Until you get to vivisection, there's almost no punishment for a child that won't seem unnecessarily harsh... Until you find out what the kid did wrong.

Shame might be underrated as a civilizing force. Just for example, I think most single mothers should be ashamed. (OK, maybe not most. But maybe so. Millions of 'em, anyway.)

That is no worse than the dad shooting the laptop. The dad did save the hard drive.

But public shaming sometimes is the only answer. If this was the first known time, then it may be over the top. But if this was a "repeat" offense then it very appropriate.

Depends on the situation. If it is a behavior that the kid will probably just continue more sneakily (overeating, too many video games or internet, etc), then no.

I shoplifted once. I got caught, and I was very ashamed of myself. Oddly enough, my Dad DIDN'T shame me, he told me a story about how one time when he was a kid, he stole something (I forget what it was, maybe the collection money he was supposed to donate or something) and didn't it just feel awful? And I said yes it felt awful. And I never did it again.

$100 is a lot though. It's not a couple bucks (not that you should steal a couple bucks either). It's not a candy bar. It's a significant amount.

My thought on the Denver Post is that they are full of it.

Corporal punishment is out. Public shaming is out. So what are you going to do, make the kid stay inside?

If the kid becomes the next Trayvon, it will be society's fault. There was nothing his parents could do.

The Denver Post is worth what I pay for it.

It depends upon the kid. Some children may need a more dramatic punishment to get their attention.

Problem is, public shaming may do nothing to help the child see what they did from the other person's perspective - unless the crime was one of humiliating or embarrassing another. Then the youngster gets to experience exactly what they dealt.

Punishment that doesn't reset a child's internal moral compass simply becomes a game - what can I get away with before unpleasant consequences arrive. Plenty of adults in this world playing that game.

Nicole, you had an awesome dad. What a perfect response and exactly the kind of powerful yet gentle consequences that transforms character (and he obviously had a good kid to begin with…)

I'm inclined to let parents decide what discipline works best, stopping short of physical and emotional abuse, which I admit are fuzzy lines in the sand sometimes. This might not be going too far. The kid did something illegal. If he were an adult, there would be legal consequences, so it might be best that the parents introduce him to harsh social consequences now.

At least it wasn't like this woman, who humiliated her daughter for being overweight.

First off the newspaper is a complete hypocrite for saying anything about public shaming, since that is 80% of it's buisness.

Second I feel public shaming is a highly effective punishment, and wish more people did it. The more who do it the less it would seem unusual a punishment, and the more people would expect it as a punishment. Reputation is very importaint, use it.

Nope it is bad. Shaming is horrible. Beating and yelling at works much better..... Just the crying and blood is difficult to deal with.

Really like most things, it depends, some situations it is called for. Shaming may work or not work.

I will take bad shaming any day over nothing done.

Plus shaming is done all the time. This situation is just more overt. Like any tribe or group there will be shaming of offenders. It might be very hidden and subvert like through gossip. To mild via restrictions like wow my spot at the round table has moved, my status has changed. To full on marking, Scarlet letter, branding Fleur-de-lis, Kid should thank his lucky stars it was not the Islamic way and learning to do everything one handed.

Shame is a powerful deterrent, and quite frankly, I don't think our society uses it enough.

This is akin to publishing the names of Johns who have been caught with prostitutes. If you know your name is going to land in the paper saying you were getting a blow job from a hooker, maybe you as an "upstanding member of the community" would think twice.

People pay fines and walk away from charges varying from DUI to skipping out on child support. Maybe if they had to wear a sign in public reading "I got drunk and drove my car home", fewer people would do stupid, selfish and dangerous things.

If public shaming became more widely accepted, would it motivate our esteemed members of Congress to set a good moral example? How about corporate CEO's? Let's raise the bar a bit...

I think it was a very good idea. We have gotten obsessed with this completely backwards idea that we shouldn't hurt the feelings (let alone the body) of someone who did something bad! That kid stole a lot of money, and he SHOULD be shamed. Just like the guy who cuts in line at the grocery store should be publicly shamed. Shame is a powerful motivating force.

For it. Theft is something easy to get used to doing, and nipping it at 12 is better for everyone than after 18 when jail can be involved. I stole something when I was little-maybe 7? Mom took me back to the store, made me return it to the manager and apologize and ask what punishment he felt I needed. That stuck with me, let me tell you! Wasn't super public, but the amount was way less, I was younger, and it was still shaming outside family.

