Mom can't encourage a fistfight
Daphne Melin, 32, on the porch of her home in Shirley, encouraged her daughter to fight with another 12-year-old girl, police say. (Sept. 13, 2011) Credit: Kevin P Coughlin
One of the toughest questions for a parent is what to do when your child is getting bullied. It's an absolute certainty, though, that, the answer isn't, "Give her a ride to a planned, physically violent fight with a schoolmate, then get into your own brutal fracas with another child who's urging you to stop the mayhem unfolding before you."
Daphne Melin of Shirley is accused of doing just that with her 12-year-old daughter after the child became embroiled in a Facebook battle with a schoolmate over a boy. Melin says she tried to stop the bullying through the school, then chauffered her daughter to the fight so she could assure there were no weapons or ganging up.
Facebook, although it has little ability to enforce the rule, bars kids younger than age 13 from having their own pages. It's hard to say at exactly what age kids should be allowed to have their own presence on the site, but situations like this show later is better than sooner. Parents should see to it that kids too young to handle it don't have Facebook pages, and they should monitor the pages of older children to assure they're appropriate.
Parents in this position should go to the other child's parents to find a solution. They should talk to the other girl. They should pursue path after path, endlessly -- bringing in police, clergy, aunts, uncles, psychologists or whoever else is necessary to avoid doing what Melin finally did: facilitate, then participate in, a fistfight with children.
