<Applause>

Great stepmom. This shouldn't be a story, it should be a parable.

When I was a kid in the 90s, thrift store clothes were cool. We all went to the Garment District in Cambridge to buy our clothes at a dollar a pound. The weirder, the better.

When I taught in 2006, the kids were wearing Chanel and Hermes. When I was a kid you wouldn't be caught dead in Chanel and Hermes because it was what your mom and grandma were wearing.

The times they have a-changed.

Bullying is shameful, and feeling shame for doing it is appropriate. But how is a kid supposed to know that if her parents don't teach her?

Instead of being protected from emotions like guilt and shame, kids need to be taught when it is and when it isn't appropriate to feel them; and then to feel them intensely when it's appropriate. Not feeling shame when one has acted shamefully is more degrading and undignified than the shameful act itself, not to mention bad for society. Not teaching kids what to be ashamed of is negligent parenting.

Maybe most parents wouldn't have used that method to teach their kids, but each parent knows their own kid and what it takes to get through to them. From now on, if Kaylee the 4th-grader admonishes other kids, or adults, for ridiculing and teasing others she'll speak with authority... because she knows.

I'm thankful that most kids aren't being raised by Jennifer A. Leigh, Psy.D.

"The stepmom spent about $50 at a thrift store..."

Fifty dollars at a thrift store for enough clothes for two days?! Wow, that must have been a high end thrift store... or maybe stepmom found a few things she liked for herself. It's hard to walk out of a thrift store empty-handed.

Perhaps I'm being an alarmist, but I was terribly concerned over this:

When Ally received a note from the school alerting her of Kaylee's bullying, she talked about the issue with her stepdaughter and was perplexed when the young girl seemed apathetic to the damage she'd caused.

Apathetic? Really?

She needed a lesson in empathy, and she needed it quick. The experts can take their psych books and shove them up their nether regions.

Public shaming may be effective in teaching our children what specific behavior they should stay away from in the future to avoid future humiliation," Jennifer A. Leigh, Psy.D., told She Knows Parenting. "However, shaming can damage the parent-child relationship. Children quickly learn they cannot trust their parents. Children need to feel safe and secure and to be able to trust their parents.

I don't think trust even enters into this. Her step mother did nothing to damage trust. The child knows can trust her stepmom to monitor her behavior and let her know that she screwed up.

Jennifer Leigh, an idiot with a sheepskin, thinks that an involved parent (or stepparent) doling out consequences for bad behavior, is abusing trust.

In Leigh's perfect world, stepmom should just say, "Oh, it was very wrong what you did, but I love you anyways. Let's go get ice cream."

I thank the gods my girls learned empathy at an early age. Of course, we aren't wealthy enough to dress like we shop on 5th Avenue. Even so, both of my girls have been victims of, but have never reciprocated, bullying. But believe me when I tell you, they have both told me, at one time or another, "I hate you!" and it was usually after I imposed a punishment or a consequence for bad behavior. But right now, as young ladies of almost 21 and almost 18, they know I love them, and I know they love me. They know I've got their backs. But that also know I brook no shit. They don't get a pass when they screw up; they learn from it. It's not always an easy lesson, and they know that too. The screw-ups have been less as they've gotten older.

"Apathetic? Really?"

I agree; this needed to be nipped in the bud, by any reasonable means available. I thought the stepmom came up with a very creative solution.

I am so sick and tired of these so-called experts coming out of the woodwork like termites telling parents and other responsible adults to not do something because it might hurt the child's self-esteem. You know what? My self-esteem (and my ass on occasion) was hurt on a regular basis by my parents, my teachers, my friend's parents, and I turned out to be a responsible, law-abiding, community-minded adult who holds down a full-time job and has since I was 19. Maybe if we stop worrying about giving a trophy to every kid and mayking them own up to their own shitty behavior, we won't end up with a country of entitled little snots expecting someone else to clean up their messes in about 20 years.

We need more parental figures like this.

If parents would be parents, we wouldn't be in the state we're in.

Sounds like the stepmom has read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Definitely a "punishment fits the crime" situation. Plus, Jennifer Jackass, PhD, is wrong - what the stepmom did is not public shaming. She made her stepdaughter feel guilty for what she had done not worthless for what she was. Guilt and shame are different things completely, and mom applied guilt where it was most defintely due. The thrift store clothing was a good lesson in empathy. No, a great lesson in empathy.

"Fifty dollars at a thrift store for enough clothes for two days?!"
It's not a very well written article (the original one, not Amy's sum-up) but I think it was for a few outfits plus shoes.

I'm willing to let parents parent in the way they think best. And I don't think some "taste of your own medicine" is necessarily bad for a kid's psyche. And there's a tendency to underestimate how savage little girls can be.

All that being said, I cringe so hard when articles like this make the international news circuit. I don't criticize the stepmom's methods, but I do wonder just how this made the attention of the news.

"Children need to feel safe and secure and to be able to trust their parents."

They should be able to trust that their parents will not put up with that kind of behavior.

But that polka-dot clown suit would have scarred me for life, even remembering some of the things I wore on purpose!