Public shaming is all too rare nowadays. Unfortunately, a parent shaming their child is even rarer.

Oh, yeah, the baby sitter made me go back and pay for the gum (while crying hysterically, so it was pretty obvious what was happening), but that's not what I remember so much. Not as bad as having to face my dad.

But I agree with momof4 in some ways... I mean $100 is a LOT.

My problem with this is that it's hard to predict the outcome because it's a child and his sense of self is still forming. If you make him stand on the corner and announce to the world that he's thief, it may stop him from stealing, but it also may leave him stuck with this label forever, which could cause him to just give up and conform to the way everybody else views him.

People have very long memories. When you announce this crime, even just within the extended family, it's going to be hard for a child to stop being viewed and treated as "the thief" or "the bad kid", and that often becomes self-fulfilling.

I'd be more inclined to deal with it as Nicole's (wonderful) dad did. In fact, I found almost nothing worked better with my kids than showing them how deeply hurt and disappointed I was with them (sometimes I even exaggerated this for full effect). Kids crave their parent's approval, unless the parents are jerks themselves (and usually even then).

My son shoplifted with some friends when he was about 9. I knew the store's owner, marched him back down there to apologize and return the item, gave him the whiole "so disappointed" lecture, and the shame of that was apparently enough to prevent him from ever doing it again.

I wouldn't have put him on the corner with a big sign, and have him labeled forever a thief in our small town.

This is a fascinating blog. Amy, thanks for bringing up these issues and creating a forum for their discussion.

Here's something to consider.

Shame and guilt are a bit different. Shame happens in the context of community. Guilt is an internal and private response to one's own wrongdoing.

Western society is more guilt oriented. Eastern and middle eastern cultures are "shame and honor" cultures oriented towards maintaining the stability of the community and the culture. Shaming works far better in such a context and is not looked upon as cruel but as a necessary mechanism to maintain order.

In such societies if you do something that is otherwise wrong but are NOT caught, then you basically haven't done anything wrong. Wrongdoing happens when you are caught and dishonor yourself, your family or tribe. To me, this is a negative consequence of a shame-oriented social system; the internal sense of justice may be compromised.

As a Westerner, internal autonomy, self-policing and self reliance are very important to me. I brought up my son to have a strong internal moral sense, apart from what his peers or the society around him believes. I never shamed him but tried to model what I wanted him to be.

I'm not against shaming, in the right context. I think there are better ways to teach morality, politeness and law abiding behavior but perhaps some people just learn best through social censure.

RationalReader that was a very thoughtful comment. I think you are right. We want children to do the right thing when no is looking and not just when they get caught. As for this case, I am with the others. I think parents have the right to determine the punishment as long as it is not physically abusive. We know nothing about them as a family and it would be wrong to speculate. I also have to agree with the person who pointed out that the newspaper has some nerve complaining about this family when shame is it's bread and butter. Hello pot!

Yes, RationalReader, that was a very interesting comment. I agree that what we want in our kids is some sense of self-monitoring and guilt when they do wrong, which is going to come from conscience.

If a kid lacks a conscience, shaming isn't going to give him one.

Some of these extreme punishments seem more designed to make the parents feel better and more in control than doing what actually builds character.

There is one situation in Western society where I think public shaming can be really useful: flagging over-the-top, out-of-control generally-accepted adult and teen public rudeness in order to change collective tolerance and expectation. In other words - education.

Amy's been doing this for a while, of course. And wrote the book on it! If more people collectively starting taking a stand against rudeness public perception would change. Regardless of whether any one individual would change their behavior as a result, society would gradually develop less tolerance for me-first self-centeredness.

There's a nephew in my ex-husband's family who is about 14 now. He's a thief. He has stolen from his mother, his aunts and his cousins. Nobody is allowed to talk about it or address him about it even though they are the ones affected by his stealing. My daughters are a little fed up with the whole situation and were complaining to me about it. Knowing his mother, I know she won't truly discipline him, and she has always made excuses for him. I told my daughters if they were tired of their stuff coming up missing then they should do what his mother should be doing, and that's shaming him.

If I were his mother, I'd make the announcement when we arrived that he is a thief, please watch your belongings and then I would give him pat downs throughout the visit and before leaving.

> over-the-top, out-of-control generally-
> accepted adult and teen public rudeness

Well, "out-of-control" and "generally-accepted" are mutually exclusive.

