Impact of Public Shaming on Children

Mom and Dad: Shame on You

Imagine being isolated from your school community, stared at on the playground, or laughed at in front of your entire grade. Yes, even children are publicly shamed, and by their own parents, and it has been a form of punishment for quite a while now. Any parent can post a picture on any sort of social media, of their child and what they have done. Or any parent can have their child walk through the streets with a sign explaining what they have done. They can do this because you can’t send your kid to jail for getting bad grades, so parents turn to the alternative form of punishment, publically shaming them. The idea of public shaming, is that the criminal who is found guilty of a crime will then be so humiliated while surrounded by their peers that they will never commit a crime again. Well, that isn’t always the case. Public shaming puts a label on the adolescent for the rest of their life, it takes away any trust your child has for you away, and it ruins the kid’s emotional well-being. Now these are only some of the many lasting effects that public shaming has on a child. Adults are being shamed, children are being shamed, and even animals. Public shaming is one of the most ineffective forms of punishment, and if someone’s plan is to humiliate the human being, then public shaming is the way to go (Harris). Though, not the correct way to go.

Once things are on the internet or shared in public, they stay there forever and there is no way of removing it. Your child will always be known as the kid who had to run around town with a sign that says “I took five dollars from my mom’s purse”. For example, imagine applying for a job right out of college, and a potential employer evaluating you based your personality on a mistake you made as a teenager. Possible employers, or colleges who are considering you can see these posts or hear the gossip, and base their image of you off of that one mistake. Also, their peers can make up nicknames, and will bully a child until they just can’t take it anymore. Some people may disagree with this idea, and think that these things that people see will soon be forgotten and disappear. But these people just don’t understand the complexity of the internet, and how their Instagram pictures, or tweets will always be available to the public eye. They don’t understand how people will still call you your elementary school nickname in high school. Public shaming is extremely useless, and there are so many ways to prove that hypothesis.

Parents work to gain the trust of their child starting the day that the child is born, and all it takes is one mistake to ruin it. For example, “If you start humiliating the child, you hurt the relationship with them. Now they’re angry and distrustful of you because you put them out there like that, and you’ve possibly done something immature trying to teach them a lesson about how to be mature”. You are supposed to support your child in everything that they do, not put them down. You can’t support them one day, and humiliate them another, you will confuse them. Though many people assume that public shaming is a better way to punish a kid then spanking them. In many cases, “Public shame is deployed as an alternative to spanking, which carries with it potential repercussions from local child-protective agencies and doesn’t have the far-reaching reverberations that a shared photo of a kid behaving badly could and often does”. This is not saying that abuse is okay, because physical abuse can damage a kid drastically, but it is saying that neither are okay. Even though spanking is another terrible way to punish a child, there is still one more way to teach a kid a lesson, which is talk through the problem with your child. Tell them what they did wrong, and how they can fix it. For example, “Discipline is supposed to correct behavior and set boundaries so that the children can then learn how to regulate themselves and make good decisions when their parents aren’t around. You teach them what they’re supposed to do so they can make the right decisions on their own”. This builds a trusting relationship between the child and parent, and doesn’t humiliate them in front of their peers. If your kid vandalizes someone else’s property, make them clean it up. Now they know that they shouldn’t have made that mistake. Talking is the only solution, communication is key. The only way people can learn from their mistakes, is if they are told how to do so.

You can mentally abuse a child through public shaming. They will remember the humiliation for the rest of their lives. Public shaming might be one of the most embarrassing things that could ever happen to a child, or teenager. A good example of the damage that this puts on a child is like when a teenager in Tacoma, Washington was publically shamed by her father, and jumped to her death from a bridge in town (Peacock). Most parents could not handle the guilt of killing their own child, it would ruin them. But, they will always have to live with the fact that they are the ones who led them to their decision. Some people may disagree with this idea, and they believe that they deserve to be punished, and that the crime they committed was so bad that they should be exposed. Common sense seems to dictate that this works, and sadly, some parents are willing to expose their child thorough horrid ways to prove this. However, they are still human, and have time to make up for their mistakes. Kids do what they see their peers do, hence the saying monkey see monkey do. In addition, there is now substantial psychological evidence that shaming a person publically can affect us both physically and mentally. It can lead to complications with our immune system, and our goal-directed behavior and survival (Woodyatt). There is no way to stay mentally sane while being publically shamed.

It’s hard to really imagine something happening to you, because it has a bigger impact if you actually experience it, walk in the shoes of another person. Overall, everyone has their own opinion on how they should discipline their children. This is why there is such controversy on the topic of public shaming. Some people believe that it can put labels on someone, or ruin trust, or even emotionally destroy someone, and others think the opposite. But publically shaming your own children is completely coldhearted and immoral. You are supposed to protect your children from harm, and help them get through the rough patches in life, not humiliate them. It is not okay no matter the age group, and hopefully one day that will be proven.