-year-old son had been stealing money and expensive goods since the age of seven. She had tried all the usual methods, and then gone beyond them. A visit to the police station, the holding cells and the courtroom had proved completely ineffective. Weekly counseling was also having no effect.
So this mum decided to teach her son, early, what humiliation felt like - what it felt like to be branded untrustworthy.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one, to be honest. It's easy to be outraged and hurt on behalf on the child, especially if you remember the squashing, steaming pain of being humiliated when you were young. Surely this can't be the best approach to discipline, to teaching an almost-teen right from wrong.
But my heart beats with injustice for the mother in this story too. She has tried groundings, spankings, time-outs and removal of privileges, all with no effect. She's frustrated that she can't get through to her son when she's been there, done that. And the pressure of raising a man without a man around- I can certainly understand that. It drives you to do things you never thought you would.
Whether this tough love method of punishment produced the desired results remains to be seen... in fact, we'll probably never know. The story petered out, as stories do, and it became just another example of parenting that was either irresponsible or dead-on, depending on your point of view.
Teenage boys are hard, and so is being a single mum; and I'm sure most parents understand the "I'm banging my head against this wall" feeling of trying to communicate something important to a stubborn child. But in this case, is it simply a matter of tough love taken way too far?
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Comments (10)
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Fri Dec 2, 2011 - 12:02 pm
Whilst I cringe at what the boy must have felt, I do sympathise with the Mother on several levels. Not only that, but in our somewhat dislocated modern society where it is easier to hide behind smoke & mirrors - what ever happened to kids learning to take responsibility & accountability for their actions? In closer-knit communities everyone tends to know everybody and their business & peer pressure both (supportive & scolding) invariably plays a part in someones upbringing. In such cases, this boy would have been known as a thief and would have had to deal with the scorn & lack of trust thereafter - the only difference here is that the Mother has had to advertise it, rather than it be openly known by natural means.Reply -
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Sat Nov 19, 2011 - 5:23 am
When I feel myself judging others, especially when it comes to parenting, I always tell myself "It's so easy to judge." My husband's child from his previous marriage is nothing but trouble. I suspect a sign hung around his neck might have gone a long way in at least curbing his appetite for trouble.Reply -
Report Thu Nov 17, 2011 - 2:22 amI can only assume that in the situation that mother was doing her absolute best. But in general, for me, I don't buy into the whole punishment thing. Usually all it teaches you is not to get caught. And that's what I think discipline should be about - teaching. Not withdrawal of love or other more physical punishments but learning. An unpopular opinion, perhaps. But I can't possibly know what this mother went through before she got to this point.Reply
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Report Thu Nov 17, 2011 - 2:00 amI am actually a parent who believes that parenting with love, and gentility is the way, but this story, I wanted to give the mother a high five. Good on her! Nothing she did was abusive, if the kid didn't want to be embarrassed (and lets face it, being embarrassed isn't THAT bad), and she had tried all the "typical" ways to handle with bad behaviour. What the child was doing, stealing, is pretty extreme and nothing was working. She dealt with this out of being there herself and the fear that her child was going to make the same mistakes she did. It's not something small like "you're hanging out with the wrong group of kids" it is something that could change that child's complete future. I think a teenager is old enough that they understand between right and wrong and can think about how this will affect them long term. I know that a lot of people were in an uproar about this, but I understand the mothers position.Reply
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Wed Nov 16, 2011 - 10:21 am
Best thing is not to judge anyone too harshly. in this instance i reckon that's even more important to remember. M2MReply -
3 replies, Last reply by Gigi (Ed.) on Wed Nov 16, 2011 at 7:50 pm
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Wed Nov 16, 2011 - 3:48 pm
I say don't judge until you've walked in another women's shoes.Reply
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