Opinion: ‘I was bullied and Dad who went viral for making his son run in the rain is the real bully’
When I was in elementary school, I wished to God someone would swoop in to stop other kids from punching, and beating me on a regular basis. For no apparent reason at all kids would tease me for being Black, or call me ugly or pull out bald patches in my head. I was at the mercy of mean kids who were able to torment me everyday at school.
I often wondered where were the parents of those bullies and why was this happening? I thought back then that those crazy kids needed a good beat-down to spark change in their behavior.
–White man charged by police for spitting on black child at Hooters–
Now, as a parent to my own five children, I definitely don’t think that way and know that instead of beating, and punishing kids into submission, parents need to infect the minds of their children with compassion and understanding in order help them grow and respect everyone.
A parenting lesson that has gone viral on Facebook made me think about how a dad could have found a better way to get across a deeper message to his own bully kid, other than humiliating him on social media.
Bryan Thornhill, of Roanoke, Virginia, says he thought he needed to come up with a new plan to punish his child for bullying. After being notified that his 10-year-old son had been banned from the school bus for three days due to bullying and picking on other children, Thornhill devised a creative way to teach his son a lesson.
—Oscar voter reveals she didn’t vote for ‘Get Out’ claiming ‘they played the race card’ —
“[H]e was being a little bully, which I do not tolerate, I cannot stand,” Thornhill wrote on Facebook, “and therefore, he has to run to school.”
And that little boy had to run for miles like Forrest!
Listen, I get it. Thornhill was at his wit’s end, tired and needed to do something that would have an impact. Parenting ain’t for punks.
But I think families need to find a different approach that gets to the core of what’s going on inside of a kid that’s exhibiting such negative behavior. No kid grows up with aspirations to become a bully. Becoming a bully is sometimes learned but bullies are also bred and this dad needs to face that fact.
—16,000 sign petition to take back Kobe Bryant’s Academy Award—
This Dad is essentially being a bully too with an extreme parenting method rooted in humiliation.
Many in our community boast about having beat our kids for ages and while most of us claim we’ve come out of it unbruised, that’s no justification for using extreme measures to punish our kids. We are in a position to break that cycle and do better by our kids by helping them unpack the issues that are causing bad behavior
Our kids need healing and to be honest—most of us need it too. When we use extreme measures to punish our kids we are proving that we have lost control and are acting at a point of frustration. I’m sure all Bryan Thornhill probably had in his mental databank was memories of how he was punished when he was a kid. But what might have worked for him and made him a good man, may not work for his son.
—Sweet story behind 92-year-old ‘Black Panther’ actress’ casting will make you happy cry—
When a child acts out, there’s usually something missing inside of them. Sometimes it’s simply love. Think about how many times you were hugged as a kid or how many times someone simply said, ‘I love you and I believe in you or you mean something to me.’
There is a lesson that was missed by this dad. I know he thought he was doing the right thing by making the child run and dad is certainly compassionate toward the kid who was being bullied by his son. But the problem is the kid is just running. Yes his legs will be tired. Yes he’ll be crying. Yes he knows that he did something wrong, but is he getting to the core of what made him hurt someone else? Did dad take the time to unpack the pain the kid is harboring inside?
I would encourage this father to examine that issue.
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