Matt Cox, a 39-year-old father from Swanton, Ohio, was furious when his 10-year-old daughter was thrown off the school bus for the second time in a few months. Kirsten got in trouble once again for bullying other kids on the bus, something Matt takes extremely seriously. Her statements simply exacerbated the situation. That’s when the father decided to discipline his daughter.
Kirsten was thrown from the bus for namecalling and obstructing another student’s exit. When Kirsten returned home and presented the bus suspension to her father, Matt understood she had an entitlement problem in addition to being a bully.
Kirsten casually informed her father that she would have to drive her to school while she was suspended from the bus. He understood she regarded the privilege of riding the bus and or car rides to and from school as a right, not a privilege, Matt told.
As one can see this morning, she is learning otherwise, as Matt stated in a now-viral video from his vehicle after telling his 10-year-old daughter she would walk the 5 miles to school. Matt followed Kirsten in his vehicle and videotaped the punishment as the little girl struggled along the road.
Life lessons!!!! UPDATE: lesson learned! Still has all her extremities intact is happy and healthy and seems to have a new outlook on bullying as well as a new appreciation for some of the simple things in life she used to take for granted #HOLDOURKIDSACOUNTABLE #STOPBULLYING
Posted by Matt Cox on Monday, 3 December 2018
Today, his beautiful daughter is going to walk 5 miles to school in 36-degree weather, Matt said behind the camera. He understands a lot of the parents are going to disagree with him, but that’s OK. But he is doing what he believes is proper in order to teach his kid a lesson and prevent her from bullying.
Matt was correct. Many people were unimpressed with his sentencing. While he got some sympathy from other parents, many thought he went too far.
Parenting experts chimed in, chastising Matt for publicly shaming his daughter and accusing him of causing more damage than good. This is public humiliation, parenting advocate Sue Scheff told. The internet can be so cruel, and one’s child will watch it over and over again online, she went on to say. It’s like rubbing salt into an emotional wound, and the sting can last a long time, especially if a parent did the humiliation.
What exactly is he trying to prove? Dr. Laura Markham, a parenting specialist and author of “Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids,” inquired, as did Dr. Krystine Batcho, a professor of psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse. Matt Cox, on the other hand, is emphatic that parents should hold their kids responsible for their conduct.
Shaming by a parent or another adult who a child loves and admires is, in some ways, worse than shaming by other kids or somebody a child doesn’t care about, Batcho asserted. When a parent humiliates a child, that has a much more profound emotional impact, and it’s very often recalled for life.
Is he a bully because he made his daughter walk to school? No, holding his kid responsible for her own actions and punishing her does not make him bully, Matt asserted on Facebook. It implies he is a parent, a dad trying to teach his daughter that there are consequences to their actions in life and that they must be responsible for them.
Matt described himself as a parent who is attempting to educate his daughter that it’s not okay to be mean to others since words and actions can have lifelong and sometimes life-ending effects on others. He’s also a father trying to teach his daughter that not everything is just a right, that there are a lot of privileges in life, and that they need to be thankful for them, he says. None of that makes him a bully, he said.
Kirsten, it turns out, did not walk all five kilometers in one morning. Matt recognized she’d be late for school if they continued after about a mile and a half, so he made her get in his vehicle. They resumed where they left off the following morning. The 5-mile journey was split across the three days Kirsten was halted.
Matt said that if he had to do it all over again, he “wouldn’t do one thing differently.” And he really hopes that more parents will follow suit since the penalty had the intended impact, according to the father. Kirsten now notices inappropriate conduct on TV and informs her father, that’s bullying that’s going to hurt somebody’s feelings, Matt explained. Kirsten also expressed regret to the other pupil involved.
He truly had no concept that it would take off like that, Matt said of the viral video, but it has the entire country talking. So, not only is it raising awareness about bullying, which, in his opinion, the more awareness raised about the bullying epidemic, but it is also raising awareness about the need for all parents to stand up and hold their children liable if they desire to see a change in this country.
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