Ace of Base once said "I saw the sign, it opened up my eyes I saw the sign," yet for a 13 year old girl in Florida she not only saw the sign but actually had to hold one for passing motorists to see. This sign, which read "I'm a self-entitled teenager w/no respect for authority. I'm also super smart, yet I have 3 "D"s because I DON'T CARE!" was what drivers saw when they passed by this girl standing for an hour and a half on the corner of Ferdon Boulevard and U.S. Highway 90 in Crestview.
Gentry and Renee Nickell made their unnamed daughter hold this sign because of her increasingly disrespectful attitude and slipping grades. The parents had gotten this idea to publically shame their daughter years before from a Christian counselor "several years ago." Their daughter had been acting out since her uncle, a beloved member of the family, was killed in Afghanistan in 2011.
Although the Nickell's received mixed criticism for their actions, the girl's mother Renee stands by her decision,
"I wasn't even thinking about what the public was going to think, I was thinking about our daughter. It was for her to be in the public and recognize what she had done wrong."
Admittedly the sign was not the parents' first choice of punishment, as they tried grounding their daughter and forbidding her from attending church activities, but none of these courses of action seemed to do anything for the situation. However, after having their daughter stand with the sign they were able to at least get the message across to her that her behavior had been unacceptable in their eyes.
"I asked her, 'Were you scarred? Traumatized?'" Renee told the Northwest Florida Daily News. "She said, 'No mom, I knew it was coming'."
Yet, despite the short term results the question still remains: what long term impacts will this have on the daughter's self-esteem?
What is known is the daughter began acting out after the death of her uncle, yet her parents said nothing about how they addressed the death in the family and what courses of action they took to provide the daughter with any kind of grief counseling. Instead it seems the parents spent more time focusing on the symptoms of what was going on instead tackling the root of the problem.
In a statement defending the punishment the Nickells have said, "We spend so much focus on not wanting to hurt a child's self-esteem that we don't do anything."
But what's alarming is what they chose to do does not seem to have been well thought out. They said they got the idea from a Christian counselor, but did they even give any consideration to asking what happened with these other children who were shamed in the long run? Or what were the circumstances that lead to some of these other shamings? What is most disturbing is if the Nickell's daughter was acting out as a cry for help, then by punishing her the family is only instilling in her the idea that her pain and grief is wrong. Also, did it not occur to these parents to look into taking their daughter to a mental health professional? With all the talk of the parents being at their wits end and not knowing what to do, but using advice they, not the daughter, but THEY had received from a religious counselor years before seems to indicate they thought of the situation as more of their problem than something going on in their daughter's life.
Something else that is troubling is that, although this incident happened in mid-March, there has been no follow up on this story. What happened with the Nickell's daughter? Has her behaviors and academic performance since this incident improved? Or have things reverted back to the way they were? And if the daughter had reverted back to these behaviors, has the family made proactive steps since to seek professional help in managing the daughter's grief and possible depression? With all the media out these surrounding what happened surely the parents could have gleaned some insight and suggestions on how to handle the situation.
What the Nickell's did is not only cruel and unusual but also sets a dangerous precedent for other parents. Instead of focusing on what the Nickell's did and whether or not it was right I think the conversation should shift to how we talk about and address when children are acting out. Are they dealing with something they are not telling us? Is there something deeper going on, such as depression of maybe the onset of a mental illness? Although these are difficult conversations to have and some parents may feel a stigma sending their child to a mental health professional, what is most important is that the parents to try and help the child work out what is going on and pursue the adequate resources to be more understanding to the child's needs.
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