I liked the second dress. I hope she was taunted mercilessly for it. "Laura Ingalls called. She needs her dress back."

Good manners are timeless. I made sure my daughter had cute clothes when she went to school, because my own mother had the fashion sense of a turnip, and I was teased non stop for it.

It left me with a lifelong distaste for women between the ages of 8 and 40.

If you wonder why a lot of countries put their school children in uniforms, this would be the reason.

Uniforms don't necessarily solve the problem. I wore one in grade school. The other girls just harped on how I wore my socks, my hair, etc. Little girls are assholes.

A friend of mine has a son, 10 years old, who got suspended from school for constantly disobeying the rules, fighting, etc. She arranged to take him to work with her for the duration of the several-day suspension. She had him approach every single person in her office, explain why he was there, and apologize for disrupting their day.

He hasn't been suspended since.

Maybe it was a mistake to give the fourth grade girl her own Tilly's card in the first place? What was your back to school budget? I recall it being about $250, which didn't go far enough at Pac-Sun to make me anywhere near a clothes snob.

If the bully were a bit older I would say: get her a job at hot dog on a stick. That'll teach fashion humility.

If you wonder why a lot of countries put their school children in uniforms, this would be the reason.

Mean girls will always find something to tease about people they don't like. When I wore a school uniform, girls would make fun of the length of other girls' skirts, their shoes, their hairstyles, their sweaters and jackets, etc. Uniforms are no barrier at all against bullying.

-KTSU asked Dr. Douglas Goldsmith of Utah’s Children’s Center about Ally teaching her daughter a lesson through humiliation and he said, “What happens with that is the person walks away at the end saying, ‘Now I’m really angry, that was humiliating and now I’m angry.”-

There's humiliation and then there's humility. As one poster at the article said, this was a "Walk a mile in my shoes" moment.

If you wonder why a lot of countries put their school children in uniforms, this would be the reason.

Mean girls will always find something to tease about people they don't like. When I wore a school uniform, girls would make fun of the length of other girls' skirts, their shoes, their hairstyles, their sweaters and jackets, etc. Uniforms are no barrier at all against bullying.

Posted by: The Jingoist at May 22, 2013 9:01 AM

Of course, but it does erase some class distinction, and it makes it more likely that the bullies will have to chose their targets more carefully.

My son went to a school with uniforms, and there were far fewer problems there, than at the public school my daughter went to.
I think the people who went to private school would be shocked at how much more pervasive bullying is, at large public schools.

It's too bad teachers aren't allowed to bruise students' self-esteem anymore. When I was in fifth grade, there was a frumpy new girl (looking back now I realize was probably Pentecostal) who we picked on for about a week. We thought we were being sly about it but our teacher sent the girl to the office on an errand and proceeded to skin us alive as a class.

We thought that was the end of it, but then she called all our parents and shamed them for raising horrible monsters and we (most of us anyway) got it again when we got home.

Very effective lesson, and one of the first things I taught my kids as soon as they started talking was "we don't talk about how people look".

"Of course, but it does erase some class distinction, and it makes it more likely that the bullies will have to chose their targets more carefully."

You're missing the point.

Firstly, girls are more vicious than boys in most cases. Boys will pound you into the ground with their fists, and you heal in a week. Girls cause lifelong eating disorders.

Secondly, and more importantly, if class distinction is not made on the basis of wardrobe, it will be made on the basis of the latest technology or lack thereof; or vehicle or lack thereof, hair style, sexual orientation, musical taste, curfew restrictions, you get the idea.

If the little bastards can't pick on a child for any of the above, they'll make something up. Kids can be mean, snobby and exclusionary, taught to be so by mean, snobby and exclusionary parents.

Parents that care about their children and their place in society teach their children manners and empathy.

I am a big fan of shame and guilt as a learning tool. More parents need to use it. If a kid never feels guilty about what they've done, how will they learn their lesson and empathy? It goes further than just punishing the kids though; the parents need to MODEL good behaviour for their kids as well. It's one thing to punish, it's quite another to lead by example.

However, parents need to learn to use shame and guilt, properly. There can be parents who take it too far. I know one dad who is consistently "shaming" his son publicly. He belittles him, makes him feel stupid for making simple mistakes, and teases him for being a bit chunky in front of his friends and family. He will be the reason his son becomes a socially awkard, angry kid with no self-esteem.

"When I taught in 2006, the kids were wearing Chanel and Hermes"

If it makes you feel better Chanel & other houses have said too many plebs can afford their stuff so they are planning on raising their prices.

I love it when houses say,. "Eww you are not good enough for our stuff" especially to people who are label whores.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-467353/School-uniform-improves-pupils-behaviour-school.html

I think there are many benefits to school uniforms.

"We're not sure what causes them but -- just a guess -- you haven't read the literature on what actually seem to be possibilities."

It was my way of saying "lasting emotional pain". Probably could've written it better.

The gist of it; girls tend to cause psychological damage, whereas boys tend to inflict short term physical pain. I'm sure there are girls that use violence as an effective bullying tool. It's been my experience they prefer to use words, blindingly effective words.

Also, my speakers are fried or I would be a regular listener....

