Daughter Wears Sign as Punishment

Nice to see a parent witha brain and using it.


Updated: 08:50 PM EST
Daughter Wears Sign as Punishment
By SEAN MURPHY, AP


EDMOND, Okla. (Nov. 16) - 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."

In fact, Henderson has seen a turnaround in her daughter's behavior in
the past week and a half. But the punishment prompted letters and
calls to talk radio from people either praising the woman or blasting
her for publicly humiliating her daughter.

Marvin Lyle, 52, said in an interview: "I don't see anything wrong
with it. I see the other extreme where parents don't care what the
kids do, and at least she wants to help her kid."

Others disagreed:

"The parents of that girl need more education than she does if they
can't see that the worst scenario in this case is to kill their
daughter psychologically," Suzanne Ball said in a letter to The
Oklahoman.

Coretha has been getting C's and D's as a freshman at Edmond Memorial
High in this well-to-do Oklahoma City suburb. Edmond Memorial is
considered one of the top high schools in the state in academics.

While Henderson stood next to her daughter at the intersection, a
passing motorist called police with a report of psychological abuse,
and an Oklahoma City police officer took a report. Mother and daughter
were asked to leave after about an hour, and no citation was issued.
But the report was forwarded to the state Department of Human
Services.

"There wasn't any criminal act involved that the officer could see
that would require any criminal investigation," Master Sgt. Charles
Phillips said. "DHS may follow up."

DHS spokesman Doug Doe would not comment on whether an investigation
was opened, but suggested such a case would probably not be a high
priority.

Tasha Henderson said her daughter's attendance has been perfect and
her behavior has been better since the incident.

Coretha, a soft-spoken girl, acknowledged the punishment was
humiliating but said it got her attention. "I won't talk back," she
said quietly, hanging her head.

She already has been forced by her parents to give up basketball and
track because of slipping grades, and said she hopes to improve in
school so she can play next year.

Donald Wertlieb, a professor of child development at the Eliot-Pearson
Department of Child Development at Tufts University, warned that such
punishment could do extreme emotional damage. He said rewarding
positive behavior is more effective.

"The trick is to catch them being good," he said. "It sounds like this
mother has not had a chance to catch her child being good or is so
upset over seeing her be bad, that's where the focus is."

11/16/05 14:14 EST
--
Scorp

It appears that the money has been moved in the
president?s budget to handle homeland security and the war
in Iraq, and I suppose that?s the price we pay.

Nobody locally is happy that the levees can?t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html
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