A mother has attracted both praise and criticism for a Facebook post slamming her 12-year-old son for “bullying” a new girl at his school.
Terri Day Evans, believed to live in Wales, has gone viral with a Facebook post in which she said she was “absolutely digusted” with her son’s behaviour.
The post has since been deleted, but of course, nothing on the internet ever really dies, and the text has been preserved around the web for eternity.
“Absolutely disgusted that my 12 year old son saw fit to purposely 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,” she posted.
“Ill 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”
The post attracted tens of thousands of likes, shares and comments before it was deleted, with many commenters supporting her efforts to publicly discipline her son. Other commenters, however, accused her of hypocrisy for “bullying” her son online.
“I understand that you wanted to embarrass your son a little for his actions,” said one, “but… outing him on FB is a bully move. He clearly got his behaviour from you. Shame that you aren’t realising that.”
Another said: “Why extend the humiliation? Your poor son. This will haunt him forever. A mistake at 12, online now for all to see.”
Terri soon responded to the negative comments, updating the original post with a shout-out to her haters.
“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 man,” she wrote.
“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 a to be 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.
“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.”
What do you think? Was Terri right to shame her son for his behaviour on Facebook, or did she go too far? Have your say in the comments below!
Good on her. She did the right thing.
I completely disagree with the haters that she’s being a hypocrite. Sometimes we all need a taste of our own medicine and to be humiliated to learn from our mistakes. Respect has gone right out the door these days, parents not teaching kids how to respect one another. Back in the days it was normal for a parent to humiliate their child to show how it feels to be on the receiving end. We would learn our lesson and learn to respect people because we were aware of the consequences. So to all those haters, shut up and learn something from this. your kind of attitude is the reason why so many kids today have no respect for anyone.
Good on her! It’s a pity more parents didn’t adopt this attitude toward unacceptable behaviour from their children. The parents who adopt “Let’s sit down and talk about it” approaches are often seen by their kids as soft touches.
These parents are often the ones who complain because their children receive detention or some other form of punishment at school because of unacceptable behaviour.
We all know or read about teachers who have been verbally and physically abused by parents, often mothers, defending their child’s bullying or antisocial behaviour instead of supporting the teachers.
Maybe this mother’s approach will have an impact on her sons future and he will realise that actions create reactions, some of which backfire, so think before acting.
Cliff.
Obviously if the school had any control over kids in this day and age he would have been disciplined at school with a fitting punishment and that would have been the end of it. Was he disciplined by the head master? I bet not! The problem these days is kids get away with murder and there is no repercussions for their actions whatsoever and you guessed it if they get away with it at school they’ll continue to push the boundaries in adult life too hence is it any wonder why there is no respect for their elders, no patience, no consideration, no politeness, shall I go on?
I was punished for playing up in school and at home and I thank my past school principal and parents for a swift kick in the ar$e when it was called for its why I am the polite and considerate person that I am today I pity teachers with no control over their students. I highly praise this lady for pubically shaming her son because you know why? I’d bet he’ll learn from it to become a nicer person and respect women for the future so well done Mum he’ll thank you for it one day as I thank mine for the person she raised me to be today.
Thank you Cliff and David… My point exactly!!
I too thank my parents for raising me the way they did because they taught me to have a lot of respect for everyone. The same goes with my siblings and cousins that were all raised the same way. We all turned out ok, none of us were ‘traumatised’ – their actions didn’t haunt us for the rest of our lives as some haters were accusing this mother of doing. I’m only 34 years of age and although I’m not a mum (and some people may criticise my comments) I know if I had children I would raise them the same way my parents did, no doubt about it because I believe it’s the right way.
This whole ‘let’s sit down and talk about it ‘ approach is a load of rubbish. This is the kind of rubbish that has come from psychologists and counsellors that have nothing better else to do but to tell parents how to raise their kids. They need to butt out and stop filling everyone’s head with all these ‘new way’s’ of parenting because it just doesn’t work.