Dad punishes son for being rude to his mom by wearing 'pretty black dress' to bus stop
Parenting is a funny thing. You can read a hundreds of books and articles about how to discipline, or not discipline, your misbehaving kids. Despite all that advice and time dedicated to bettering yourself as a parent, a lot of what you end up doing is whatever comes to mind in the heat of the moment. Texas dad Joseph Blakeney’s technique of discipline certainly didn’t come from a book.
“When you want to treat your mom bad in the morning you get walked to the bus stop by dad in a pretty black dress,” Blakeney wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. According to Houston affiliate ABC 13, the father decided to embarrass his 11-year-old son by putting on the dress and walking to the end of his driveway as the boy walked to the bus stop down the street. Blakeney made sure everyone could see him in the sleeveless, knee-length number.
“This dad ain’t scared of s***,” he wrote. “Lmfao he thought I wouldn’t do it. Bet he will act better now!!!”
Would psychologists approve of this method? In response to instances of extreme parenting (of which this isn’t necessarily an example), psychologist Barbara Greenberg has told Yahoo Lifestyle that shame isn’t an effective form of discipline. A more appropriate way to get kids to behave, she says, is to make them do what she calls “repair work” geared toward their specific transgression.
“You teach your children nothing by shaming them,” Greenberg said. “In fact, what you do is you make them sad, and you make them more prone to engage in other kinds of problematic behavior.”
In an era when society is finally becoming much more accepting, is a dad wearing a dress really an act of “shaming”? Maybe the importance of Blakeney’s action is that he’s showing his son he’ll follow through on his threats. And he says he’ll do it again if necessary.
“Tell him next time you will walk him into school like that,” a person wrote in the comments. To which Blakeney responded, “I did.”
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