Would you consider it a “punishment” if your parents uploaded goofy, embarrassing pictures of themselves to your Facebook page? One La Crosse couple seems to think that that, along with taking away her cell phone, is an appropriate punishment for their daughter’s backtalk. The girl’s brother posted the photos to Reddit with the story behind it, claiming that it’s more entertaining than emotionally damaging. The article doesn’t give the daughter’s feelings about it, though. While the parents seem to be doing it in good humor (and the pictures are apparently getting a lot of “Likes” from the girl’s friends), is this a form of cyberbullying?
Her parents obviously posted these pictures onto her account without her permission. Do their rights as parents outweigh her rights to the privacy of her Facebook account? This punishment was apparently due to her mouthing off to her parents in person, not online. While the cell phone move seems like the obvious one (I’ve been a victim of that one a few times), why did her parents feel like they needed to take the extra step of embarrassing her online, “in front of” her friends? Is this going to become the new “public spanking”? Posting embarrassing things about your kids on the Internet? When (if at all) is it appropriate for a parent to go onto their child’s Facebook account and post things on their own accord?
While I think this punishment is all in good humor, I’m not sure if it’s entirely appropriate. While it is funny, I could see some people taking the side that this is a form of cyberbullying. And by definition, it could be: these pictures are potential fuel for other kids in the girl’s age group to insult her, make fun of her, etc. I think it depends on the daughter’s age, which isn’t given. If she’s a younger teen and still in the phase of always being embarrassed by her parents, this could be more emotionally damaging than her parents intended. Even if her peers don’t make fun of her, just the fact that the pictures are up and available to see could be embarrassment enough for her to really feel bad, and even angry. On the other hand, if she’s a bit older and has a good relationship with her ‘rents, it could kind of be like an “awww, come onnnn!”, laugh-it-off, remember-that-one-time situation.
Personally, if my parents did this to me now, I’d take it in good humor. Yes, it’s a bit embarrassing, but for me it’d be much more hilarious than anything. But that’s my personality, and my age. I’m not embarrassed by my parents anymore, even if they do ridiculous things. However, I’m not sure how I’d feel about them hacking into my Facebook. While they are my parents, it’s my account. I could justify this if, say, I had posted something disrespectful about them online. But this girl didn’t post anything about her parents online, so I’m not sure if this makes sense.
I guess there’s several issues at hand here: do you guys think it was an extreme invasion of the girl’s privacy for her parents to post these pictures, or do you think it’s not a big deal? Is this a form of parental cyberbullying, or just a harmless joke?
I think this is a very interesting topic to look at. First off, I could never see my parents doing that to me. They would not punish me unless the punishment worked towards correcting the behavior that brought about the punishment. I don’t see how posting embarrassing pictures of yourself on your child’s Facebook profile is going to keep them from talking back to you. If anything, I would think that parents would post embarrassing photos of their child on their child’s Facebook profile, not of themselves. That honestly seems like more of a punishment to me than what these LaCrosse parents did. If my parents were to post embarrassing photos of themselves on my Facebook page, I would react the same way as you said you would, and I would laugh at them. I think most children are already embarrassed by their parents, especially in public, and that the action of posting embarrassing photos on their child’s page wouldn’t exceed any embarrassment that they’ve had in past experiences. I may be wrong, but that’s how I view this “punishment”.
I agree with Patrick, this is a strange “punishment” as it has nothing to do with the daughter’s “crime”. Like you Lauren, I also would find this funny. I don’t think this is a form of cyber-bullying at all, especially because it is her parents. The only alarming thing in this story is the fact that her parents used her facebook account, but honestly, that doesn’t even seem like too big of a deal. Yes, it’s an invasion of privacy, but when you’re a minor, I believe your parents do have the right (to a point) to check up on you in ways like this. Especially with privacy issues online, parents want to be sure their kids are being smart and safe online. Many parents will only allow their children to have profiles on websites like Facebook if they allow access whether they are “friends” online, give their parents their password, etc.
Regardless of the privacy issue presented, I feel that this was a harmless joke and I honestly don’t understand how it made the news. Personally, I would laugh it off if this were to ever happen to me, which doesn’t seem likely considering the fact that my parents are not very tech-saavy. I guess this event just goes to show that technology is changing our lives more and more each day.
This is a very thought provoking discussion. I think that given the circumstances this was a poor choice of punishment for the teen. The initial offense was talking back to her parents. This seems to suggest that there is a lack of respect on the part of the teen. However, the parents aren’t really earning any respect by posting stupid pictures of themselves on the internet. As a result of this potentially embarrassing punishment, the teen may attempt to distance herself from her parents. In the long run this will only create more hostility between the parents and child. However in the end I think this comes down to intent and perception. Did the parents really intend this to be a serious punishment or was this more of a joke? More importantly how did the child perceive it? Was it viewed as an embarrassing punishment, or a humorous, and harmless statement by her parents? The answer to these questions will ultimately determine whether or not this punishment/joke was harmless, or if it crossed the line.
I, too, found this rather humorous. Can’t all of us recall instances when either our parents or our friends’ parents assigned unusual punishments? Ones that we will never forget? I remember in elementary school, when I would talk back to my parents, my mom would punish me by picking out my outfit for school the next day (of course she would pick out the ugliest sweaters, or things that would SCREAM Mama’s Boy), and I remember my best friend was forced to ride his sister’s pink bicycle to school for 2 weeks in elementary school (that was the age when boys could not be seen with anything girly). Recalling all of these embarrassing punishments clearly illustrates that parents like to give punishments that the kids will remember. Getting grounded for a weekend used to be a bad thing, until I found out I could beat an entire video game in that time, or once I matured, could finish an entire paper. Taking away my cell phone for x amount of days used to suck, until I realized you can pointlessly communicate with people using Facebook. Switching up the punishments probably influences children’s actions, since they are unaware of what their potential punishment may be.
