Inkster Mom Tries Publicly Shaming Kids Straight

Christina Maze says she doesn’t care what others think of her parenting, and she’s going to continue to send her sons to the side of the road with signs confessing misdeeds “until they get the hint.” (Screenshot via WJBK-TV)

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You’ve heard of tough love that scares kids straight?

A single mom who works two jobs to provide for her two sons, 7 and 8, says she’s tried everything she knows, without results, to get the boys to behave. So now she’s trying to publicly shame them straight, according to a report on WJBK-TV.

Christina Maze said that after months of chronic misbehavior, she sent the boys to the curb of their Inkster home with homemade signs confessing their misdeeds, such as acting like a class clown, failing to clean their rooms, or not listening to their mother. Maze also shaved swaths of hair from the boys’ heads in hopes of humiliating them into obedience, according to the report.

The boys complained to WJBK that they’re embarrassed and feel ridiculous, and said that their mother isn’t being very nice by meting out the punishment, which a psychiatrist says does more harm than good.

Maze says it’s too easy for kids to take the wrong path in hardened Inkster.

“I would rather than be embarrassed and straighten up, then getting into fights and going to jail, killing somebody,” Maze said. “We live in a hard city.”

Motorists are responding as she had hoped with “OK signs, thumbs up (and) laughing at them,” she told the TV station. “ … They look ridiculous and that is the point.”

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But Dr. Gerald Shiener, a psychiatrist, told WJBK that Maze’s strategy is doomed.

“Public humiliation never works,” he said. “It makes the child angry and the kid holds you responsible instead of reflecting on his own behavior.”

Maze said she doesn’t care what others think of her parenting methods. She plans to continue sending the boy the roadside with signs saying what they’ve done wrong “until it sinks in, until they get the hint that, if you keep acting this way, you are going to stay out here as long as it takes.”

Tell Us:

• Is this an effective strategy? What’s the best way for parents balancing jobs and family to get better behavior from their kids?