Also, do you not find that the pressure to be thin is what makes girl-bullies so successful?

You're right, wtf. And girl-on-girl bullying is much harder to address in schools because there's no obvious violence. It can be very subtle, and if there's no authority figure around to see it, it might as well have not happened.

Well, if you think about it;

The pressure on young girls to be thin is intense.
If a girl isn't thin and beautiful, she doesn't fit in. At least with the popular crowd, and lets face it, all kids wanna be in that crowd.

The media adds to the pressure by showing stick thin girls in clothes that would fit a barbie doll.

Bullies are targeted by the media just as much as victims, in that they are shown the exact same pretty girls in barbie doll clothes. If the victims don't look like them, the media (ads, movies, tv shows, music videos) is basically giving bullies permission to bully, as all the models are identically thin and gorgeous.

The bullies are believed, because the media validates the idea that to be of value, you must be stick thin and gorgeous, wear designer jeans, and have 4 million friends and the latest technology.

Wham! Instant loss of self esteem.

It of course works the same way with boys, but as boys self-image is not based largely on looks (they aren't taught to by the media and society) it doesn't have as great an impact.

This might apply....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4yQFZK9YM

"It is not the job of "the media" to parent your children."

No, but the media is given alot more weight by the younger generation than warranted. It doesn't help the problem, and gives them extra ammo.

"The pressure on girls to be fat in cultures where fat is worshiped is also intense."

I imagine in those cultures girls are made fun of for being too skinny.

"Also, there were never so many not only fat but obese people as there are now. Why? Because government promoted a diet that causes weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease, the high-carb, low-fat diet."

Stupidity should be painful. At least for adults. Just as it is not the media's job to parent your children, it is not the governments position to police diets. If you shovel pasta into your mouth at break neck speed, are you really surprised when you weigh an extra 15 lbs?

It's more involved than thin/fat. I was a cute kid, by most standards. Thin, too. I got bullied by the fat girls as well as the thin ones. Girls, like boys, are trying to establish a pecking order. Both will pick on the kids perceived as weaker, or "weird." They also have a way of sniffing out the kids who won't fight back.

Parents need to teach their kids how to defend themselves, both physically and psychologically.

"But the fourth grader followed her stepmother's instructions, wore the unstylish threads for two days, and put up with her friends saying meaning things about her clothes. In the end, Kaylee admitted that she learned a lesson, has decided that teasing other kids is mean, and promises to be more kind to her peers."
___________________________________

What I don't quite get is why it worked. Couldn't she have just told the kids that her mean stepmother was forcing her to wear the clothes because of "some stupid lesson" she was trying to teach - and gotten their sympathy?

But, good for the stepmother.

In the meantime, here's what good old John Rosemond has to say about shame (from 1996):

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!

So did it work? Is she nicer now? Did she learn empathy?

"And what is "warranted""

Warranted, as in when we were children, we didn't have media in our face 24 hours a day, and the girls featured didn't have wardrobes fit for Vegas.

On demand media has magnified the problem. Kids give it more weight because it's always being aimed directly at them, all the time. When I was a kid, child and teen directed marketing was limited to Saturday morning cartoons, and MTV.

"If you don't know dietary science, best to not weigh in on it."

Was not weighing in on dietary science. Merely pointing out that the sheeple of today have no room to complain when they stuff faces full of junk food, and physical activity is limited to bathroom and kitchen trips. That, and portion sizes today are about 200 times the size of our childhood.

As to that, I find it isn't so much about the type of food as the quantity. That, and lack of active living. I would be more inclined to agree with Mr. Taubes if it weren't for my own personal experience.

As a pasta lover with kids, I eat pasta at least twice a week, along with sandwiches for bagged lunches and rice in stir-fry, potatoes with most meat based meals, and my kids drink apple juice by the gallon. Of course, they don't apply, they're kids.

I'm 33, 5'11 and 160 lbs. Not a model, but not overweight either.

In my opinion, it isn't any particular food, it's the lack of a gym membership.

"Both will pick on the kids perceived as weaker, or "weird." They also have a way of sniffing out the kids who won't fight back."

True, but fat kids get it worse I think, at least with girls. Gives them ready ammo. It probably applies to boys too.

I read the article and comments about this story from fark.com. I happened to like one posters suggestion. I don't remember the poster's name, so I can give proper credit.

Instead of dressing her like the fresh prince in the song 'parent's just don't understand', give her only plain clothes for the rest of the year. Plain white tees-hirts, plain jeans, plain white shoes. No jewelry or fancy hair things.

I admit, that might be a bit harsh to go a full year.

Interesting. While I might not agree with you re exercise and physical activity, I think I might replace apple juice. GAH!

(no really, YIKES!)

"I wasn't allowed to watch TV, save for the Wonderful World Of Disney (or whatever it was called) on Sunday nights."

That would be considered deprivation by most of today's children. And, it's not just limited to TV nowadays. Internet ads are just as bad. And before you say that we should limit internet access, which I agree with, remember that it is still necessary for today's kids to spend some time on the internet. Not all child-friendly sites are all that child friendly.

Also, children can be bullied about parenting style, particularly when they can't watch the same shows their friends watch. Not that we shouldn't limit what they watch, but it can be overdone.

