Spare the Rod?

[BigV]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Evidently a middle school girl in Florida came home with all Fs on her report card. Her mother freaked and beat the kid with a metal grommeted leather belt. The beating was punishment for the past, and the next day started the shaming effort to better grades in the future by sending her to school in this shirt.



Of course the school, cops, and social services are competing to see who can wag their finger the hardest. Mom has been arrested and held without bond. I'm sure the kid is swimming in sympathy. They don't mention any other family members.

Mothers freaking out over bad grades is not new. Beating a kid over bad grades is not new. What is new is the idea that the law should intervene and even go so far as arresting Mom, when there is no physical injury. There were marks left by the belt. That is evidence, not injury. Is the shirt injury to the girls self-esteem? To her social standing?

Well, if you have a kid in middle school, which would be in the 12 to 15 year old group I guess, and they are seriously fucking up as in mostly failing grades, what's a mother to do? Of course this is sensationalist press, so there's no depth, no background, no history to this story.

I understand the mother's frustration, and applaud her desire to save the kid from herself. A lot of people I know, many of them teachers, have been bitching about parents not being involved, not being engaged, not being parents. So when all else fails what next?

I quoted the whole thing because I agree with most of what you said. Involved parents are the single largest, most influential factor in a kid's success in school. No question. Teachers, I love ya, and I need ya, and with heroic effort you can cover the sins of omission of others' efforts, be it the kids' or the parents'. However, the parents have the most effective set of tools for a kid this age.

Having said that, the reporting on this story is the normal hyperbole, which xoB points out and repeats. The t-shirt is a red herring, a loud, difficult to ignore non-issue. In my understanding, beating a kid with a belt so that:

According to the affidavit, the victim was hit with a " leather belt with holes with metal divots, which left clear impressions in several places to include both arms, neck, chest, back and legs."

That's NOT one of the tools in the parents' toolbox that promotes success in school. That's the reason she was arrested, not because of the (funny and sad) t-shirt.

xoB, would you explain what you meant by the bold part of your statement? (emphasis mine, of course).