Honk if you think this is a bad idea
I can appreciate that it's sometimes hard to get a teenager's attention. Cherie Myers tried normal disciplinary measures to deal with her 15-year-old daughter's habit of cutting classes. She thought a little public humiliation would help.
I'm sorry. This was the wrong way to go.
Don't misunderstand me. I don't think holding a sign in downtown Greensboro at midday (yes, during school) is going to cause any psychological trauma in young Allie or anything like that.
It's just that this isn't the public's business. I don't want to see this girl out on the street carrying this sign. I'd be embarrassed.
I'd think it would be even more embarrassing for the mom. She wasn't holding a sign, but if she were it would say, "I couldn't get my daughter to go to school so now we're both standing out here making a spectacle of ourselves."
But, wait a minute. If Cherie Myers couldn't get Allie to go to school, how in the world did she get her to stand out with the sign?
Anyway, that's my take on it. What's yours?
Comments (3)
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I agree, Doug. The creation of a public spectacle to humiliate, and thereby exasperate, comes with certain attendant future risks. I wonder where Daddy is in this picture. Sometimes it is difficult to know the best way to discipline, but this was excessive.
Posted on December 2, 2005 4:18 PM
Perhaps Daddy is the one who put them on the street.
Excessive? Perhaps but it will hopefully make the impacted intended.
I suppose that if you were a little boy and stole a piece of bubble gum from the corner store and your Dad made you go back to the store owner and tell him that you stole the gum and had no money but that you would sweep his floor and his front walk for him the rest of the week to pay restitution ,it would be extreme.
Oh and lets not forget that while you were sweeping the floor you had to tell the customers that you stole from the owner and was paying for the gum by working. I suppose to some that would be extreme.
This is a true story, for it happened to me. I thought it to be the most extreme thing in the world to have to sweep the sidewalks, the store and to have to tell all those who entered that I was a thief and that is why I was working in the store. I never forgot the lesson learned those 50 plus years ago and I never stole anything again. It did not cause a great traumatic scar on my life, as some would claim today that it would, but it did teach me that there are consequences and that payday will come someday.
Posted on December 2, 2005 9:23 PM
I like Mr. Produce's story. Sometimes a parent is at her wit's end, has tried everything else, and has to try something different. When this was on the news, they reported that this was a single mom, had a younger daughter at home too. The girl holding the sign was a decent student but just skipped school all the time. It is hard enough raising a teen with two parents, but she is going it alone.
It sounds to me like the idea was to embarrass her one time to maybe save her daughter's future in the long run.
I guess the difference in getting her to hold the sign and getting her to go to school is her mom was there with her. It it much easier to skip school if your mom has to be working to support you.
Incidently, there was another story of a boy in Utah (I think) with a similar story. His sign was about skipping school and he would be on the street begging in the future; that this is what he wanted to do.
Maybe this mom is trying to prevent her daughter from being a permanent sign holder at a corner on Wendover saying "will work for food".
Posted on December 4, 2005 11:13 PM