I hate the man on the street as much as anyone; longtime readers of these comments will know this to be true. But we got bigger fish to fry than just the bus-farters.

Before agreeing that shame can have no impact on the single mothers & their spineless inseminators, the financial services people & their lazy investors, the tax-and-control politicians & their cowardly voters, and the listeners of country music, I think we should give it one last punishing, howling, humiliating try.

I don't know how those fuckers can sleep at night.

Depends on how many times has the kid done it and what punishments were tried before.
Character is about what you do when no one is looking. Can character be taught? If not, maybe you need to strip search the kid every time he leaves a room that contains someone else's belongings.

"I don't know how those fuckers can sleep at night."

On the top of a lot of money right beside gorgeous super models.

My son shoplifted with some friends when he was about 9. I knew the store's owner, marched him back down there to apologize and return the item, gave him the whiole "so disappointed" lecture, and the shame of that was apparently enough to prevent him from ever doing it again.

It was more likely guilt that prevented him from doing it again.

RationalReader explained shame-vs-guilt well with his March 30, 2012 8:55 AM comment.

==============================

Shame can be a useful motivator when it shows that a person's behavior has made him a social pariah.

sara's nephew is a good example
of this.

If the family started shunning him and making a public show of clutching or locking away their valuables wheneven he is near, perhaps he (and his mother) might get the message that guilt has failed to deliver.

==============================

Before agreeing that shame can have no impact on ... the listeners of country music, I think we should give it one last punishing, howling, humiliating try.

Shaming the listeners of country music means we run the risk of Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood switching over and singing mainstream pop songs ... wait, they already do. Never mind.

Wealth and lesbian fulfillment are not often associated with single motherhood.

yeah... the post definitely thinks any punishment of a child is too much...
That said, this sort of thing works on kids that it works on, and others not, there just isn't a clear answer, it has to be situational. Importantly though, momof4 is right about when you have to nip this stuff, though it actually begins far younger. If you don't establish rules when they are young, you can't enforce them later, if you don't establish the idea of right and wrong, it's not going to magically happen.

Most kids will violate that right/wrong line at some point, but they have to know where it is, to know they've crossed it. The guilt or shame won't work, if it doesn't seem wrong to them.

This starts when toddlers tussle over a toy. If you don't help them understand what is the right thing then, then you don't have a foundation to build on later, and those years move fast.

From that perspective, public shaming is a nuke option, because it isn't anything self actualized, it is external. As previously mentioned upthread there is a difference between shame and guilt, but they can be used together.

OTOH, this is especially useful, not for this kid, but other kids as a not so subtle example of wrong. It's intructional, and I don't think we use the potential of it enough... but it has to be individual to the situation.

Shame is a very under utilized tool in the parental arsenal these days. When mine were small, 25 years ago, I could stop them in their tracks with the words "I am so disappointed in you right now.". I would tell them what they did wrong, how to fix it, how it was ok to make mistakes as long as they learned from them, and then I'd tell them something they had done right in the situation to reinforce the good behavior.

I never read a parenting book, my parents were abusive as hell, I had to come up with this approach on my own. I figured it out by doing a "What would my parents do now?" and doing the opposite. It worked quite well for me, with my kids, and suited our temperaments just fine.

With my nephew, I wanted to bring back the stocks in the public square, complete with peasants throwing rotten vegetables. He had no sense of guilt, and you couldn't make him feel bad about anything he did. He stole, lied, cussed out his Mom, did drugs, and was a very huge PITA. His mom was very non-confrontational and would never believe that "Her angel" was doing all the nasty, horrid things people said he was, even when it was right in front of her nose. It was so bad that one of my girls told him that if I were his mom, he'd have been spitting teeth after one tantrum/tirade. She was horrified by him. But I wasn't, and the different parenting styles of me and my sister clearly showed in the results of our kids.

> When mine were small, 25 years ago, I could
> stop them in their tracks with the words "I
> am so disappointed in you right now."

Angel—

When shame comes from the Mother –that most intimate and nurturing personality, and one to whom our subject is not coincidentally dependent for food, clothing and shelter – it's an entirely different class of response from being ashamed in front of kids in the classroom or strangers in a bus station.

Completely different magnitude of mindfuck... One with heavy Judaic implications.

People don't like shame, they don't like feeling ashamed. They especially don't like it when kids feel bad.

But there is a reason that emotion exists, because it works for its intended purpose.

Could a private punishment have worked?

Maybe.

WILL this one work? Almost certainly.

