Tasha Henderson got tired of her 14-year-old daughter's poor grades, her chronic lateness to class and her talking back to her teachers, so she decided to teach the girl a lesson.
She made Coretha stand at a busy Oklahoma City intersection Nov. 4 with a cardboard sign that read: "I don't do my homework and I act up in school, so my parents are preparing me for my future. Will work for food."
"This may not work. I'm not a professional," said Henderson, a 34-year-old mother of three. "But I felt I owed it to my child to at least try."
[...]
Tasha Henderson said her daughter's attendance has been perfect and her behavior has been better since the incident.
Making a 14-year-old stand on a streetcorner seems a little over the top, but I can sympathize with having to go a step farther than a recalcitrant offspring. I remember telling my oldest daughter when she was four, "I've got more spankings than you have disobeyings!" Sometimes it was even true, but just as often I had to let up because she was perfectly willing to outstubborn me into abusiveness, and I had to let her win or risk doing her harm. I have no use for smarmy parents of easygoing kids who can't understand that there are children for whom the kinder-and-gentler child-rearing theories simply don't work. (See post below for an up-and-coming example.)
Overall, I have to approve tentatively. I hope Coretha really has learned her lesson, and I'll bet she goes on to love her kids enough to raise them the best way she knows how, instead of burying her head in the sand and letting them screw up their futures.
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