And Holy Crap! No Saturday cartoons? what did you do on Saturday mornings?

Good on yer mama tho.....

Couldn't she have just told the kids that her mean stepmother was forcing her to wear the clothes because of "some stupid lesson" she was trying to teach - and gotten their sympathy?

She probably did tell, and the girls took it to mean they had permission from a parent to be mean.

As several people have said, little girls are assholes. I remember several.

"Also, children can be bullied about parenting style"

So it's not the media then that gives kids ammo? Since kids find anything to bully each other about?

I wasn't fat so I got bullied for my last name. Also I got it from fat girls for being too skinny ( though rarely).

Howard Stern got bullied for being white in a black high school, then being a Jew in a white high school.

My mom got bullied for being too pretty. My cousin got bullied for having light eyes.

My dog gets bullied by other dogs for being too laid back.

Also, children can be bullied about parenting style, particularly when they can't watch the same shows their friends watch. Not that we shouldn't limit what they watch, but it can be overdone.
________________________________

Well, I have two young cousins (girl, 11, and boy, 7) who are allowed very little TV - or other screen time, I'm guessing - and they are lovely, sweet, confident and outgoing, from what little I've seen of them. I found they also like reading quite a bit, too, so I mailed them about 20 pounds of books (mainly forgotten-gem paperbacks such as "The Forgotten Door") and their mother told me it was like Christmastime for them when the box arrived.

Oh, BTW, the news made it to Bratfree.

http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,300162

Some posts:

thundergirl85 says: In this story, a 10-year-old girl bullied another classmate over the course of several weeks and made fun of her for wearing uncool clothes, to the point where the recipient (I hate the word victim) didn't want to go to school anymore. The girl's teacher emailed the bully's mom, who forced her daughter to spend 2 days wearing uncool thrift store clothes to know how it felt being in the other girl's shoes.

Most of the comments below the article were along the lines of "serves her right," "kids need to learn empathy," "this will help her understand what she did," etc.

But then there were a bunch of Gentle Discipline whiners who commented with stuff like this:

Quote: "Kindness grows organically and is learnt through example - this won't cure the root causes of the girl's meanness even if she watches her tongue in future - this family sounds emotionally dysfunctional"

And this

Quote: "Who's the bully now......Same difference."

and it just makes me facepalm.

I do agree that some punishments are abusive, but I think this one is totally fitting. It's not anything that violates the girl's body/physical boundaries, and it's not something that will emotionally scar her beyond being pissed for a little while. It's just making her know EXACTLY HOW THE OTHER GIRL FELT. And it only lasted for TWO DAYS, as opposed to the bullied girl, who probably was stuck with crappy clothes for her whole school career because her family is poor etc.

(end of thundergirl85's post)

Crazy old crone says:
What those lowing moos (mothers) are really saying is that they don't have the guts to actually parent their chyylld so no one else should either.
Yea for this lady showing her daughter what she was inflicting on others. That is actual parenting.

(end)

One thing they DIDN'T mention - somehow, they never do, at Bratfree - is the likelihood that modern, ineffective "Gentle Discipline" is the result of too many single mothers with little common sense and too few fathers WITH common sense. (Of course, it's not necessarily gender-linked.)

"So it's not the media then that gives kids ammo? Since kids find anything to bully each other about?"

Kids don't need ammo, but it helps.

You are right in that they'll make fun of anything, but kids being lazy kids, they pick on the obvious. In this case it happens to be looks, or lack of, which is highlighted by all the gorgeous women in the media. They only turn to things like last names when they run out of ideas. (Or when the last name is awfully bad)

The media merely makes the differences glaringly obvious. And media being the repetitive monster it is, kids get the messages 24 hours a day.

Aside from the usual dinner making hour when I let my children watch, they only get to watch about 3 shows a week, so in total that makes 8.5 hours of TV a week, 11.5 if you count weekends. That sounds bad, but consider that some children watch TV from the time they get home from school til supper, and supper to bed, and weekends. That makes 27 hours of TV a week.

If you do the math, assuming my numbers (which are based on three hours a day during the week, eight on weekends) are correct, and assuming that a standard half hour show contains ten minutes of advertisements, that means 135 commercials per week. How many of those advertisements feature gorgeous stick thin girls?

I think limiting TV is a good idea, in moderation. It's a good idea to restrict WHAT they watch, in addition to how much. Better yet, watch it with them to negate any negative learned behavior, and to explain why negative messages are negative. Parents have more power than they like to admit.

It isn't just TV or the internet though. When was the last time you passed a grocery store checkout without a half nekkid woman on the cover of ten different magazines? Or a guy the size of a small apartment building with veins popping everywhere? (Blaagh, btw)

It's impossible for girls (and boys) to miss, and I'm sure some of them wonder why they don't look like that. They don't see the 10 hours of makeup and day and a half of Photoshop. Dove recognizes this, and has made a PA program to combat it.

"mainly forgotten-gem paperbacks such as "The Forgotten Door"

I loved that book! That and the paper bag princess.