Completely different magnitude of mindfuck... One with heavy Judaic implications.

Excuse me? Way to totally ignore everything else I said.

I would tell them what they did wrong, how to fix it, how it was ok to make mistakes as long as they learned from them, and then I'd tell them something they had done right in the situation to reinforce the good behavior.

It's only a mindfuck if you leave the person hanging without a clue of what they did wrong, or how to fix the situation. In your case, reading comprehension may be lacking, or you may just be willfully ignoring the parts that don't fit the point you *want* to push. In either case I would say that taking more time to read what was written before you reply, and considering possible reactions to your response would be a good thing. Although you did make a good point about the source of the shame being important to its impact.

> Way to totally ignore everything else I said.

There's more to shame than the feminine manipulations of a mother.

RationalReader good comment. But I and I believe others are not suggesting only shame, but shame as a part of it. The problem with not using shame is you are left with only guilt. Which if the child has none, or can fake having it. The child then has less reason to follow any laws or morals, but will be trusted by the community.
Part of shame is giving fair warning to the community about the kids known trustworthiness

Feminine manipulations, huh? I'm sorry your mommy issues have scarred you so deeply, but in my experience the best guilt-trippers in the world have all been abusive men. They use shame the same way a surgeon uses a laser scalpel to pare away your self esteem, confidence, faith, belief in anything except what they want you to believe. Shame is the opus played on their victims, and it is so insidious that usually the abuser is thanked for their "love" and "helpful criticism".
There is a difference between guilt-tripping ( bad ) and shame ( attention getting ) as long as you use it as the starting point for a lesson, not the opening volley in the seige to tear down a persons self-worth.

"...The problem with not using shame is you are left with only guilt. Which if the child has none, or can fake having it. The child then has less reason to follow any laws or morals, but will be trusted by the community. Part of shame is giving fair warning to the community about the kids known trustworthiness"

And we should do that with a 12 yr old? Announce to the whole town his untrustworthiness, so that his teachers, neighbors, and future employers will always know and remember him as the kid who stole something?

It's pretty clear from many comments here that a lot of us stole something or did wrong back when we were kids, so it's not that uncommon. Thank goodness we didn't have to carry that stain with us for the rest of our lives...have newspaper clippings of the time we stole.

I'm not against shaming an incorrigible child privately, within a family, like with Sara's nephew. Her idea to pat him down in front of his cousins and other family members is ok and might work.

But putting a 12 yr old child on the street corner is just plain lazy parenting. It's an overreaction by parents who have clearly not been doing their job beforehand, so they want the world to see what tough disciplinarians they're being NOW.

That's what I think of, at least. It's like when you're not paying attention to driving and almost careen into a ditch, then impulsively overcompensate by turning the wheel way too far the other direction.

Good parents don't need to resort to this sort of mental cruelty to teach their child right from wrong. There are other methods.

Where a newspaper gets off telling a parent how to discipline his or her child is beyond me.

> Feminine manipulations, huh?

Amy's post was about the shaming power of the Denver newspaper. (...Apparently, I mean. This was one of those times when I didn't follow her links, because it's more sporting that way... One arm tied behind my back, etc.)

Your comments were about the shaming and shame responses of children to you.

...Unless I missed something.

Amy's post was about the use of shame by a parent, in this case it just happened to be in a public forum. I never said whether I took my children aside or told them in the middle of everywhere that I was disappointed, you jumped to a conclusion. I could have carried a bullhorn with me and announced it in the middle of Monroeville Mall. All I said was that a parent using shame to get the child's attention in order to point out that they had done something wrong, and using that to move into a lesson on how not to do said wrong thing again, was a valid tactic in the arsenal of parenthood.
The fact is, the reporter who wrote this story is the one who took it to the next level of public shaming, it would have stopped at the neighborhood level had they not stuck their nose in and started caterwauling about the incident. If anything, the only misjudgement the parents made is not thinking some do-gooding busybody would blow this out of proportion to make some stupid political-justice-touchy-feely point.
All I did was answer the question "for or against" with an example of why I am "for" from a parents POV, while I hadn't continued to think thru to the newspapers culpability. Hopefully I have cleared that up.

> you jumped to a conclusion.

Musta been the way she entitled it "Public Shaming Of Children"... Amy is crazy-clever that way!

