In a small Texas town, a mother named Star decided it was time to teach her son a lesson when she discovered that he was causing trouble at Greenleaf Elementary School. School administrators had informed Star that her son was being a bully towards other students. She learned that he had been calling his classmates “idiots” and “stupid,” and she decided to take matters into her own hands.
To make sure her son understood the gravity of his actions, Star had him wear a T-shirt to school that proclaimed, “I am a BULLY.” She wanted the other students to know that she believed their accounts of her son’s behavior and that she was taking it seriously.
To further drive the point home, Star posted a picture of her son wearing the T-shirt on her Facebook account, stating, “I posted it to reach out to the parents of any of the kids my son may have bullied so that each one of them could get a personal apology.”
Star told KTRK-TV, “He was calling other boys stupid (and) calling them idiots. I’m a very old-school parent. I don’t coddle my children. I don’t sugarcoat the world to them.” She hoped that the humiliating experience would help her son learn empathy and understand the consequences of his actions.
While some people felt that Star had gone too far with her punishment, she stood firm in her decision, sharing that her son had indeed learned from the experience. “I wanted to know what he learned from it, and he said, ‘I learned that I didn’t like the way that felt, and I don’t want anybody else to feel that way because of me.’ That’s exactly what I wanted him to take from it,” she explained.
However, experts in child development did not support Star’s approach. Despite her son’s bullying behavior, a child psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine criticized Star’s method, stating, “Not a good idea to embarrass your child and solidify a negative identity in an elementary school child. She needs to find somebody to help her, and I think the school is one resource.”
Despite the criticisms from both social media users and experts, Star claimed that her son’s school district, Splendora ISD, approved her decision. The district issued a statement, saying, “parents have the right to make important decisions and take certain actions on behalf of their child.”
In this tale of a mother trying to correct her son’s behavior, the question remains: did Star’s punishment ultimately help her son understand the consequences of his actions, or did it simply reinforce a negative identity that could have lasting repercussions? While it’s clear that Star had her son’s best interests at heart, the debate over the effectiveness of her methods will likely continue.
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Source: AWM