Are you at your wits end with an unruly son? Why not take a trip to Georgia for a new kind of punishment. Russell Fredrick and his staff at A-1 Kutz Barber Shop & Salon in Snellville, Georgia are offering free adult-style haircuts for kids that think they are adults – and they aren’t pretty.
The cut, which has been dubbed the “Benjamin Button Special,” all started when Fredrick’s own son was acting out. It goes like this: He sits the child down in his barber’s chair and shaves the top of his head bald while leaving the side and back alone.
After the punishment worked and his son’s grades began to improve, Fredrick started offering the cut for free – three days a week – to other parents with similar problems.
“When you go to discipline kids these days, they can’t necessarily use physical punishment the way parents did in the past, but they have to do something. If you don’t, and your kid ends up doing something crazy, everyone is going to say the problems started at home,” Frederick told The Washington Post.
While it’s an admittedly hilarious punishment, Fredrick says it should only be used as a last resort in extreme cases. Some parents, however, are calling it an emotionally abusive form of discipline that will cause more harm than good.
“I hate saying it, but this is an ignorant a$$ed excuse for parenting,” Washington Post reader Jay Anderson writes. “Publicly shaming your kid isn’t going to get them to act right. It’s only going to make them more resentful and likely to act bad. Whatever happened to sitting a child down, asking them why they’re acting out, and trying to help them work through that?”
Kid shaming has become an increasingly popular form of punishment, and there are some people out there that see it better than a smack on the bottom and more effective than a time out.
Lucinda Jezzebelle Blackletter, a Patch.com reader, thinks Fredrick and parents that use shaming as a punishment are on the right track. “You teach your child to own it and they will be better off in the long run. Some very good lessons to be learned,” she says.
So, what do you think Metro Parent readers? Would you publicly shame your child for misbehaving – or is communication the key to good parenting?
Image courtesy The Washington Post, Russell Fredrick
