But an Ohio mother has come under fire for innovative, yet questionable, technique she used in order to punish her daughter for "mouthing off" to her in front of her friends.
Denise Abbott temporarily banned her 13-year-old daughter Ava from using her cell phone or logging onto Facebook. But Abbott went one step further by doctoring Ava's Facebook profile photo to read:
"I do not know how to keep my (mouth shut). I am no longer allowed on Facebook or my phone. Please ask why. My mom says I have to answer everyone that asks."Abbott also added a red X over the teen's mouth.
"If she can't talk respectfully to me, she's not going to be able to talk to anyone else either," Abbott tells the media .
Do Abbott's actions against her daughter constitute indefensible public humiliation? Or did the cyber-punishment fit the crime?
"I don't agree with (this) tactic," says parenting blogger Emma Waverman of Embrace The Chaos. "What that mother did is a form of bullying and humiliation. That will not teach her teen a lesson, but will show her how to escalate the war. When a parent and child are fighting - someone has to make a choice to end the battle and it is obvious that mother chose to go for a few more rounds."
Waverman says that social media is still new and the laws of common decency and respect apply while parents and teens learn to negotiate the space.
"Banning your child from Facebook and their phone is a realistic approach and is enough, humiliating your child should never be an option."
Blogger and new father Matt Blair agrees: "There's discipline, and then there's public shaming. Revoking your daughter's Facebook privileges is one thing, but using her own account to shame her among her friends - and among the general public - is another."
As for Ava, the teen emailed NBC news affiliates with the following statement:
What do you think? Was this mother's special brand of cyber punishment out of line?I feel like I deserved it because I was mean to my mom and spoke disrespectful to her in front of my friends. Facebook is a big part of my social life and it's how me and my friends find out what is going on and making plans and about school work and projects. It made me realize that I didn't want my picture on there like that because all of my friends were asking me what happened and what I did. I told the people that asked me and my mom why that I spoke to my mom mean when she was doing nice stuff for me and my friends. I know my mom always makes sure I don't get away with stuff like that and I was sorry. Thank you, Ava
I think the mother went too far. Temporarily revoking privileges is a reasonable consequence in this case, but to publicly shame her daughter just seems cruel to me. It makes me wonder what will happen as the girl grows up, if she is deemed disrespectful or disobedient again in the future, will this kind of punishment be used on her again?
It seems very possible.
The daughter publicly apologized,, but what else was she going to do in this situation? Mommy holds all the cards here.
This, to me, was just another added embarrassment for the daughter, the public apology. A private apology should have been enough. So Mommy now has the kid validating the punishment. Validating the cruelty. Mommy wins this one.
What a power trip.
As in, "I deserved to be publicly humiliated because I spoke mean to my mother. I deserved it."
Was the mother showing any respect for her own daughter in employing this tactic? What else is this teaching her daughter, other than she should be respectful toward authority?
Public shaming is acceptable - and from your own mother?
How would you like to be publicly embarrassed in front of all the people on your Fb friend list?
Example: A couple of years ago, my own mother "yelled" at me on my Fb wall because she saw a photo I posted of my new tattoo. She demanded to know why I hadn't consulted with her and gotten "permission" before getting the tattoo.
(Seriously, and I'm in my mid-40s.) What she did certainly embarrassed me, and I'm alot older than this girl in the article.
I can only imagine how humiliated this young girl felt when her mom did this to her.
Nobody should employ tactics like this, especially on their own kids.
What is this really teaching here? You'd better not do something I don't like or I will decimate you in front of everyone? Isn't it teaching that it's acceptable to use cruel tactics in order to manipulate other people's behavior to get what you want?
Do we teach lessons in respect to our children by publicly shaming and disrespecting them?