I'd let you have the last word, since that seems to be the only thing you care about, but I'm stubborn and cranky and Just Not That Into You.
So, again, ignore what I say all you want, twist and turn and dodge and zig and zag however you choose, I answered the question, while all you did was expose a bit of your issues with the parental-units.I'm not your parent, nor did I raise my children the way that your parents raised you. Obviously, because my daughters can have an adult conversation without such verbal gymnastics to just *be right no matter what*.
Shame is not bad. Guilt tripping, and in your words, mind-fucking, mentally abusing your child, THAT is bad. But they are two *entirely* different things, which is the point I have been making, and you have oh-so-adroitly side-stepped.
Whether that shame is public or private is a judgement call the parent must make based on their knowledge of how the child has responded to their efforts to discipline them thus far, and the seriousness of the infraction. I'd say stealing $100 is pretty serious, and nowhere are we told what measures have been tried before this. Just this pontificating blowhard going on about how they don't think it's right, and the poor kid, boo-hoo.
I repeat, the only mistake this kid's parents made was not anticipating the busybody butting in and blowing things way out of proportion, and I would probably demand at least an appology for them using my kids picture without permission.

What concerns me every time we have one of these threads is how many automatically applaud the parent without knowing the facts at home.

I get that there's a lot of anger and resentment towards spoiled and rude kids, but it's important not to lose sight of the fact that there are many kids out there being genuinely abused and mistreated.

Maybe I've been on the child welfare end too long, but when I see a parent willing to humiliate their child in public, I wonder how loving they really are to him in private.

One thing about bad parents is that they rarely have insight into how their own modeling effects their child's behavior. They'll drink, do drugs, curse, and fight all the time, yet when their child gets into trouble, they always seem genuinely at a loss to explain "why he's like this".

And these are the type of parents who typically want to use the most extreme punishments because they'd much rather view the behavior as solely the child's fault than theirs. Rather than clean up their own act and model better behavior it's much easier to punish.

A couple of months ago, a young girl died after her mother and grandmother made her run outside in the yard as punishment. She wasn't allowed to sit down and rest. Neighbors came by - maybe even some who thought, "Hell Yeah! That's discipline! Way to go!" (nobody tried to stop them, at least). But the girl collapsed and died of dehydration after 3 hours.

So, I think we should view these extreme punishments more as warning signs of possible dysfunction within the family rather than heroic disciplinary tactics.

And it disturbs me that everytime we have one of these rare horrendous cases of child abuse, it is used as an excuse by the Nanny state to tie the hands of perfectly good parents, taking away valid parenting tools because some idiot social planner has an idea for an experimant, and now we've got good people losing control of their kids because they don't have the tools necesary to instill discipline and respect into the little barbarians.
Children are not born civilized. It is their job as parents to civilize them, and some get it easier than others. So they must be allowed to use their best judgement in what will work on their child short of actual abuse, without interfence from some pompous windbag who will only undermine their efforts to turn their child into an ethical adult.

> Where a newspaper gets off telling a parent how
> to discipline his or her child is beyond me.

A topic of community interest; a dynamic, evolving component of contemporary life. This blog is 900 miles away, but the questions resonate.

LS you are ignoring that most people do forgive and forget in time, unless the crime is notably crewl or, repeated often. Society does tend to forgive and forget, youthful indiscressions. Your shame is bad until next month when some other kid does something else. Society in 3 yrs won't remebe your transgression, unless you have been caught and shamed several times.
There is also the shaming vs guilt ofwhat I consider moral/a crime, vs what society does.

If a kid does not consider conning people out of money by claiming to be an orphan in need a crime or immoral, there will be no guilt for doing it. However there may be shame in it, which could stop society from giving the kid money for this bad behavior.

Joe, I think people have gotten less forgiving of these things than in the past, when people kind of shrugged it off as kids being kids.

The tensions in school, with shootings, drugs, etc, have made parents particularly paranoid about allowing their kids around so called "bad" kids. They talk about and label kids frequently, and this spreads bias. We've also got cops in school now, keeping their eye particularly on kids they suspect of being bad.

A friend of mine's son was charged with assault for poking another kid with a pencil at school. He's now labeled by a lot of other parents as a bad kid because he has an assault record. Another mom called me because he was interested in her daughter and she'd heard he was bad, so she wasn't going to allow it.

So, a stain like being publicly labeled a thief can really stay with a kid today and influence his life and options for many years. Especialy if he makes another mistake, or worse, gets falsely accused of doing something wrong, he won't likely live it down.

