FATHERLY LOVE

WATCH: To Stop His Son From Bullying, Father Comes Up With Ultimate Punishment

kcentv.com – KCEN HD – Waco, Temple, and Killeen

When efforts to curb his son’s bullying behavior proved fruitless, a Texas man doled out a bit of tough love, forcing his progeny to stand on the curb of a busy street holding a sign that read: “I am a bully. Honk if you hate bullies.”

Joe Lagares of Killeen was criticized by some, praised by even more for his unusual parenting methods, but he takes bullying very seriously and wanted his 4th grader to take it seriously as well, hence why he posted his son on the corner of Ft. Hood Street and W. Veterans Memorial Boulevard with a big neon sign on Tuesday.

“Bullying is also a form of public humiliation. Maybe he understands that when he humiliates someone publicly that doesn’t feel good,” Lagares told KCEN TV. “Hopefully he’ll take that with him so the next time he tries to bully someone he’ll think about it twice.”

Lagares had previously tried other forms of punishment, including grounding and hard labor, but this one finally seems to have stuck. When Lagares’s son returned to school on Wednesday, he apologized to the kid he had been bullying, of his own accord.

Some, however, questioned the father’s public shaming of his son — even though, if you ask us, it sounds like something right out of the Bible. Of course Abraham never made Isaac admit to being an asshole, but then again Jose Lagares didn’t try to kill his son in the name of the Lord. Either way, Lagares, brushed off the criticism, and returned to the same corner on Wednesday with a neon sign of his own: “I’m not sorry. Honk to stop bullying.”

“I refuse to allow my child to be somebody else’s pain. Ya know, we don’t need another Columbine, and we don’t need another Solomon Harris,” Lagares said, referring to the gay teen who took his own life back in April after being bullied by his peers. “Ya know, we don’t need that to happen, and I refuse for my child to be the cause of that.”

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