There’s one thing I’m thankful for now that I’m an adult. I’m thankful that social media and cellphone cameras did not exist when I was a preteen, because I’m quite sure my mother would have been the type to publicly embarrass me by posting her versions of discipline on the Internet. Not that I was into anything bad, but I had a quick lip, as she would say. Talking back was my forte, but nowadays, preteens and teenagers are on a whole different level.
At 12 years old, I couldn’t even imagine wanting to smoke anything—whether a cigarette or weed. But this is a new day and time. One woman found out her stepson was smoking weed, and needless to say, he’s not going to forget what happened afterward.
In a video uploaded to YouTube, the unnamed woman is in a bathroom about to give her 12-year-old stepson, Terrence, a “George Jefferson” haircut after finding out he was smoking weed.
“Tell the camera what you were doing today,” the woman states.
“Smoking,” Terrence says in a whisper.
“You was what?” she asks again, making sure people hear him.
The stepmother lets viewers know that on top of getting a fresh haircut earlier that day, he had had the audacity to come home high. She then explains that her stepson not only smokes weed but is also a straight-F student. After a few minutes of back and forth with her stepson, she pulls out the clippers.
“Terrence will not have a hairline. Terrence will not have any hair,” she states. “What we don’t do is get high at 12. What else we don’t do is come into my house high. What else we don’t do is get all F’s.”
The stepmother also said that Terrence would be getting his ass whooped before and after school.
“This coming in here high. Lying. Bad grades. That’s not what we’re going to do no more,” she states.
Terrence then turns to the camera and states that he’s not going to get high and will stop posing on Facebook like he’s balling by posting images of money that doesn’t belong to him.
So in the world of social media and viral-ness, parents are resorting to publicly disciplining and embarrassing their children. As a mother of a 16-year-old, I can’t say that it’s something I would do, especially since my son is probably the only teenager who hates social media. But who am I to judge how someone else chooses to discipline his or her child? Is embarrassing a child an effective form of discipline? Or will that child end up resenting the parent and having more problems when it comes to being ridiculed by his or her peers?
Question of the day: What do you think about parents using social media as a form of discipline?