Every parent wants their children to become decent, kind, and understanding adults. We teach kids the importance of respecting other people and the repercussions of their actions and words. It is inevitable that they will make blunders, regardless of our best efforts. But, the lessons kids learn from those mistakes may have an impact on them for the rest of their life.
Recently, a father wanted to teach his daughter empathy in an unconventional and controversial way after she made fun of a classmate. The whole affair began when his teenage daughter made fun of a friend who was balding due to therapy. The treatment recipient had dated the father’s daughter’s current boyfriend in the past, so the hurtful comments weren’t just an act of bullying; they also sprang from a personal grudge.
The father understood that a straightforward verbal reprimand might not be sufficient given the gravity of the issue. He wanted his daughter to understand the entire extent of her cruelty and to experience the same level of sensitivity that she had so shamelessly rejected.
He therefore took a drastic measure and shaved his daughter’s head bald.
Online debate over this decision has been rife with opinions ranging from defenses of his bold parenting approach to refutations that he went too far in degrading the public. In an interview with CafeMom, the father explained his way of thinking.
He was quite clear that his goal was not to make his daughter feel less than, but to encourage her to develop empathy. If his daughter put herself in the shoes of the girl she had hurt, the father believed her daughter would be able to understand the emotional pain her classmate had endured.
