In this day and age, people should come to realize that somewhere, someone, has a phone and may just video record what is going on around them. That video may also then be uploaded to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, or even Twitter.
That was the case, this week, when I saw a post on Facebook, where a mother of a Junior High girl living in California, was told to hit another student. Police are now investigating the incident. The mom gave her daughter permission to do it because "It's after school. You can't get in trouble." What rationale the mother had. The mother even got into the confrontation and was seen holding back the victim of the fight with the mother's daughter.
The daughter of the mother responsible, was seen in the video not wanting to participate in the fight. She was feeling pressured by her mother to hit the other student. The mother of the victim told local news outlets that the girl hit her daughter and that the girl had been bullying her daughter on the bus. Her daughter was defending herself.
The school is looking into disciplining the student who hit the victim. The victim's mother is even looking at pressing charges on the mother of the girl who hit her daughter. She feels that she is responsible for what took place that day.
This story impacted me because it surprised me that a mother would be asking her daughter to be violent toward another student and would also actively participate in the event. It doesn't surprise me that this was posted on Facebook. In today's world, online social media posts are almost instantaneous and almost anything can be viewed today. I really feel for the victim and I feel for the daughter of the mother who was encouraging her to hit the victim. The mother should definitely be punished for her actions and held accountable to the victim. The mother used poor judgement and should have handled things differently.
I think we all need to be held accountable for our actions. Someone, somewhere, has a camera and can videotape or take pictures and post them for the world to see. It's too bad that the girl did not walk away from her mother or the situation. I think that if she had, the mother would have stopped encouraging her and maybe others would have come to her aid to defend her. Given the location of the incident, I'm surprised that students hadn't tried to get the attention of another adult to help diffuse the situation. It's a good lesson to share with children of how to handle this type of situation in the future.
Wow! Not only should the one mother have charges pressed against her, she should be on her way to jail! Regaurdless of what that mother was thinking or feeling, unless someone is physically putting their child in danger, there is no reason for an adult to ever lay their hands on a child. Do you happen to know what happened to the mother?
ReplyDeleteI understand completely when I read your story. That happened about two weeks ago in my district. A parent video recorded on his own personal phone of the principle dragging a student down the hallway and uploaded it to Facebook. The video was only about 6 seconds long. For being such a short video people in the town I live in had many opinions about it. It got to the point that the district had to take action and the principle id currently on leave. It is interesting to see this mother wanted her own daughter to fight when she knew she could have taken a different approach. I am more angry towards the mother for pressuring her daughter to act that way. There are parents who should be accountable for their actions. We are taught that violence is never the answer and it is true because know charges might happen and that can ruin the future of others.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post it made me think about how I have to be aware of what I do even on a daily bases because you just never know what someone could post about you for a comment that you may have thought was innocent or not getting involved in an incident in the classroom. I know that in my school we as teachers tend to tell students who may not be doing something that they should (playing in the dirt, etc) to do it after school. This will make me think twice of saying that again and hopefully instill the same reaction into my coworkers. My question to you is if you saw a situation like this or something similar going on outside your building how would you handle it?
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