The latest story of a parent punishing a child for all the world to see online also involves One Direction. A mom in Australia is auctioning off four tickets to their upcoming concert and makes it very clear why they are for sale. Her description reads in full:
THIS AUCTION IS FOR ALL 4 ONE DIRECTION TICKETS IN SYDNEY OCTOBER 25th. You can thank my daughters self righteous and lippy attitude for their sale. See sweety? And you thought I was bluffing. I hope the scowl on your bitchy little friends faces when you tell them that your dad and i revoked the gift we were giving you all reminds you that your PARENTS are the ones that deserve love and respect more than anyone. And your silly little pack mentality of taking your parents for fools is one sadly mistaken. Anyhow. Your loss someone else's gain who deserves them! THE TICKETS ARE SEATED IN ROW O section 57. REMEMBER AUCTION IS FOR ALL 4 TICKETS and will be sent registered post
...OH YOUR FRIENDS THOUGHT THAT A FEW PRANKS CALLS WOULD PUT ME OFF SELLING THE GIFT WE BOUGHT FOR THEM for YOUR BIRTHDAY because YOU all LIED to us about sleep overs so you could hang like little trollops at an older guys HOUSE????? Pffft!! I find it HIGHLY amusing that you girls think you invented this stuff. Tricks like this on OUR parents is how HALF of you were conceived .....And why a lot of your friends DONT have an address to send that Fathers day card to!!! I'm not your friend. I'm your MOTHER. And I am here to give you the boundaries that YOU NEED to become a functional responsible adult. You may hate me now..... But I don't care. Its my job to raise a responsible adult..not nuture bad habits in my teen age child
A link to the ad hit number one on Reddit, Friday morning, and commenters joined the ongoing debate about whether shaming kids for their behavior publicly is appropriate -- or even effective.
The overall consensus was that while Mom has every right to sell her daughter's tickets, including a message that shamed her daughter so harshly was going too far.
"Parents that react in explosive anger to their kids' misbehavior just send the message that it's appropriate to act that way, when they're trying to teach the kid the exact opposite. Also, 'bitchy little friends'? Really?" user Jacknaught wrote.
User prplx added: "As a parent myself, I am all for standing up to your words and tough love. I have no problem with taking out a privilege from a kid who had screwed up badly. So go on and sell the ticket. But does the mother have to lower herself to that level, and sound like a bitter teen herself? Who is the adult here?"
Last year, when a video of a dad shooting his daughter's laptop went viral, the responses were very similar. In an open letter to that father, HuffPost Senior Columnist Lisa Belkin explained why his choice of punishment was wrong. "What we have here is a father acting like a 15-year-old and wondering where she gets it from. ... I bet it felt good -- just like her letter to you felt like a load lightened to her -- but now you have to deal with the fallout from your adult-with-a-camera-and-a-gun version of a temper tantrum. Yes, your daughter sounds like a brat. But look at her role models," she wrote.
Experts agree that punishing a child in public is hardly the best method to teach a lesson. "The research is pretty clear that it's never appropriate to shame a child, or to make a child feel degraded or diminished ... Positive things have a much more powerful effect on shaping behavior than any punishment," Andy Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan, told MyHealthNewsDaily.
However, not everyone disapproves of One Direction Mom's actions. As of this posting, bidding for the tickets has reached AU $24,000 (over $22,000 here in the U.S.).
P.S. To the parents who do end up splurging on these tickets, here's what you might look like come October 25th.
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