The mother, identified only by her first name Star, described herself as a “tough love” parent who wanted to teach her son a lesson. She had original posted the photos to Facebook, but took them down after receiving backlash from people who called her parenting style “cruel.”
“I don’t coddle my children. I don’t sugar-coat the world to them,” Star said, adding that her punishment technique worked and that her son is already treating his siblings and classmates better.
“I wanted to know what he learned from it and he said, ‘I learned that I didn’t like the way that felt and I don’t want anybody else to feel that way because of me,’” she said. “That’s exactly what I wanted him to take from it.”
She explained that she posted the images to Facebook so that the children he had bullied would see them.
Some internet users have praised the mother for her parenting technique.
“I think her son learned to stop being a bully,” one user wrote, with another adding, ” love this! Finally a parent standing up to their kid and being the boss!”
Others, however, thought she went too far.
“No wonder he’s a bully,” a third person commented. “He has a mother who bullies and publicly humiliates him instead of maybe trying to find out why he’s so angry. Yeah that’ll teach him ma!”
Star later removed the post after receiving some negative feedback, though she still contends that she made the right decision in her choice of punishment.
“I did what I had to do to stop it from progressing,” she said. “I wanted to do something that would teach him why he can’t do those things – why he needs to take other people into consideration.“
