I grew up in an era where everybody’s parents had a right to discipline everybody’s children. My friend’s parents were allowed to spank me if I “acted up,” which resulted in me always being on my best behavior while in their care. Before I would leave to spend the night at a friend’s house their mother and mine would exchange a dialogue in which it was noted that they had the right to discipline me if it was deemed necessary. When they would get dropped off at my house those same words came forth from their parents. I will note this was more prevalent among my church friends as our parents were not ones to “spare the rod.” Even so, the people my parents gave permission to discipline me were people that they knew and trusted. They were family members and close friends. They were not the clerk at the local store.
Recently a Wrightsville, Georgia Dollar General Store employee was arrested and received charges for spanking the child of a customer with a belt. The police were first made aware of the incident after the child’s father called saying what had occurred. A viewing of the store surveillance video confirmed what had happened to the child, age 8.
“Apparently, the 8-year-old boy was running around the store and got into a confrontation with 39-year-old Emilia Graciela Bell. Bell told investigators the boy threw a cookie at her and that’s when she removed her belt, chased the boy down and spanked him behind the counter.”
I can’t imagine how I would feel knowing that someone I didn’t know took it upon themselves to discipline my child. The clerk could have easily notified the child’s mother of the incident and allowed her to address it accordingly. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that I don’t spank, so how dare another person spank my child? Regardless of your thoughts on spanking it is difficult to fathom a stranger disciplining your child even if your child’s behavior was out of line. Take a look at the video below:
For more on this story visit 11 Alive.
BMWK — How would you feel if someone you didn’t know disciplined your child? Do you think the store employee was out of line for her actions? Does the saying “It takes a village to raise a child” hold true in this case?
The clerk was out of line. imho. The clerk did not have the right to spank this child. Especially given the fact that this child’s parent was in the vicinity. It would have been just as easy to summon the child’s parents to handle the issue.
Hmm
To prevent that behavior again, I would. So next time I go into a store, if the kid wants to act up again I can remind them, “Remember when we went to Dollar General? If you are acting up, disobeying the rules and being disrespectful, I can’t always protect you. So it is best to behave. Bad behavior gets punished. Just like a thief who steals goes to jail. Are you going to behave?”
Privately, I would speak to the clerk about it, but not in front of my child. In an effort for my child to really get the lesson here.
I mean, that is how the world works. If I teach my child not to run in the street, but she can’t remember that lesson unless I’m standing right there over her . . . we have a problem. Parents teach their children lessons on how to behave so that they remember and use them ALL THE TIME, not just when the parent is in the vicinity. There are real consequences when a child decides to forget or ignore what the parents have taught them when out on their own.
I personally would be upset if someone took it upon themselves to spank my child. Teach your kids RESPECT and how to act when they are out in public…..and you won’t ever have that problem.
No one should ever spank someone else’ child. However, where were the parents in all of this? Why was the child being disruptive and disrespectful in public? Maybe if he were taught how to behave in public it would have never led to someone feeling they had to take measures into their own hands.
It is never alright top spank someone else’s child. If he was disruptive then you alert the parents maybe ask them to leave. It is a crime and unprofessional. She deserves to lose her job and go to jail. I’m reading comments and people are saying he was taught a lesson and I’m sure he was but, at what cost? Now the clerk will be taught a lesson. He may not ever do that again but I guarantee she wont either. If this was my child he would have been disciplined even after what this woman did but, if formy child had gotten out of my line of sight and she touched my child I would be in jail right along with her because i would have beaten her. This opens the company up for legal actions from the parents.
to put everything in its perspective that young man deserved just what he got his parents should be happy some one took controlled thats why we have all the vilionce in the world today because parents are not abiding by gods rule god is a good god all you have too do is pray raise your kids through his understanding no one is perfect but there are some bad and disrepectful kids he had know right to tell the clerk i will show and then throw a cookie.it was wrong wrong.
Parents, pay attention to your children while in the store! If you don’t want others to touch them, keep an eye on what their doing. Children are kidnapped daily hello. The clerk was probably frustrated and then the disrespectful child throws a cookie in her face. These children cannot get away with ugly behavior. I do feel however, that the clerk should have went to the parent/s and if the parent/s did nothing, I would have told them to leave the store. Yes. Take you and your disobedient child and leave now.
