I am among those who believe spankings should be given out sparingly, if at all, and as a last resort for serious or dangerous infractions.
The value of spanking is debatable.
The value of posting spanking online as part of the punishment is not.
A growing number of people are using the Internet to teach kids a "lesson."
Generally, lesson videos can be funny-ish.
I am thinking of the dad who smashed his daughter's laptop in 2012 after his daughter put a disrespectful post on Facebook or all the toddlers who argue their way out of spankings.
Those are on one level. Videos posted showing kids being physically disciplined or verbally terrified by their parents is another.
More than a few of these videos have popped up in my Facebook News Feed as of late.
Most of the time the child has done something very bad or disrespected themselves or their parents in a pretty dramatic way.
In one of the most viewed of many shows a mother from Trinidad and Tobago hit her 12-year-old daughter with a belt after learning the girl posted pictures of herself in her underwear on Facebook and exchanged sexy text with a boy.
Helen Bartlett had a right to be angry — the girl sexualized herself and put herself in danger. Maybe the girl should have gotten a spanking, but she definitely did not deserve such a public shaming.
The incident happened in April, but the six-minute video Bartlett had another daughter post to Facebook continues to circulate the Internet and likely will for years.
A personal family issue went viral as these things tend to do. In interviews, Barlett labels the 12-year-old her “problem child.”
And many, many people have expressed their opinions about it and what they would have done in the situation.
The whole thing took me back to sixth grade and what happened when my cousin and I became overcome with recess.
We were playing so hard and caught up in whatever it was we were doing that we did not realize that recess period ended.
Our class has left the playground and the kids around us had changed.
Our teacher didn’t believe our explanation and called our mothers who were ticked.
My aunt spanked my cousin until she sobbed in front of our whole class. She then spanked her down the hallway and out of the school’s front door.
Luckily for me, my mother’s reaction was more measured. My mother and I talked about it and she believed me because I was actually telling the truth.
Luckily for my cousin, we were raised before social media. Surely one of those 12-year-olds would have had a smartphone.
My aunt thought she was teaching my cousin a valuable lesson by spanking her in front of the class of about 30 preteens, but that was not my takeaway.
I was mortified for my cousin.
My sorrow is even deeper for the children disciplined in these videos.
Their parents (or the person who posts the video) are the ones that should be spanked.
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