Whenever news of any teen’s suicide flashes our television screens, it sends a chill down our spines. Most often these suicides are result of bullying that the victim had to endure at the hands of peers. Be it cyber or physical bullying, the victims are completely isolated and made vulnerable to the point where they have no other choice but to commit suicide as a means to escape ruthless bullying. This is surely a matter of concern for the parents of bullies who equally bear the brunt of their teens’ actions. Parents have been pondering over how bullying can be stopped. They have adopted different approaches to parent their bully kids and the most recent one has been public shaming children.

Punish children by humiliating them in public?

Bullying has become such a huge issue that parents have resorted to extreme measures like humiliating their bully kids in public to discipline them. Although this rash approach is not a new one, but this time a trail of supportive comments from other parents, hints that this approach is gaining popularity.

Desperate measures, no results

In a chain of events last year, parents have punished their bully kids by making them hold a shaming sign in a public place. In Miami, Tarvon Young, a fifth grade student stood outside his school for one and half hours every day holding a placard that read, "I was sent to school to get an education. Not to be a bully... I was not raised this way!"

One of the parents commenting on this news published in Miami News Times said that, "Humiliation works wonders, and can be a better form of discipline than beating your son up and leaving him a bloodied mess." Another parent commented, "Extreme parenting? Yes. A long-lasting and effective lesson? Also, yes."

However, those who favor discipline and motivation as key to perfect parenting have different opinion. They believe public shaming of a person of any age is a nasty and disrespectful way of treating them. Alfie Kohn, author of Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason, said that humiliation, like other forms of punishment, is counterproductive. Kohn said shaming strategies can never achieve any result beyond temporary compliance, which comes at a disturbing cost.

Even the lessons learnt are not going to be the ones that parents intended. Kohn warns that a harshly treated kid absorbs the humiliation met out to him/her in a negative way and this is what they learn:

• I cannot trust my parents because they are not an ally but enforcers of habits through any measure.
• I can use power to make the other person do what I want to – indirectly enforcing bullying.
• The reason I shouldn’t lie or steal or bully is because of the consequences and not because this hurts someone.