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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/ventura4433 on 2023-08-13 12:21:41.
Yesterday I was informed that my daughter Sam was a part of a group of students who bullied another girl to the point that she had to switch schools. There was a racial aspect to the bullying, which came as a complete shock since my wife and I truly did our best to raise our 3 kids to be kind and honest individuals.
I don’t believe that a grounding and a confiscation of electronics is harsh enough for what Sam did, so I told Sam that she won’t be allowed to participate in homecoming or attend senior prom. I also told her that she won’t be getting a car for her 18th birthday either. Finally, I told her that she’ll have to delete all of her social media accounts with either me or her mother watching.
Sam begged me to allow her to go to senior prom because it’s a once in a lifetime event, and keep just her Instagram account because it had pictures going back years that weren’t saved anywhere else. I told her that she shouldn’t have been a racist bully.
My parents are temporarily staying with us while their house is undergoing renovations. They agree that what Sam did was completely out of line and must be punished, but they think that making my daughter miss homecoming and senior prom and forcing her to delete her social media is far far too harsh.
There's a lot to the story that I don't know about so I won't be making a judgment call. However, teenagers who've fallen into the rabbit hole of racism and bullying aren't easy to pull back. Whatever punishment you decide on, if it's as harsh as that, you need to be prepared for the possibility that it may completely alienate your kid for the rest of your life.
The point of punishing her shouldn't be for the sake of punishment, but rather to teach her how to become a better person. You can't teach her anything if she disappears from your life. I don't know you or her enough to know how she'll react.
Personally, I feel that cancelling prom wouldn't teach teenagers to stop bullying but it will teach them to hate their parents.
As for social media, instead of deleting the account and years of pictures, it would be better to deactivate the account in some way that doesn't entail permanent deletion, and give it back to her once she has learned her lesson.
I'm going to be blunt. The way you talk about punishment feels like an outlet for your anger. And you every right to be, given what she's done. But please remember that your daughter's behavior isn't set in stone. Take the steps that will actually rehabilitate her, not just punish her. Get her to write an apology letter, get her to post one last time on social media about what she did and issue an apology. Get her to offer an in person apology to the victim or parents (if that's what they want). Make her write an essay on the impact of bullying.
Whatever you decide to do, get her to stop the hate, not hate you for the rest of her life.
Great response and reasoning!
I like your response, just want to point out that this is copied from Reddit. OP will never see any responses here unfortunately.
That's true but I think it's open to discussion by us. As a parent, it's such a fine line of trying to do right by our kids and raise them to be the best version of themselves.
I agree in that this approach seems rooted in anger than more in understanding the consequences of their behavior.
Always great to see different parenting styles.
Reasoning behind certain actions can help us all learn.
Thank you for your analyzis!