Reading is certainly better for children than watching mindless hours of TV, and while I do agree that it is very necessary to limit what our children watch, we cannot completely eliminate TV, nor should we. Some of the programming available is actually educational. (A very FEW, but they're out there.)

Even if we totally eliminate TV and the internet, I'm not sure it would be effective. There are still magazines, billboards, ads on buses, toys,(BRATS anyone?)music, Disney,...the list goes on.

I don't necessarily agree with my daughter watching iCarly, but since it's the current trend, I try to watch it WITH her so I can explain away any bad ideas. I don't want the other kids teasing her for not being able to watch it. It seems to work. She gets to discuss it at school the next day, and doesn't decide it's a good idea to shaving foam dad's car.

Also, if you strictly limit television and the internet to what parents consider acceptable, you've just turned a bad habit into forbidden fruit.

Moderation, everything in moderation.

"In this case it happens to be looks, or lack of, which is highlighted by all the gorgeous women in the media. "

It's always been the case, and it's not highlighted anymore now than before. Little girls & teenage girls are especially cruel about looks & social status, it's not a new phenomenon. It has always been and always will be all across every culture in human kind.

The media is supposed to change the women it sells because of little girls bullying each other? I don't care because little girls & teenage girls are just naturally mean to one another. They grow up, they learn better. It's why when we see a woman stuck on looking like a supermodel we say she has got the mind of a little girl, who never learned to be an adult woman.

"They only turn to things like last names when they run out of ideas. (Or when the last name is awfully bad)"

They turned to my last name because it was an easy target. My friend was chubby & desperate for a boyfriend so they turned to that. My cousin looks white, so they turned to that. My mom is pretty and "brown girls" weren't supposed to be pretty back then. Ya get me? It ain't the media:

LITTLE GIRLS ARE JUST INHERENTLY CRUEL.

"I don't want the other kids teasing her for not being able to watch it."

Jesus Christ........

"Even if we totally eliminate TV and the internet, I'm not sure it would be effective. There are still magazines, billboards, ads on buses, toys,(BRATS anyone?)music, Disney,...the list goes on."

My mom grew up in a society where none of that was available. She grew up in the middle of nowhere and was still bullied mercilessly for her looks.

My dad grew up dirt poor. He didn't even own a pair of shoes until his father passed away and left him his pair. He got bullied for looking too white. He used to throw dirt on his body to see if maybe he could make himself darker.

And just so you know I'm Hispanic. And in Hispanic culture white Latinos are considered the "best", even in Spanish language media. So isn't it interesting that my dad looked white but was bullied for it?

I dunno little kids are just fucking mean.

"Kindness grows organically and is learnt through example - this won't cure the root causes of the girl's meanness even if she watches her tongue in future - this family sounds emotionally dysfunctional"

Facepalm indeed. The root cause of the girl's meanness was that she didn't understand what it felt like to be bullied. Now she does.

Also, who gives a crap abou the "root cause," anyway, except the parents? I don't care if she privately has mean thoughts as long as she keeps them to herself.

"They grow up, they learn better."

Not if they aren't taught to. The step mom in this article did exactly that.

"The media is supposed to change the women it sells because of little girls bullying each other?"

Yes. They've changed other things for less.

"They turned to my last name because it was an easy target."

That's what I just said.

"I dunno little kids are just fucking mean."

Not if you teach them empathy.

Even if we totally eliminate TV and the internet, I'm not sure it would be effective. There are still magazines, billboards, ads on buses, toys,(BRATS anyone?)music, Disney,...the list goes on.

Posted by: wtf at May 22, 2013 6:51 PM
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What makes me concerned about TV, the Internet, and videos games is not so much the false ideas being advertised, but rather the huge amount of time they spend NOT doing activities that are far better for the brain, the body - and for one's sense of community. As I've mentioned, one not-so-minor reason I don't want kids is that I would NOT want them surrounded by classmates who are otherwise smart and friendly but who don't read, and who, without necessarily meaning to, would discourage my kids from reading as a result. Not to mention those who blatantly sneer at kids who DO read books without pictures, are smart, or make good grades, even if they're modest about it - after all, what could be more important than spending every possible free hour on video games, Facebook, or "American Idol"?

On top of everything else, sports are being glamorized as never before, when there's plenty of evidence from badly behaving coaches, parents, teens - oh, yes, and pro athletes - that it just might be a good idea for ALL adults to withdraw from kids' sports, focus on academics and community work for kids instead, and let the kids do all the work in organizing games - IF they want to play sports in the first place!

As John Rosemond pointed out, if you want to teach your kid about teamwork, you can do that just as well by getting them to do a regular share of unpaid house chores, which would also teach them about putting the family first. Not to mention that if you're working together, that counts as "quality time."

"mainly forgotten-gem paperbacks such as 'The Forgotten Door' "
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I loved that book! That and the paper bag princess.
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Others I sent:

At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald

Bed-Knob & Broomstick

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry

The Cave Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins

The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss (she died in April, at 97, BTW)

Follow My Leader by James Garfield

From Anna by Jean Little

The How and Why Wonder Book of Ballet

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William MacKinley, and Me, Elizabeth

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

The Reasons for Seasons: The Great Cosmic Megagalactic Trip Without Moving from Your Chair by Linda Allison

Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest by Ann McGovern

The Story of Hiawatha, adapted by Allen Chaffee, illustrated by Armstrong Sperry

Awesome!

