People all over the world are showing out on social media and it’s not all good. Everybody is happy to air their dirty laundry in public and be held up to ridicule or summary judgement.
Take the mum who beat her 12-year-old daughter on camera and arranged for the video to be posted on Facebook. The girl had posted indecent photos of herself on Facebook and I have to admit, I too would have been livid if that was my child. I’m not sure I would have beat her for six minutes but I would have warned her about the paedophiles waiting to pounce.
TRIGGER WARNING: This video is upsetting and may bring up messy childhood issues.
The video was posted on Facebook to mixed views with some people agreeing that the girl deserved to be punished and others calling it child abuse.
Trinidad and Tobago Minister of State in the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development Raziah Ahmed condemned the posting of the video.
Ahmed said: “I have not seen the video. But you do not further embarrass a child when a child has stepped out of line. For the simple reason, children experiment with behaviour. You do not embarrass your children when they have done things that you would not expect. You engage in reasoning. Children are exposed to so much. They are fragile. They are bombarded with so much information, which gives them so much choice.”
Ahmed added: “I could understand when a parent reacts in such a manner. We can do things like shouting, but to create a counter-video to embarrass your child is not right.”
She added: “It is a call for a certain level of understanding. I would not support ‘tit for tat, butter for fat’. Parents are supposed to be more morally responsible. The concept of reward and punishment does not start when the child has stepped over the boundaries. There are simple things like cutting off TV or spending rights.”
A similar video was posted on the social media network, in which a mother from Michigan, United States, hit an 11-year-old boy more than 50 times with a belt. The county prosecutor, David Leyton, later announced the boy’s mother, 28-year-old Demitria Latrion Powell, of Flint, was charged with three counts of third-degree child abuse.
Social media can be a great place for sharing jokes, networking and meeting like-minded people but it gets to be a dark place when people start using it like it’s another episode of Jerry Springer or Maury. I beg you people, before you post something stupid online think, would I do this in the middle of the street in my neighbourhood.
