Dad Makes 16-Year-Old Daughter Shave Her Head After She Bullies A Girl With Cancer
Seems extreme...
Kopytin Georgy / Shutterstock Everybody makes mistakes. Sometimes mistakes lead to consequences. Are those consequences always fair?
One father caused an absolute uproar on Reddit after explaining the rationale behind forcing his daughter to go bald as a form of punishment.
The dad made his daughter shave her head after she bullied a girl with cancer.
In the since-deleted Reddit post, the man claimed that he has a 16-year-old daughter who was in trouble “for making fun of a student that lost her hair from cancer treatment,” which the father explained included “pulling off her wig.”
The two girls had "some pre-existing bad blood" between the two of them and, according to the father, "were having an argument in class about stupid teenage gossip regarding my daughter's boyfriend."
Still, the father felt that his daughter's behavior was unacceptable.
“She showed no remorse,” the father wrote. “She tried to excuse her behavior by saying the girl in question deserved it.”
Photo: Reddit
The father gave his daughter a choice as to what her punishment would be. The first option for punishment was that the daughter would have all of her electronics thrown away — not taken away — but thrown away. Another condition of this punishment is that he would never buy her another electronic again.
“This was just to coerce her into choosing option 2,” he wrote, which required the daughter to “go to the hairdresser and get a cue ball haircut,” meaning, “as bald as the hairdresser can do.”
His daughter agreed to shave her head and the dad forbid her from wearing wigs.
“As you can imagine, everyone thinks I went way overboard,” the father wrote. “Her mother went ballistic at me,” he said, stating that his wife was worried their daughter would become the target of bullying. “Kind of the point,” he said, justifying his actions, “Teach her some compassion.”
Many people agreed with the girl's mom that the punishment was too harsh.
"Your daughter is a bully because you are a bully,” someone commented on the father’s post, adding that the punishment was akin to abuse. "I seriously doubt this is the first time you used abuse and humiliation to 'teach her a lesson.'"
Parents should aim to discipline children, not punish them.
Clinical child psychologist Ross Greene, PhD, explained to VeryWell Family that effective discipline includes collaboration between parent and child to come up with proactive solutions, which "addresses the concerns of both parties, rather than the adult just imposing their will."
While the father was on the right track by giving his daughter two options for consequences, neither was quite fair.
According to author and parent advocate Amanda Morin, one of the biggest mistakes parents make when disciplining their children is punishing them instead of disciplining them. In an article for YourTango, Morin explained that "punishment focuses only on what's wrong and forces parents to come up with ways to penalize the behavior instead of modifying it."
Licensed psychologist Jaclyn Halpern, PsyD., director of the SOAR program at Washington Behavioral Medicine Associates, told VeryWell Family that punishment can very easily become abuse if parents aren't careful. Instead, parents should focus on making the moment a teaching opportunity using logical consequences that fit the behavior. For example, in this case, the father could've had the daughter volunteer with cancer patients.
Izzy Casey is a writer who covers pop culture, news, and entertainment for YourTango.