{"id":19229,"date":"2017-11-29T17:17:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-29T22:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19229"},"modified":"2017-11-29T17:17:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T22:17:17","slug":"front-porch-perspectives-bringing-up-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/front-porch-perspectives-bringing-up-children\/","title":{"rendered":"FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVES: Bringing up children"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville<\/strong><\/p>\n

We all know that raising children is not easy.
\nIt is especially hard for a single mom or dad.
\nI saw the following article on-line recently on Yahoo news that I thought I would share as it is an example of real good parenting.
\nThe title of the article: \u201cMom\u2019s unique punishment for 13 year old son goes viral.\u201d
\nI have edited the original story to fit in this space.<\/p>\n

When Demetris Payne saw a missed call from her son\u2019s junior high school, she knew something was wrong.
\nWith a sigh, the single mom of four from Shreveport, Louisiana, called back. A school official said her 13-year-old son Jadarien was suspended for three days for talking back to his teacher. She was told to pick him up right away.
\n\u201cThree days seems kind of harsh — why not do in-school suspension?\u201d Payne asked.
\nBut since Jadarien had been in trouble once before, they said he had to leave.
\nAs soon as the pair got home, Payne took away her son\u2019s cellphone and video games. She left him with her 70-year-old father who lives with them.
\n\u201cWhen I got home from work he\u2019s eating strawberries and having fun with my dad,\u201d Payne told CBS News. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh no.\u2019 It was like a vacation.\u201d
\nPayne knew she needed to do more to discipline him.
\nSo she handed him a rake and asked him to start cleaning up the yard. When he was finished, she told him he\u2019d be volunteering his lawn care services free of charge for people in need during the remainder of his suspension.
\n\u201cHe didn\u2019t believe it,\u201d Payne said. \u201cI can be soft on him and baby him sometimes.\u201d
\nBut Payne was serious. She posted a photo of Jadarien on Facebook with the heading, \u201cYard service – FREE,\u201d explaining that he got suspended from school and would mow lawns, pick up trash or wash cars for members of the community over the next three days.
\nWithin hours, Payne got requests from several residents taking her up on the offer.
\nSo she drove Jadarien from house to house. She stood by the car and watched him work. He mowed lawns, picked up pine needles and raked leaves.
\n\u201cHe didn\u2019t complain the whole time,\u201d Payne said.
\nJadarien spent about two hours cleaning up the yards. He ended up hitting at least eight different homes. When he was finished, Payne took him to the library, where he spent the rest of the day reading and completing homework assignments.
\n\u201cWe explained to him that these chores weren\u2019t to punish, punish, punish, but to teach him a lesson and teach him about discipline,\u201d Payne said. \u201cNo matter if the teacher is right or wrong — always respect your teachers, respect adults.\u201d
\nOn Tuesday, Jadarien was happy to finally head back to school.
\nPayne sat down with Jadarien\u2019s teachers to help come up with a plan to keep him on track. However, she\u2019s confident Jadarien learned his lesson.
\nHundreds of people have shared Payne\u2019s Facebook post over the past week, many praising her for her unique approach to discipline.
\n\u201cBeautiful idea! Parenting done right,\u201d one Facebook user commented.
\n\u201cRaising your child to learn consequences for unacceptable behavior falls under good parenting 101,\u201d another wrote.
\nPayne said she hopes her other kids — ages 3, 8 and 17 — also learned something from Jadarien\u2019s experience. But if she has to do it all over again, she will.
\n\u201cSingle parents, do not give up. Keep encouraging your child. When one avenue doesn\u2019t work try another avenue. Get to the root of the problem,\u201d she advised.
\n<\/em>
\nOn a different but more humorous note: Reading the above article made me harken back to that day 34 years ago when my dad wanted to ensure that his sons completed a chore.
\nI was 18 at the time, and my one brother was one 17, while the other was 12 years old.
\nIt was a Saturday in December and it had been snowing all the previous night. My dad was going to work and he said that \u201cwe had better get the snow shoveling done before he got home from work\u2026\u201d
\nMy brothers and I were all in the living room watching television when my dad came home around 5 p.m. that Saturday.
\nWe can see my dad get out of the car, walk up the drive way and stop to pick up something that is hanging from the mailbox. As dad is walking into the house he is reading the document that he retrieved from the mailbox.
\nWe hear him beginning to swear out loud. He walks into the living room very angry. He then reads us the invoice from the town that stipulates that we have to pay a $150 fine for the town shoveling our drive way today.
\nHe is giving us hell, while we are trying to keep straight faces. We then slowly begin to laugh.
\nHe intones: \u201cWhat are you idiots laughing about? I told you three times before I left this morning that the shoveling needed to be done.\u201d
\nWe then asked him if he had taken a good look at the invoice.
\nEarlier in the day, my two brothers had used a calligraphy set and made up the invoice while I had shoveled the snow. My brothers then put a bow on it to make it look \u201cofficial\u201d.
\nIf I recall, we even issued the invoice in the name of Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion \u2013 with her \u201creal\u201d signature on it!
\nMy dad shook his head \u2013 \u201cYou three are still idiots \u2013 but that was a good one!\u201d as we all had a great laugh!
\nWe still tease Dad about this to this today.<\/p>\n

Stephen can be contacted at stephengsomerville@yahoo.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville We all know that raising children is not easy. It is especially hard for a single mom or dad. I saw the following article on-line recently on Yahoo news that I thought I would share as it is an example of real good parenting. The title of the article: \u201cMom\u2019s unique punishment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-509","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 08:37:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}