Does The Punishment Fit the Crime?

The world is going mad. Once more we have a case of no
common sense!

In the Herald Sun Thursday Sept 11 2008. (I missed this
article first time around and only read it this week end.)
There is a case of a mother Mrs. Aziz who complained her 4
year son had to help clean up a puddle of urine.

From the article this is what happened. A childcare worker
at an ABC center finds two boys in an indoor area with a
puddle of urine. Now there are two ways it could have got
there.
1. An accident or
2. A deliberate anti social act.
As neither boy had wet clothes the logical conclusion was
that it was a deliberate antisocial act. So the worker
asks which boy did it. Both boys deny all knowledge.
Thus they have now lied as one did do it and the other
boy knows 'his friend' did it.

The worker now has a choice.
A. She can clean up the puddle which re-enforces the
following:-
1. It is OK to urinate on the floor.
2. It is OK to lie about it.
3. It is OK not to say 'my friend' did it.
4. Any mess I make a woman will clean up after me
(and this is REALLY BAD! re-enforcing such a sexist norm)
B. She can choose one child to clean up the puddle.
(Which could allow the 'real guilty' child to 'go free.')
C. Order both children to clean up the puddle.

Of these options the only real one is the last. Thus the
'guilty' child learns
I can't do anti-social things and telling a lie about
it does not do any good. There is also the unaddressed
question that when the punished was metered out the 'guilty'
child DID NOT step up and say "I did it Miss" thus allowing
the innocent child Not to be punished.

The innocent child learns that not all 'friends' are good
friends and it is best to choose wisely and it is OK to step
up and do the 'right thing.'

It is certainly not an over the top punishment, now if she
had taken a rolled up newspaper and swatted them on the nose
with it or rubbed their noses in the puddle THEN that would
have been an over the top punishment but to clean up a mess
you have made - NO WAY!!!

This mother has re-enforced so many BAD things
1. Disrespect for an adult in charge of him.
2. Disrespect for the safety of others (What if another
child had slipped and fallen??) and
3. It is OK to perform anti-social behaviour and lie about
it because a woman (the mother) will clean up after me.