They should call you Captain Cousin!

Cousin Cool?

Something like that.

Like I said, did the girl REALLY learn from this? Everyone likes a "tough on bad behavior" story, but unless this girl becomes a better person from it... I don't want platitudes, I want evidence. Is the girl nicer now?

Like I said, did the girl REALLY learn from this? Everyone likes a "tough on bad behavior" story, but unless this girl becomes a better person from it... I don't want platitudes, I want evidence. Is the girl nicer now?

Posted by: NicoleK at May 23, 2013 12:37 PM
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It may or may not take more than one correction to get her to rethink her attitude.

As they taught us in psychology, it's our actions that form our attitudes more often than the other way around. This is why good parents make kids do all sorts of "hypocritical" behaviors, over and over, such as saying please and thank you from day one, even though there ;s a good chance the kdis are thinking: "WHY do I have to say please? As far as I'm concerned, I DESERVE X,Y, or Z" or "WHY do I have to say thank you? I'm NOT at all grateful!"

Miss Manners understands this perfectly well, which is why she's tired of parents who claim they don't want to teach their kids manners because manners are "hypocritical."

Trouble is, grandparents sometimes feel the same way too! E.g. (this Miss Manners column is from 1987):

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19870511&id=ZGgeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EMkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1683,2064021

In the book version, MM says, in effect: "You have a good chance of getting your wish."

wtf: "In my opinion, it isn't any particular food, it's the lack of a gym membership... I'm 33, 5'11 and 160 lbs. Not a model, but not overweight either."

I know what you mean. But my experience is more typical. When I was 33 I was 6'0", weighed 160 lbs, was stronger than any other man I knew, and could run 7 miles (actually I don't know how far I could run; 7 miles was the farthest I ever had any reason to run, and I did it without difficulty) I had been eating pizza, donuts, hamburgers, burritos, pasta, chips, cereal, soda, cake, bread... anything I wanted, since I was a teenager.

I started gaining weight when I was around 40. I tried cutting calories, exercising more, cutting fat, all kinds of different weight loss plans... for years... with much misery, and continued to gain weight and get more out of shape. In my early 50's I was over 230 lbs and fat. I took three medications to control my blood pressure and one to control my cholesterol; my A1c was 6.0, the beginning of type 2 diabetes, and my lipid profile was... bad.

I read an Advice Goddess column about the effects of excessive carbohydrates. I got out my college physiology textbook and read the sections on organic metabolism and the role of insulin and found out that what Ms Alkon said about carbohydrates was true; so I read a couple of the books she recommended on the subject. Then I cut carbohydrates out of my diet, cold turkey. I eat protein and fat - beef, pork, poultry, fish, dairy, eggs, cheese, nuts, green vegetables, oil... as much as I want. I've lost more than 50 pounds. I've quit taking the blood pressure and cholesterol medicines - don't need them. My A1c and lipid profile are normal. I feel really good.

Right now, you can eat all the pasta, potatoes, rice and bread your heart desires, and not see any harmful effects. You're young and fit and healthy. Insulin resistance and all of its damaging effects... metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes... develop over decades and affect at least 2/3 of middle age and older adults, and an increasing number of younger adults and even children. You may be part of the 1/3 that dodges that bullet, but the odds are against you.

wtf: "The gist of it; girls tend to cause psychological damage, whereas boys tend to inflict short term physical pain... It's been my experience they [girls] prefer to use words, blindingly effective words."

It's true. I think cruel words have a much more painful effect on estrogen than they do on testosterone. But for boys, the pain of being physically subjugated by an unjust adversary can last much longer than the week or so it takes the wounds to heal.

wtf (you're so interesting today): "...we cannot completely eliminate TV, nor should we."

Sure we can, and why not? We got rid of the TV in 1978, when older daughter was a little baby, and never had one since. Never missed it either.

"You're young and fit"

Awww thanks! Aren't you sweet! :D I feel like an old bag, since my son is almost 16.....I feel better now!

"Sure we can, and why not?"

Because if they don't watch it at home, they watch it at a friends house. Or at school on them thar interwebs.

"But for boys, the pain of being physically subjugated by an unjust adversary can last much longer than the week or so it takes the wounds to heal."

Very true.

Being a tomboy, I was bullied by the boys AND the girls, and got my head slammed into lockers, pushed down the stairs, and tackled by the jocks.

Of course, that all stopped when I picked the biggest guy on the rugby team and kicked him in the sack. HARD.

This non-violence BS is just that. If you're gonna lay hands on someone, that someone should be able to punch you in the mouth, with no repercussions.

"Sure we can, and why not?"

Because if they don't watch it at home, they watch it at a friends house. Or at school on them thar interwebs.

Posted by: wtf at May 25, 2013 8:49 AM
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Columnist Ellen Goodman once wrote: "It isn't that parents can't say no. It's that there's so much more for them to say no to."