A friend of mine's son was charged with assault for poking another kid with a pencil at school. He's now labeled by a lot of other parents as a bad kid because he has an assault record. Another mom called me because he was interested in her daughter and she'd heard he was bad, so she wasn't going to allow it.
First of all, this is a friend of yours, and the way you relate the story sans details puts you firmly in the "Not my little angel" camp. Did he poke or did e stab? Diid he draw blood, or cause a wound? Was this part of a larger altercation/fight? Does this boy have a record of such outbursts? Considering the willful blindness of some parents that refuse to see when their children desperately need mental help, and the lengths they will go to cover for them such as In the case of sara's nephew, the other parents absolutely have a right to be concerned, and warn off their kids.
Altho, you say he was charged, was he ever tried and convicted? Also, as a juvenile, how did the story spread?

He poked the kid with a pencil. It didn't draw blood. Yes, they were arguing, as boys do, but this is the kind of thing that principals used to deal with, not bring in the law.

The difference is that there is a cop on school grounds now, who needs to justify being there, parents who get hysterical over the slightest injury to their kid and demand charges be filed, as well as rather absurd rules about what constitues at school (as Amy often posts here).

The kid is a good boy. He's only been in trouble for one other thing - experimenting with pot for a few months at 15. He stupidly took an empty bong to school one day to show off to his friends and got into trouble for that (which is probably why he was on the school cop's radar). But he's clean now.

I suppose his dad could've made him stand on the corner with a sign saying, "I'm a pot-smoking, pencil-wielding criminal", but he chose to get him therapy and have him regularly drug tested instead, which seems to me to be the better choice.

That said, I agree with you that the state shouldn't generally interfere in these kinds of parental choices. I'm just saying that parents who use these nuclear options shouldn't necessarily be lauded for it. They usually have other options that would be just as effective, if not more.

I meant "constitutes a weapon at school".

LS that is a problem with there being a cop at school, and a zero tolerance law.
A true shaming of him would be him holding a sign saying I poked someone with a pencil. then everyone would know what the "crime" was, and people would judge it appropriately by laughing at the police. As it is now he is arrested for ??? most people don't know, they hear rumors they spread rumors. Shaming if done properly gets rid of rumors.

Sorry but I do not see it as a nuclear option. It would in fact have cured the situation you suggested.

I don't see how shaming is better than dealing with these things within the family, or with therapy. It might work, but it also may cause a great divide between parent and child, destroying good communication and mutual respect. I personally, as a teen, would've had a harder time respecting a parent who purposely humilated me in front of all my friends.

Plus, how do you feel about shaming spouses? What if you catch your spouse having an affair? Do you make him/her stand on the corner with a sign?

I just, in fact, received an email the other day from some guy who must've been a client of mine. I don't even remember who he is, but his wife appears to have emailed all his contacts, letting them know how she caught him having an affair with some skank while she was at work. It was long, detailed, and certainly of no relevance to me.

And I highly doubt this shaming tactic would ever prevent someone from cheating again...or improve a couple's relationship. It's more likely to cause a total breakdown of love, trust, and communication.

Plus, how do you feel about shaming spouses? What if you catch your spouse having an affair? Do you make him/her stand on the corner with a sign?

I was seeing your point up until this. Parents can do lots of things to their children that they can't force a spouse to do, like get them circumsized and sit in a corner for 5 minutes.

his wife appears to have emailed all his contacts, letting them know how she caught him having an affair with some skank while she was at work

The divide here is in the very different nature of a person's relationship with their spouse and their child. Spouses do not discipline each other. You could make a good argument that it's wrong to make a kid do that (and you have), but not on these grounds. I am not responsible for ensuring that my husband becomes a productive, law-abiding citizen. If I tell everyone in his contact list that he shagged some skank, that's straight-up revenge.

One factor we can't know is just how shaming the kid finds this punishment. He might find it just enough to stop the behavior but not enough to crush him for life. People react differently to different things, which is why parents are generally the best judges of what punishment is appropriate.

"One factor we can't know is just how shaming the kid finds this punishment. He might find it just enough to stop the behavior but not enough to crush him for life. People react differently to different things, which is why parents are generally the best judges of what punishment is appropriate."

Well, why take the chance that it would crush him for life?

You're right that it's somewhat different within the individual circumstances of parent/child or spouse/spouse.

But one thing that isn't different is the time it takes from my life in the act of becoming somewhat involved in private matters. I spent maybe 2 minutes reading that wife's diatribe, but why should I have even read it? I don't know him. Their issues aren't relevant to me.

