An Utah girl was forced to wear a thrift store dress by her father's fiancee as punishment for bullying a classmate for her fashion sense.
On Wednesday, 41-year-old Ally Olsen got an email from the school authorities complaining about 10-year-old Kaylee bullying her classmate for three weeks because of her dressing style. This forced the victim not come to the school.
"When I received the email, I was confused because just a few weeks ago, Kaylee had received an award from her principal for stopping a bullying incident at school," Olsen told Yahoo! Shine. "I confronted Kaylee who explained that she had called another girl 'sleazy' for wearing Daisy Duke shorts and a tank top. We've taught Kaylee to dress conservatively but never expected her to be judgmental."
Olsen said Kaylee was not apologetic about her behavior. She then decided to teach Kaylee a lesson not to hurt anybody's feelings. Olsen took her 10-year-old daughter to-be for shopping to a thrift store and made her pick up the dresses she found most offensive and bought them for her. She ordered Kaylee to wear those clothes, which she wouldn't wear normally for two days in a row.
"I thought this is a perfect moment for us to really teach her, this is right, this is wrong, which path you are going to take," Olsen told KSTU. She said her daughter needs to know that such behavior can have a huge impact on someone else's life.
The punishment did work on Kaylee. After having being mocked at by her friends, the fourth-grader said that she had now learnt her lesson. She agreed that bullying others is mean and it hurts them.
"I think now that she knows what it feels like, and she doesn't want to be that person anymore because she knows how hurtful it is," Olsen told KSTU.
However, there have been many instances in the past where parents punishing their children for being a bully, have gone wrong. Some parents posted their children's photo on Facebook humiliating them. Such punishments can also have an adverse effect. "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. But, she said, shaming can damage the relationship between parent and child. "Children need to feel safe and secure to be able to trust their parents."
According to Dr Doug Goldsmith of The Children's Center, such parenting techniques do not work most of the times. "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," he told KSTU. He said the more advisable way to teach children empathy is by having them volunteer at a place where there are poor people.
