Utah Mom Catches Kid, 10, Bullying, Makes Her Wear Thrift Shop Clothes
A Utah mom caught her daughter “bullying” another student — but instead of going to the school and siding with her own kid, devised a novel disciplinary method… ordering her daughter, 10, to wear thrift shop clothes.
It may sound unorthodox, but the bullying punishment makes more sense in context. The mom, Ally, learned from a teacher that her daughter, Kaylee, had been taunting a classmate about her clothing to the point where the other girl no longer wished to go to school.
Ally isn’t Kaylee’s biological mom, but has been the girl’s father’s partner for seven years. A local Fox affiliate explains that the two share a mother-daughter relationship — and when Ally learned through an email from a teacher what Kaylee had been up to, she was horrified.
The station explains:
“Wednesday, Ally received an email from Kaylee’s teacher explaining that she had been bullying another student because of how she dressed. The harassment had been taking place for the last three weeks, and according to the teacher, the student no longer wanted to come to school.”
Ally adds:
“She would take her out on the playground and call her names, and tell her she was a slob and tell her she dressed like a sleaze… Someone not wanting to go to school anymore based off of something that one other little person said to them. I mean, that’s huge, that’s damaging.”
Macklemore may drop lines about thrift shops, but the trend hasn’t trickled down to grade school, it appears — and Ally felt it was time to get creative to teach Kaylee the impact of bullying.
Ally says:
“I thought this is a perfect moment for us to really teach her, this is right, this is wrong, which path are you going to take? And then it’s her choice.”
She adds:
“If she chooses to be a bully after this, then at some point in her life, she’s going to be on the other side and she’ll know what it really feels like. And I think now that she knows what it feels like, and she doesn’t want to be that person anymore because she knows how hurtful it is.”
Kaylee spoke about her experience, saying after she wore the thrift shop clothes to school as a bullying punishment:
“I died. I did… They talk behind my back.”
But the tween seems to have absorbed the message, and now says she won’t be bullying anyone about clothes — she explains:
“Because it’s stupid and it’s mean. It hurts them.”
Do you think the Utah mom’s bullying punishment was a good lesson or too cruel?