Since this girl was a minor, her parents had every right to do what they did. Whether or not the punishment was effective is another story, but we as children need to remember that our parents are learning things just as we learn things. There is no magic switch that transforms adults into good parents; because children grow and develop every day, there is always something new for parents to learn. It took me a long time to realize this, and I look back on it and feel bad for all the crap I gave to my parents. They’re only human! Maybe the parents in this article realize that their daughter laughed this off. Maybe they learned they’ll have to try a new punishment next time. All I know is that if my parents would’ve done this instead of making me wear turtlenecks with pictures of Mickey Mouse on it, I would have been a happy camper.
Lauren,
My initial reaction to this post was, “these people post embarrassing pictures to their daughter’s Facebook as a form of punishment for disrespect? Wow, great parenting.” However, I suppose I don’t know their whole story, and the whole thing could have been a big joke on everyone’s part. Perhaps the daughter was being playfully sassy or something. If her parents did post on her Facebook as an actual form of punishment, then I find this atrocious. It does not seem like effective parenting (to me anyway) to punish your child for something that can be a serious issue (like backtalk and disrespect) by intentionally embarrassing them, as opposed to the seemingly more appropriate method of talking to them and teaching them good listening and problem-sloving skills. Children learn how to handle problems from their parents, and if their parent’s teach them that reacting to conflict with aggression and underhandedness is appropriate then there could be a very negative impact on that person’s future relationships and quality of life. Again, if this is a serious conflict between them, then I think it is an absolute invasion of privacy that they got onto her account without her permission. There were many ways to handle that situation and I don’t believe that invading a person’s privacy was the way to do it. Hopefully they were all just playing around and there were no hard feelings!
Lauren,
I had never thought of this before as a punishment or even a “joking” thing to do. I think that this would constitute “parental cyberbullying” as it promotes embarrasment and is not used in good humour. I agree with Paris that this is a terrible form of parenting as it is in invasion of privacy although I also believe that this is a horribly immature move on the parts of the parents who posted this. Especially as she is a minor, this constitutes child abuse as if used as a punishment, was posted in order to embarass and cause damage to her social life. Because Facebook images are so important in today’s world, it is very likely that these images will lead to more harrassement both in public and in the private realm of of this girls life. I do not think that this effectively works as a punishment because it does not teach problem solving skills but rather teaches that humiliation is a better way to respond to such issues. I hope that the daughter in this situation takes these posts in good humour and that this does not become a more common form of punishment. Yikes!
I found an interesting article here: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/25/hame-punishments-like-ponytail-cutting-increase/
What I found that parallels the blog topic is the questions of what message we are sending the child when we use this form of punishment and does the punishment fit the crime.
When a 13 year-old girl is convicted in court for maliciously cutting off the hair of another child, the judge offers to be “lenient” and reduce her community service hours if her mother would chop off her hair in court.
After the fact, the mother of the child makes a statement that I found particularly compelling: “I fail to see how the court reducing itself to the level of a 13-year-old teaches a moral let alone legal lesson,the court was doing precisely what the 13-year-old did to a child.” Essentially, the court system brought itself down to the level of a 13 year old child to get the instant gratification of seeing the punishment fit the crime.
What does this show the child? The message I see is that the more powerful person(Parent or Court) can shame the weaker one as long as no stronger authority steps in. This, to me, is bullying. As far as the parents considering it a joke and all in good spirit has no bearing on what I see. There are many things that can be considered amusing to an adult that would be devastating to an adolescent.
This is an interesting perspective. I agree. And again, the devestation the girl is facing likely depends on her age and relationship with her parents, however, if their goal was to punish her for talking back to them (which means they want her to obey them and submit to their authority) I could actually see this punishment backfiring: the daughter decides to respect her parents less because they’re doing this immature/dumb/silly sort of punishment.Even if it was just a joke, I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t really think it’s good parenting either. I wish the article offered more specifics about the situation because I’m actually really interested in more details about the situation now!
I found Brad’s comment very interesting…wasn’t there a rule, “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” in ancient days that allowed people to do precisely that? Respond with an equal crime in order to punish? It’s interesting how we find this malicious now…I know I certainly do. Just because someone knocked out my eye wouldn’t mean I would want them to suffer as much as I did. That’s just a tangent though.
When I read articles like this, I can’t help but note that they are generally situational. I believe that it is fitting for a parent to respond to their child with a punishment that is related and appropriate to what the child is doing in order link the two….cause and effect. It shouldn’t always be, I talk back, I get my car taken away. I get bad grades, I get my car taken away. I get caught in a lie, I get my car taken away. Perhaps what seems random and childish of these parents was merely their attempt at making their “punishment” seem more relevant to their child. For an hypothetical example, when a child is caught stealing a sibling’s candy, [for lack of a better situation…it’s Halloween. Hang in there with me.] a parent may decide that their child’s punishment could be that he/she must share half of his/her desserts with the sibling for two weeks. What I’m saying is, because we don’t know exactly what this girl did, we can’t assume that the response of her parents was really all that random. Maybe she was mouthing off about how old and humorless her parents were…who knows.
And that, my friends, is speculation at it’s best.
I do not fully know the context, but I feel like these parents would be doing this as a joke more than a punishment. I especially think this because the brother said it was more entertaining than embarrassing. If this was solely done as a punishment I feel like the brother would fear this happening to him and not find it so entertaining. Embarrassing pictures of his parents on Facebook would effect him too. The girl might be embarrassed for a bit but she can always delete the pictures, and even if kids at school are giving her a hard time there will soon be another hot topic and everyone will forget about it. While I would not be to happy with my parents if they did this to me, I would also find it funny. I would love to see how she reacted to this.