When clever discipline becomes child abuse
Remember the story a few months ago about the 15-year old girl who was forced to get up in front of the whole school and announce that she was pregnant? Or the 14-year old boy whose parents forced him to stand on the street with a sign declaring that he’d receive Fs on his report card? New research is just now confirming what most sane parents already knew: humiliating punishments actually do more harm than good. And that’s certainly the case with the newest entries into the “it-seemed-like-a-clever-idea-at-the-time” category of parental stupidity. A teacher in Florida made students who arrived late to school wear a wide dog collar that she called the “cone of shame.” And we certainly don’t want to overlook the Minnesota parents who, upset about their 12-year old daughter’s school performance shaved her head and made her run around outside wearing a diaper. The mother and her boyfriend