Unorthodox Teen Discipline Prompts Criticism

In a story surprising equally for the unapologetic ingenuity of its protagonist and the gross oversensitivity it uncovers in the general public, ABC reports that one woman has taken her fight against inappropriate social media behavior deep into enemy territory:

At first, it might seem like your typical case of modern parental discipline: A Texas mom has prohibited her 12-year-old daughter from using the photo-sharing site Instagram after she caught the girl posting a photo of herself holding an unopened bottle of vodka with a caption that read “I sure wish I could drink this.”

But it’s what ReShonda Tate Billingsley did next that has people buzzing: Billinglsey, a prominent Houston-area author, had her daughter post a new picture of herself to Instagram earlier this month holding a sign reading, “Since I want to post photos of me holding liquor, I am obviously not ready for social media and will be taking a hiatus until I learn what I should (and) should not post. Bye-bye.”

Billingsley then posted the same photo – in which only the lower half of her daughter’s face was visible – to her own personal Facebook page and it has since gone viral. It has seen 11,000 shares from Facebook alone, not to mention attention from various media outlets.

It was a clever move on the part of Billingsley and effective, apparently so much so that the daughter begged for a spanking as an alternative. What I love about this, particularly when compared to corporal punishment, is there is a logical relationship between the "crime" and the "punishment." Most obviously, if children abuse social media, they should have their access to social media restricted. Moreover, with the theoretically limitless reach of online behavior, the act of forcing her daughter to own up to her mistakes is equally essential. When I committed some indiscretion against someone, some public act of bad behavior, as a child, I was required to apologize to all those who were effected by said behavior. As Instagram was the arena of her malfeasance, then it is appropriate that she should own up to her mistakes through in the same place.

For some reason, however, the "public shaming" has apparently made Billingsley the target of serious criticism. Aside from the presumptuousness of child-rearing professionals and the public at large meddling in other people's parenting in ways they would never permit in their own families, the real problem with this is the labeling of the second picture as the embarrassment rather than the first. It is precisely this misconception that Billingsley's choice of discipline can serve to correct. The shameful act is not and should not be taking public responsibility for one's actions and accepting the consequences of them, as Billingsley made her daughter do. It is the careless and deeply inappropriate act of a twelve year old announcing to the world how much she would love to be able to drink hard liquor. When the child's aberrant behavior ceases to shock and the act of publicly taking responsibility offends, it becomes clear that the world is hopelessly confused about what is truly shameful.

And just so that we can all gain a little perspective, let's all take a look at this mother in Mexico City who also employed an unorthodox punishment:

A mother in Mexico has been arrested on suspicion of gouging out the eyes of her 5-year-old son during a ceremony...The mother is believed to have removed the eyes with her bare hands because the boy refused to close them during the ceremony, police told a news conference.

Is Shame a Cure for Obesity?

Georgia's Strong4Life has been creating controversy recently with a series of pointed ads intended to raise awareness about the childhood obesity epidemic. And there is no doubt; childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions. In the nation as a whole, the Center for Disease Control states that one in five children is obese with nearly that many adolescents obese as well. For children, that number has more than doubled in the last thirty years; for adolescents it has more than tripled. Georgia, and the Deep South as a whole, are at the center of the problem, with the Peach State ranking second in the nation in childhood obesity rates with approximately 37% of children being overweight or obese. This ranks behind only Mississippi with a obesity rate of more than 44%. Given that childhood obesity continues to be on the rise in Georgia (up 5.6% from 2005 to 2007), it is understandable why the people of Georgia would feel the need to take an extreme approach to combating the problem. Here is the course they've chosen.

Shocking, yes. But the people of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta say that shocking is precisely what is needed to jar Georgians out of their torpor and inspire positive action. Unsurprisingly there are countless detractors, including some notable academics. NPR spoke to one such detractor:

According to Rodney Lyn of Georgia State University's Institute of Public Health, "This campaign is more negative than positive."

Based on his research, Lyn says, the ads can hurt the very market they're targeting. "We know that stigmatization leads to lower self-esteem, potential depression. We know that kids will engage in physical activity less because they feel like they're going to be embarrassed. So there are all these other negative effects," he says.

ABC spoke to another:

"Blaming the victim rarely helps," said Dr. Miriam Labbok, director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "These children know they are fat and that they are ostracized already."

There are countless others, but I think the outrage is largely inappropriate. Labbok, for example, claims that the ads are blaming the victims. Hardly. The ads are blaming the perpetrators, and quit powerfully at that. In one of the video spots (embedded below), an overweight boy and his overweight mother are placed opposite one another. The boy, clearly overwrought, asks his mother, "Why am I fat?" The mother has no answer. It is obvious who the victim is here and who is the "criminal." The ads--all of the ads--are targeted at the parents who, through various forms of negligence and ignorance, are responsible for their children's poor health. Some of the ads are followed by a startling statistics: 75% of parents with overweight children were unaware there was a problem. That sort of willful blindness borders on unconscionable. It takes the faces and voices of overweight children confessing to their parents and to their communities "It's hard to be a little girl when you're not" and "Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid" and "I don't like going to school, cause all the other kids pick on me." It should hurt to watch that. It should eat us up inside because, overwhelmingly, it is within the power of parents and teachers and community leaders to improve if not solve the obesity crisis among children.

The campaign doesn't shame the victims. It shames parents, and they should be ashamed. It is shameful that children are plied constantly with junk food simply because their parents are unwilling to fight the domestic battles necessary to make them eat their vegetables. It is shameful that children's desires for fast food are regularly gratified as we continue to bow to the altar of convenience. It is shameful that we are too lazy to hide the PlayStation or computer power cord and force our children (or ourselves) outdoors for exercise. It is shameful that, as in the case in Georgia, community priorities are so skewed that cutbacks in education target areas like school nutrition, physical education, and recess. There are other culprits. Advertising groups that market unhealthy, inexpensive foods to children stand out. The problem begins and ends at home and in the schools. It is a problem of our making and one of which we ought to be greatly ashamed.

So if you're going to be outraged, why not be outraged that it has come to this? We are at a point as a culture where this kind of melodramatic public spectacle is necessary to shock parents and communities out of ignorance and apathy. If it works and Georgians begin to take control of the obesity epidemic in their state, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is to be congratulated. If it doesn't, well that is just one more thing of which we should all collectively be ashamed.