The interesting parenting methods of this English mother are zooming around online at the moment. When this 30-year-old mom found out that her son Jacob was harassing a girl at school, she was extremely shocked and upset. She tagged her son in this Facebook post in order to teach him a lesson - not the most direct means of communication, but to each their own:
"Absolutely disgusted that my 12 year old son saw fit to purposefully tread on a new girls foot at school and twist his foot with such force it broke her brand new shoes (causing the heel) to snap. I’ll tell you something Jacob, if you so much as breath in her or anyone’s direction in a bullying manner I will personally hand you over to their parents for every demeaning chore they see fit for as long as they do… kiss goodbye to your birthday money as you will be buying the girl a new pair of shoes and a bunch of flowers! #iwillnothaveabullyinmyhouse"
More than 55,000 people liked her post. Though, as there often is, there was quite a heated debate happening in the comments section: "Your poor son. This will haunt him forever. A mistake at 12, now online for all to see." and "To out your son like this on Facebook is also a kind of bullying. He probably learned it from you. Too bad you can't realize that." The mom has updated her post in the meantime, removing her son's tag and adding this follow-up statement:
"Update: To answer a few questions. Yes my son can see it, he was tagged in it before it went viral (which I didn't realise was going to happen) so his friends could see that his actions have consequences. He is not big, clever, hard, or funny. He's a 12-year-old boy answerable to his mam. I don't much care who doesn't agree with my parenting style. My son humiliated and embarrassed a girl, regardless of his reasoning (which was he didn’t expect to break the shoe he just thought she may step out of it or stumble) that little girl still cried, for anyone’s knowledge that girl may have left her old school because she was being bullied… then imagine how much worse my son’s ridiculous act would have made her feel. So my so-called embarrassing him online is quite frankly nothing in comparison to the humiliation that little girl had to face walking round with a broken shoe and red eyes from crying when she is new."
She ended her controversial post on a positive note:
"Ps ... of course I sat and spoke to him about his behaviour. I didn't just tag him in a post and he read it! I am wholly confident this was a single occurrence which won’t be repeated."
I don't know what I would do if my mom ever did something like this to me when I was 12!
Everyone's parenting style is different, but some are saying that this mom went too far with the public humiliation of her child.
What do you think? Share your thoughts with family and friends!
