Publicly Shaming Children Online

Lately, I've been seeing photos of children holding signs of bad things they did, and it makes me FURIOUS. If the entire world is going to watch and criticize your parenting, and if your child is so bad you need the world's approval for punishing her, then parenting is not for you. If you can't confront your own kid and solve your problems in the privacy of your own home and instead turn to the internet to confront your kid for you, then you shouldn't be a parent in the first place. Maybe the kids should hold up signs saying how much their parents screwed up raising them. Would that teach the parents to be better parents? No. It would be humiliating and traumatizing. So why do that to kids when instead they need to learn how to deal with problems logically by confronting them face-to-face. I feel very disgusted by this.

DrSkipper, while I share the exact same sentiments, I'm not so sure that I'd go so far to make the judgement that "you shouldn't be a parent in the first place". It's a fact that parents tend to say and do some pretty screwy things from time to time. I know that I certainly have. But just because I don't agreee with the way another parent is raising their child, who am I to tell them that they are wrong. I mean, even if in my own judgement I believe that what the parent is doing is not in the childs best interest, it is not my place to judge or interfere with the way another parent chooses to raise their child. I'm sure that there were people that took issue with some of the things my wife and I did when we raised our daughter! We took a very unconventional aproach to child rearing. (One that worked out very well, thank-you-very-much) Where do you draw the line and who becomes the arbiter of what is acceptable and what is not? You? Me? The government? CPS? No, that's a very slippery slope to go down.

So, yeah... all I can do when I see how some parents are, in my opinion, permenantly mucking up their kid it to walk away shaking my head and feel compassion for the poor child.

Now, if the parent is physically abusing the child, then there are certainly many remedies available that will allow others to intervene. But in our present social and legal systems, mental or emotional abuse does not usually constitute an actionablable offense. Currently, for the most part, those things are only moral offenses, even though they engender impotent outrage in most people who witness them.

But yeah... I agree. "Disgusted" is a good way to put it.

Dan

Wouldn't it be fair if parents held signs for being a bad parent?

I am glad I have not seen this.

Totally wrong!

I don't have any kids (hopefully, yet!), but it seems a wrong act to me!

Shaming people, not just kids, & talking to them about their wrong-doings never works when you do it in front of other people (let alone over the internet, where anybody can see it!), actually it could have the very opposite result to stubbornly react to such a public shame #_#

Thanks to all who posted,

I haven't seen this online but I do see bad parenting and it breaks my heart.
I don't like using the word bad to criticize a person unless it comes with the purpose to be malicious.
What kind of things this child must endure inside the home?
We all fail at times and make mistakes when parenting.....
I hope someone comes into the situation where the parent can find better tools.
Our children are changing and we need to listen
Their feelings are not wrong, it is their perception and need to be validated.
I could go on...
I like the idea of shaming the shamer, in theory!
Happiedasiy

Dear nushi,
I agree with you and I just wanted to note ....
Public shaming doesn't always play out in public or the internet, it also happens within the home. One child is deeded with the bad seed. The family unit is the audience.
The person pointing the finger outward is usually hiding from blame.

Is there anyway we can stop this on the internet?
Can public shaming be seen as a form of bullying?
Because we know the consequences of such behaviors.....
Then the media drips down the pipeline that this person was mentally disturbed.
Any helpful comments,
Happiedasiy

Parenting with discipline without the words bad/punishment.
There are guides to help parents learn new skills.
Actions have consequences and children need to learn about how their feelings guide their actions and are related, so they grow to understand how to diffuse from an early age.
Thanks nushi for bringing this to light.
H.

I'm going to play the devil's advocate just a little. I think it's up to the kid and the parent. If the parent states ahead of time that such an action may be in the future and the kid is old enough to understand the consequences of his action I'm not necessarily against it. Sometimes public humiliation is the only way to get though to someone how important something is...now I'm not talking about a little kid. I'm talking about a preteen or teenager whose ego is in the clouds and they care about their friends more than anything else. Breaking a few of their balloons and bringing them back to earth is not necessarily a bad thing even though it may seem cruel at the time.

Several years ago, a few kids were caught cheating in my school. They were made to wear placards all day long that said that they'd been caught and that they know how bad it is. They didn't hold it against their parents afterwards, understood why their parents did it once they got over the shock, and brought them down a few notches in the process.

I don't think there should be a black-and-white rule here. It is up to the parent and the kid, and if it seems to be the only way to get through, I don't see it as something we should completely condemn.

Most people who use the internet don't understand that the consequences of their actions here online are permanent. I don't expect someone who's still learning the concept of right and wrong to understand that once something is done online it will be there forever.

To me it is similar to posting "cute" pictures of their kids as a toddler in the bathtub and such, or telling what they think are funny stories about things that their kids just did on Facebook. That could be there to haunt the child forever as well.

Dr. Skipper mentioned what I was thinking. What kind of long term impact might this have? Once a picture is on the internet, it's there forever. Is a picture of their child holding a sign that shames them something a parent wants a potential employer or college admissions committee seeing?

I agree that the Internet is forever and it in itself because if that shouldn't be used for discipline, but other ways, while they shouldn't be the norm, should not be completely condemned either.

It's terrible, in my opinion.

Anything posted online is permanent. Once it's posted, there is generally no going back. Even if the site it was initially posted on is removed, chances are it has already been shared on Facebook, tweeted and retweeted on Twitter, posted on dozens of forums, etc. We spend so much time teaching kids that it is NOT okay to bully or harass others through the internet by posting pictures to shame them. We, as adults, should know better. It's harmful. If it didn't affect people psychologically, we wouldn't feel the need to tell children "Hey, no, don't post that picture online - it will backfire and that person will be hurt because of it".

So, why is it okay for parents to do this EXACT thing to their own children? And why are people encouraging it? I just don't get it.

I don't know. I just don't know. When my mom was raising us, a simple grounding was good enough. For me, just taking away my Gameboy for a week got the message across.