Likewise, if I drive out of my neighborhood, should I really have to be distracted by some 12 yr old's sign, detailing his youthful indiscretion? Should I really be asked to ponder his morals?

Almost everyone in my neighborhood has raised their own kids and somehow dealt with their own child's (and marital) issues privately, without involving me.

Isn't it kind of rude to ask me to help sanction your kid? I didn't bother my neighbors with these kinds of things when my own kids did something bad.

"Well, why take the chance that it would crush him for life?"

great question, just to be sure lets never let anyone be punished for anything ever again

I agree with LS that washing your dirty linen in public just isn't civilized - and I agree with those who said that private shaming can work just as well if done early enough in a child's life.

And I ALSO agree that it's better to be a little too "strict" than too lenient, if you hope to nip the problem in the bud at all.

Allow me to post this Dec. 1996 column by John Rosemond:

My petitioner and I were in the lobby of an auditorium in which I was about to speak in Lancaster, Pa., talking about a relatively minor discipline problem she was experiencing with her 6-year-old son.
I asked how her husband reacted to it.

"Well," she answered, "to tell you the truth, I don't really trust my husband to discipline the kids."

"Why not?" I asked. "Does he tend to be overly physical?"

"Oh, no," she replied. "He doesn't even believe in spanking."

"So what's the problem?"

"He hurts their feelings."

I looked at her for a moment, sizing up my options, before deciding to go for it.

"Well, actually, that's the idea," I said.

She looked dumbfounded. "No! I mean, you can't be serious."

"Yes, indeed, I'm dead serious," I replied. "Discipline doesn't work unless it hurts the child's feelings. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about causing permanent damage. I'm talking about causing a little pain."

"But why?" she asked, mournfully, as if grieving over shattered illusions.

That such formerly self-evident facts of bringing up children have to be explained to today's parents is why today's children, by all accounts, are less-disciplined than children of any prior generation.

Veteran teachers describe them as "self-absorbed" and "disrespectful." Parents say things like "I'd have never talked to my parents the way my children sometimes talk to me" and "Anything (in the way of corrective discipline) my parents did worked, but nothing I do seems to work for long."

To a great degree, these laments can be traced to parents who are not willing to hurt their children's feelings.

Children are not adults. A responsible adult, when he wrongs someone else, is capable of imposing penance upon himself and prescribing appropriate atonement. If, for example, he insults someone in a moment of pique, he will later feel chagrined and apologize. If he possesses a sufficient conscience, no one needs to tell him to feel bad or beg pardon. He does so on his own.

Not so with children. The younger the child, the more necessary it becomes - when the child does something wrong - that an adult impose penance upon the child and mandate appropriate atonement.

Helping a child understand that he did something wrong usually requires making the child feel bad - as in, hurting the child's feelings.

The "sting" of discipline creates a permanent memory, one that serves to inhibit future behavior of the same sort. Without the sting, the memory will not form - nor, therefore, the inhibition.

The accumulation of such painful memories constitutes what is known as conscience, and a person so endowed is capable of being a functional member of society.

This is the "price" humans pay for the relative protection of civilization. When there are too few such "inhibited" individuals, civilization begins to come apart at the seams.

For 30 years or so, American parents - at the well-intentioned urging of misguided mental-health professionals - have been trying to make children "feel good about themselves."

This anti-scriptural, anti-social notion has corrupted American child-rearing and is now -as a generation of insufficiently inhibited children is attaining chronological adulthood -beginning to corrupt America.

These perpetual children, so corporate leaders often tell me, are generally lacking in a sense of loyalty to their employers. They come to work asking not what they can do for the company, but what the company can do/should do for them. They enter into "trial" marriages, which they abandon the moment reality - that a successful marriage is the hardest secular thing anyone can ever accomplish - sets in.

Jurists tell me that all too often today's young people think breaking the law is a big deal only if they lack the money to hire the best attorneys. This isn't Generation X. This is Generation E, for entitled.

For all these reasons, I wanted to shake this woman and scream, "Wake up! Please, for everyone's sake, wake up!"

Instead, I patiently explained what every prior generation of American parents grasped without explanation.

The question becomes: If it has to be explained, will it ever again be understood?

(end)

And, as he's said elsewhere, too many parents think that any type of parenting that makes the PARENT uncomfortable shouldn't be used. Wrong!