Spare the Rod?

[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?

[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).

[DanaC]

I think that's an appalling thing to do to child. T-shirt included.

[Gravdigr]

Give me that leather, metal grommeted belt and let me wail on you for just a minute, for one goddamned minute, and THEN stand up and tell me you weren't injured.

Beating your kids doesn't work, and neither does shaming. I know from personal experience, and I gots no kids. It's why I gots no kids.

[Gravdigr]

Is the shirt injury to the girls self-esteem?

Definitely.

[Gravdigr]

So when all else fails what next?

I don't know. I just stand over here and point fingers.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by BigV

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:

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.

I'm betting it was the shirt that caused the school to call the cops. Although without the shirt it would be a non-story, I'm pretty certain that's not an arrest-able offence. I don't believe the paper, nor I, even hinted it was, as the possibility never occurred to me. It seems to be only your red herring.

Not in the parent's toolbox? Says who, the army of people hustling books on how they think the world should work? I'll bet they can be quite passionate when their income depends on it. Isn't that the root of the disagreement between the schools of child rearing? Corporal punishment, and if so, how much?
Arresting a parent and holding them without bond, for corporal punishment when there was no injury, is ridiculous. There has to be more to it, she obviously pissed off the cops.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I think that's an appalling thing to do to child. T-shirt included.

That doesn't surprise me.

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Give me that leather, metal grommeted belt and let me wail on you for just a minute, for one goddamned minute, and THEN stand up and tell me you weren't injured.

I've had worse and so have you. Whether it works or not, is debatable, and has been at length. I'm not qualified, nor have the desire, to dictate to parents how to raise their kids.
I probably would, however, take the position they aren't allowed to eat their young... as least their own young.

[Pico and ME]

I like the t-shirt idea, but highly doubt that the girl actually wore it while at school...she definitely had a spare in her backpack. Making her post it on her Facebook page? IDK, it might have an impact.

The belt whipping? Probably way too late for the offense. The parent should have know problems were occurring much sooner than the report card. So yeah, bad parent. But she should not have been arrested! That girl is lost forever now.

I had a similar problem with my stepson...he did bring home a card that had all 'f's. It wasn't entirely surprising at the time because we had been struggling with him for months and months before, but it was a rude awakening that nothing we were doing was getting to him at all. I did change our attack angle and it improved his school performance pretty quickly. He was a social butterfly (like this girl), so we had him bring home a paper with teachers signatures that he turned in his homework and maintained a C average. If he missed just one signature or didn't have the paper, he was grounded for that night from everything. Seriously, it worked like a charm.

[lumberjim]

*allowed


sorry

[monster]

Punishment (beating, shaming, withdrawal of "privileges") only stands a chance if the kid is deliberately failing and has the ability to do better. We all know this. Same for the parents. Guess what this girl is going to do when she grows up and her kids get bad grades? Can we please get some parenting education going somehow? Would there be any harm in a high school required class looking at the psychology of basic parenting/teaching? And shit like that shaming is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. OK I'm done. I know I'm preaching to the choir. I just needed a small rant. I'm done. really.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Sure, monster, along with birth control, balancing a checkbook and some other life skills high school graduates seem to lack. I suppose one argument is that's the parents job, not the schools, but what if the parents got it wrong, what if the parents couldn't balance a checkbook?

[monster]

how can you pass math if you can't balance a checkbook? Addition and subtraction are transferrable skills. But nobody writes checks anymore anyway (or at least they won't by the time the current brood graduate) so that's virtually irrelevant

[xoxoxoBruce]

The fuck it is, so they do it on their computer or wristwatch, it still has to be done unless you have so much money it doesn't matter. Knowing how to add and subtract does not give you the ability to do it, that's pretty evident by the hoards of people with basic math skills who say they can't do it.

[busterb]

Think I some how missed the coat hanger.