If you don’t discipline your children, the world will. They may end up dead or in prison as a result. I think a child who is still alive after a spanking is better than a dead child who has disrespected someone who is much more punitive than this woman. If he were an adult and did this to someone who had a mental problem, which to me appears this person has because she could not control herself, the situation may have resulted in death. People are so different and the media is constantly giving us news that would not have been news in the past. This child would have just been a kid with his butt whipped and good parents might have let them just learn from this experience instead of making it a federal case. I feel for the child who had to learn a painful lesson, but I also feel for the store clerk who had probably had too many run-ins with unruly parents and children and subsequently made this child a victim. This is what happens with bullying (even when it’s done by children, people snap) and lack of a good mental health care system. People think that hurting others is the answer. This is however a good lesson for the masses of how not to react on both sides. Take control of your children, teach them that not everyone will accept them for who they are.
One lesson the child has learned is that when people hit people, they can get locked up. They can go to jail. That’s appropriate. Another lesson the parents can reinforce is that when grown-ups behave badly in the workplace, they can get fired from their jobs. That’s appropriate too. The child should know it applies to the clerk, and that it also applies to him too. Both parties were wrong in this situation, and the child should be made aware of this. Two (or more) wrongs don’t make a right. Children should not run around stores. As a parent, my own rule is that children under age 15 are not allowed to be unescorted in the store. They can’t even be the store without a parent or other responsible adult present. Those who are between ages 15-17 will have to prove they are sufficiently mature and well-behaved to go out unsupervised before it will happen. If there are any mess-ups, the privilege gets lost for six months, and it will take a long time to earn it back. (I’m a mom and those are a few of my rules). Having said that, I will also say that the biggest thing wrong with that Dollar General situation is that the clerk was plain stupid. No matter how much she might have wanted to hit an apparently unruly kid, she should have stopped to think about the potential consequences of her actions. I accept that we have to tell kids that our actions have consequences; a 38 year old woman should already know this and should behave accordingly. ( Apparently the store clerk slept through this speech when her parents gave it to her.) She was violent; it’s never okay to do to a child what she did. But she was also stupid to do that in the workplace. She had to have known it would give her company bad publicity. Since she obviously didn’t consider how her actions might reflect on the company, and lacks self control, they got rid of her. If she’d instead called the cops, who very well might have locked up the child if surveillance cameras confirm the allegation that the kid threw a cookie at her, she’d probably still be employed. A business owner doesn’t want somebody with poor judgement on their payroll. They’re too likely to do something that results in the store getting sued. They also don’t want somebody who would assault a child. It’s inhumane and it brings bad publicity.
While it’s important to let the child know that what the adult did was wrong, it’s also important to let the child know that what he did was also unacceptable. As a parent, if I could restrain myself from doing to the clerk what she did to my child, I’d call the cops and let them deal with her. I’d let the child know about the legal consequences that the clerk receives for attacking him. The child needs to know that adults do not have the right to assault children. But I’d also let the child know that he can suffer those same consequences if he throws objects at other people.
I’d look for ways to have the child atone for what he did, including:
-letter of apology (and also a verbal apology) in which he owns what he did and indicates an understanding that what he did is not okay. (Note: it would be clear that the apology is NOT an endorsement of what the clerk did, because the clerk was clearly wrong. The apology is only an admission that what the child did is wrong. I think an eight year old is able to understand the difference.)
-restitution to the store by washing the windows,sweeping in front of the store, or some other menial task, to be done once a week for the next month. If the store’s insurance policy doesn’t let the child do any sort of community service-type work for them, then I would find some other place where the child could do community service. The child needs to pay the store back, or at least the community at large back, for misbehaving in the store.
– an essay would have to be written by the child on the theme of Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You. They would have to comment on how they think the store clerk might have felt when they saw him running around the store. They would have to comment on how other people in the store might feel if another person is running around and throwing things. They would have to comment on how their actions affect other people, in either a good or bad way. The would have to comment on how they (the child) can show respect when they are in an environment where other people are working or shopping.
-the child would be required to write a separate essay on what his thoughts and emotions were on that day, and what he plans to do differently in the future
There would be no social privileges (hanging out with friends, non-academic computer time, phone time, etc) until the all of the above are completed.
One more thing. I’m sick to death of people misquoting the bible to try to justify assaults on children. There isn’t a single place in the bible where Jesus beats his disciples or where God comes down from heaven with an object in his hand and beats on his children. Furthermore, a reading of the New Testament reveals that each instance of beating/whipping in the New Testament occurs in an adversarial manner. And if a shepherd in the Old Testament used his rod to beat sheep instead of guiding them back onto the right path, the sheep owner would probably have hurt or killed the shepherd. I look at the way that God parents me, and that’s how I parent. He does not appear to me in human form and start beating on me when he corrects me, and so I follow his model as I parent.
You should not spank someone else’s child. But if I had done what that boy did I my Mom or Dad would have spanked me right there in the store. Then when we got home I would have gotten a “real spanking” which was a whipping with the buckle end of the belt with all my clothes off. But I never would have behaved like that because I knew what I’d get.