But be that as it may, I don't remember sneaking off to my friends' homes to watch extra amounts of TV in the pre-computer age - it would NOT have been worth the hell to pay had my mother found out. Moral: When you're a parent, don't worry about the punishment "fitting the crime"; what matters is: Does the punishment nip the bad behavior in the bud, or not?

Forgot to say: One of the most important things for parents to force children to say is "I'm sorry," again and again, even though, of course, many a child thinks: "This is lying! I'm NOT sorry! Why are they making me lie? Besides, it's humiliating to me!"

Of course, that's the point. (See above, about psychology.)

Awesome!

They should call you Captain Cousin!

Cousin Cool?

Something like that.

Posted by: wtf at May 23, 2013 8:36 AM
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Thank you!

A few I forgot to mention, that I also sent:

Caddie Woodlawn

Double Trouble for Rupert (1950s - campy stories of four Wisconsin preteen boys who try to cling to "a man's world")

Fables and Fairy Tales by Leo Tolstoy, trans. by Ann Dunnigan (easily the best translation; she also translated "War & Peace")

The Golden Treasury of Poetry, ed. Louis Untermeyer, illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund (unforgettable)

A Little Princess (ever noticed, in that story, how Burnett stressed education for girls, even for those girls, like Ermengarde, who don't LIKE books?)

Rascal by Sterling North

The Twenty-One Balloons

The Zoom Catalog (early 1970s)

Impressive collection! Can you be my cousin? LOL!

"don't worry about the punishment "fitting the crime""

That statement frightens me. In my view, it almost amounts to abuse.

If you were a child, and got three weeks grounding for leaving the light switch on, what would you think of your parents?

I understand that it is sometimes necessary to make things unpleasant for children in order to teach them a lesson, but lets not go nuts.

"But be that as it may, I don't remember sneaking off to my friends' homes to watch extra amounts of TV in the pre-computer age"

I guess I was a problem child, thinking back on it. If my parents forbid me to do something, I just went to my friends houses to do it.

Like the whole dress code thing. My parents were pretty naive. They forbid me to wear shorts or skirts above the knee, or tight shirts, tank tops or cleavage baring blouses. (Not that I had anything to bare at that point....thought I was sexy as hell tho...) I hid the clothes at my friends house, left my house in granny clothes, and changed over there.

If kids are determined to do something, it will be done.

Impressive collection! Can you be my cousin? LOL!
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Thank you. If you like, check out these two lists of titles that I didn't send, but are in my own collection:

http://forums.abebooks.fr/discussions/AbeBookscom_Community_Forum/_/_/abecom/29649.27

(You have to scroll down halfway, first - and the second list is just slightly lower.)
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"don't worry about the punishment "fitting the crime""

That statement frightens me. In my view, it almost amounts to abuse.

If you were a child, and got three weeks grounding for leaving the light switch on, what would you think of your parents?

I understand that it is sometimes necessary to make things unpleasant for children in order to teach them a lesson, but lets not go nuts.

Posted by: wtf at May 25, 2013 12:52 PM
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Of COURSE I've heard of parents going seriously overboard. That can only backfire. My mother would never have done anything that extreme, despite her being hot-tempered. However, the point she didn't mind making to me, non-verbally, was that however much she might say "I love you" and give me hugs and kisses, we were still not "friends" and therefore it was right for her to make me truly afraid of disobeying her in big ways or displeasing her in general.

Just to give some examples, from John Rosemond (whose conservative philosophies were pretty close to my old-fashioned liberal mother's):

(From 1996, but the story is older than that)
.........About two weeks into the program, Eric “forgot” to do his Saturday after-lunch chores. I found him outside playing baseball with the other boys in the neighborhood, called him in and confronted him with his lapse. He intended to do it later, he said. I reminded him what his mother and I had told him on Welcome to the Real World Day: Chores took precedence over play, and we would not look kindly upon having to repeat this fact of life.

He promised to do the chore later. I said he’d do it right then and there. He exhaled a sigh of defeat and went inside and did what he should have done earlier. Then he started back outside.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Outside to finish the game.”

“No, Eric, you’re not. You’re going to your room for the rest of the day and going to bed early.”

His face burst into shock and dismay. “Why?!” he demanded.

“Because you didn’t do your chore when it should have been done.”

He said he was sorry and he wouldn’t do it again, to which I said, “That’s the idea,” and sent him packing to his room. And no, I didn’t go up two hours later and let him off the hook. He served all of his time and went to bed early.

After telling this story - as I often do - to a live audience, I ask for a show of hands from those who think my punishment didn’t fit Eric’s “crime” - that I had been unjust and despotic. About a third of the folks present raise their hands.

I then point out that precisely because I was so “unjust,” I never again had to remind Eric to do a chore. One time was all it took. I then take a poll. “What’s worse?” I ask. “Imposing a supposedly unreasonable punishment one time and one time only, or fighting the same battle day after day after day after day - chastising, yelling, criticizing, complaining, threatening and yelling some more?”

Everyone agrees. The latter is far worse. Over time, the day-after-day stuff takes a huge toll on parent, child, family and marriage.

