I saw a news article this past week about a father and the punishment he gave his daughter.
His daughter was kicked off the school bus for the second time for being a bully. She lost the ability to ride the bus to school. What did dad do? He made her walk. In his defense, he was driving behind her to make sure she made it safely to school. Below is the video if you choose to watch.
I have several thoughts on this.
First…bravo to the dad for giving her a punishment that fit the crime. He has faced a great backlash on social media for doing this. As a teacher, I see plenty of children who are often unpunished for various infractions. Parents excuse their behavior away.
Second…It is better to follow her walking to school than walking to jail. I know…I made a pretty big leap. For some reason, our current culture no longer takes responsibility for actions. Affluenza is a legal defense! Are you kidding me! We are raising a generation of children who don’t know the meaning of consequences. It is time for more parents like this to step up.
Several years ago I witnessed such parenting. The house next to my parent’s house was having an underage party. We were alerted to it when the cops showed up. It was late at night and all of a sudden there was a massive police presence on an otherwise quiet street. Kids just scattered. Out windows. Out doors. Running off. Nevermind the fact that the police blocked all the cars in the driveway and had them all towed! Being nosey my sister and me sat and watched from an upstairs bedroom window. We see police tow all the cars, we also saw them carrying backpacks out of the house and lining them up on the lawn. A few minutes pass and we see a woman drive up in an old station wagon. She gets out and speaks to a police officer. She points to one of the backpacks and then points to her car. The police stand there and watch as she goes to the passenger’s side of the car. She opens the door and takes her daughter out. She hugs her and walks her to the police officer. He pus her in cuffs and puts her in the back of the police cruiser. We found out later that this girl ran home and told her mom what she did. Somehow they realized her backpack was left there. The mother knew it would be better on her daughter if she turned her in. If the police had to come looking for her it would have been so much worse. I am sure the hardest thing this mom ever had to do was to take her daughter and hand her over to the police knowing she would be taken in handcuffs.
Parenting is the hardest and yet most rewarding thing you can do. Parenting right is not always fun. Kudos to this mom for handing her daughter over to face what was coming. I am sure this girl learned from her lesson. I wish I could say this story has a happy ending but I don’t know what happened to her. I really hope she learned a hard lesson and went on to become a productive, responsible human. At least in this situation, her mom made her face her poor choices. I wish more parents would do this.
What do you think?
Was the father doing a good thing by making his daughter walk?
Was the mom doing the right thing by bringing her daughter back?
I think the dad did the right thing for making her walk but to post this on social media? Poor girl, think of the shame she has to live with? Now the world knows she was a bully.
As for the mother, I’m not sure. I probably wouldn’t have turn my daughter in but I would certainly mete out a punishment she won’t forget.
Great post, Tracy.
Bravo for a father , there are to many of “precious little gems” out there
Too much of this stuff is happening , simply to much . I can understand parent want’s to protect their kid but there is to many mommy’s and dad’s little princes and princesses
Don’t get me started on some “parents”. Imagine “responsible Parent” bringing to his underage kid whole case of beer so the wonderful son has something to drink . And that parent being a cop (highly positioned) , later on that alcoholic son also became cop. Ofc nepotism and corruption at play . And then our politicians are wondering why are people moving out from the country
As a teacher, you have a perspective many people don’t. We’ve been having an outside problem with juveniles stealing cars (ending in deaths of innocent pedestrians, etc), rummaging through cars, and more, and the police say in our state the system is such the kids don’t get in any trouble, and then their record is wiped clean at 18, and they taunt the police about it. I think what the dad did seemed good, not sure if it got through to the daughter, I’d be more inclined to do some community service together, in an area that might help her change her way of thinking. The party – yikes – I would not have wanted a teen at that party, most parents try to monitor what their teens are up to, so they aren’t at wild parties like that, although it can happen. The daughter is better off to be made responsible for her actions, in our area, she probably would have had her record erased by 18. In days of yore, sometimes kids got a stern talking to by the police, but nowadays kids often don’t respect any authority.