Why, then, are so many parents so reluctant to nip misbehavior in the bud, as I did with Eric? The answer, of course, is that what I did to Eric smacks of what the parent of the ‘50s might have done. And today’s parents have been told - by the Pied Pipers of Enlightened Parenting - that they must not, under any circumstances, rear their children the way they themselves were reared, lest they do irreparable psychic harm.

And it is precisely because today’s parents allowed themselves to be persuaded of this malarkey that they find themselves chastising, yelling, criticizing, complaining, threatening and yelling some more.
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Note what he says in the third-to-last paragraph. (Granted, I don't think the curfew example is one he should have included - a whole semester is pretty long - but I doubt he would have recommended it himself anyway.)

From 2001:

I've asked several recent audiences, "Raise your hand if you think the punishment - in other words, the consequence a child receives for misbehaving - should fit the crime?" Every time, nearly everyone raises a hand, which goes a long way toward explaining why so many of today's parents complain that the consequences they employ don't seem to work, that no matter what they do, their children just keep right on misbehaving in the same exasperating ways.

The old-fashioned parent was unconcerned with the issue of fairness (used in this case to refer to the perception that there is "equity" between the misbehavior and its consequence) when it came to discipline. Rather, he or she was intent upon "nipping" misbehavior in the proverbial bud, which was generally accomplished through a lowering of the proverbial boom.

The old-fashioned parent realized that the size of a given misbehavior should not dictate the size of the punishment. After all, any misbehavior, no matter how small, can become a major problem if allowed to flourish; ergo, the boom.

Modern parents have been brainwashed into believing that any and all old-fashioned parenting practices should be avoided, as they are supposedly damaging to self-esteem. In a sense, that is correct. But then, most old-fashioned parents wanted to raise humble, modest children. Intuitively, before the term came into popular usage, they realized that children with high self-esteem are likely to be obnoxious little brats; ergo, the boom.

As a child, I was boomed on more than a few occasions. So was every kid in my neighborhood. None of us liked it, of course. But when I talk about such boomings with people my age, we all agree that in retrospect these psychologically incorrect disciplinary events (PSIDEs) eventually proved to be blessings in our lives.

As one fifty-something fellow recently told me, "I'd have probably been in prison before I was 20 if my parents hadn't been willing to cause me extreme discomfort when I misbehaved." And, he added, they never, ever spanked him! He meant psychological discomfort; i.e., they lowered his self-esteem; i.e., when he got "too big for his britches," they cut him down to his proper size.

In fact, I talk to lots of people my age who were never spanked. Instead, the first time they violated curfew, they were grounded for a semester; the first time they talked back to their dads, they were made to chop and carry firewood for an entire weekend; the first time they rode their bikes where they had been told not to, their bikes were taken for a month; the first time they goofed off in class, they were made to write long letters of apology to the teacher and every classmate. And so on. No, spanking was not the secret to the reasonably well-behaved baby boomer. The not-so-secret secret was the boom.

Come to think of it, we post-war kids are not the "boomers." Our parents were.
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(not verbatim) To spank or not to spank is not the question. The question is, does a particular punishment stop the behavior or not?
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In my view, a spanking is a spanking only if the following conditions are adhered to:

-The parent administers it with her or her hand only.
-The parent's hand makes contact with the child's rear end only.
-The hand strikes the rear no more than three times.

Anything else is a beating.
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Children will not change their behavior because someone else gets upset about it. They will change their behavior when their behavior causes them to become upset (because of the punishment that follows the behavior). Now, that's not complicated, is it?

(end of quotations)

I spank my kids, or used to when they were younger.

Only when they did something that would endanger their own safety, or that of their sibling. Case in point: When my daughter was 4 years old, she decided she could beat the van across the street.

Not only did I grab her by her hair and yank her back as hard and fast as I could, (she already had both feet in the street and I was holding her brother's hand as well) I proceeded to pull down her pants on the middle of the sidewalk, and tan her sweet little patootie red.

So yes, I do agree that there are times when force is required with children. Most times tho, I think you can get by with leverage. (Doesn't apply with the under two set, I think a smack on your hand which is lying on top of theirs is really the only way. You can't reason with a two year old.)

I spoil my kids too, with books and play time and trips to the wave pool, museum, driving range, mini-putt, and the like.

Uncompleted homework and chores mean no trips that week. (For my teenage son, no phone, facebook, or TV, DVD or the like.)

General brattiness to siblings warrants no trip to the park that day. (For him, no FB that week. He should know better.)

Serious infractions like hitting, lying, sassing adults, etc etc, are met with a looooooooooooong lecture, (which is punishment in itself) and extra chores for a month. Not dishes either, he cleans the garage, digs out the ditches, mows the lawn, cleans out the dog pens and changes the oil. For her, since she's only eight, dish duty, and an apology letter to both parents in addition to no museum or park trips for two weeks.

Now, most people would say that if I have to do it more than once, as per your comment, that it isn't working.

Think about when you're training a toddler, or even a puppy. Hell, training an adult in the workplace for that matter.

Are you going to get everything right, the first time, every time? And NEVER eff up?

Parenting is a dictatorship, but I like to be reasonable.

Unless of course, they force my hand.