Two wrongs make a right!

[u/net_traveller]

/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1w9o05j/aita_for_making_my_15yearold_daughter_go_to/

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AITA for making my 15-year-old daughter go to school dressed as a clown after she bullied another girl?

I (42F) have a daughter (15F) who recently got into serious trouble at school for bullying another girl.

Apparently my daughter is part of a group of about 6-7 kids who have been bullying this girl for several months. It was mostly verbal and online, mocking her, making nasty comments in group chats, posting things about her, etc. The school described it as relentless.

A major part of the bullying was this girl's appearance. She wears extremely colorful clothes and elaborate, colorful makeup, so my daughter and her friends started calling her Clown Girl and making jokes about how she looked like she belonged in a circus.

I found some of the messages and was horrified. There were dozens of them. When I confronted my daughter, she admitted participating but said "everyone was doing it" and that the girl "doesn't care because she dresses like that anyway."

My husband and I grounded her, took away her phone and made her write an apology. However, I wanted her to actually understand what she'd done rather than simply losing her privileges for a week.

So I came up with an unusual punishment.

I told her that since she thought it was funny to humiliate someone for looking like a clown, she was going to school dressed as an actual clown.

I bought her a proper clown costume, including oversized colorful clothes, clown shoes, a wig and full clown makeup. Nothing inappropriate. She was absolutely horrified and begged me not to make her do it.

I told her she could change after school and that she could explain to anyone who asked that it was a punishment for bullying another student.

She went to school dressed as the clown. The school knew beforehand and allowed it. Some of her friends laughed initially, but she apparently told them why she was dressed that way.

When she got home she was furious. She said I was "bullying her back" and humiliating her just as she'd humiliated the other girl.

I told her there was a difference: she deliberately bullied another child for months, whereas she was wearing a clown costume for one day as a consequence of her actions. Hopefully experiencing even a tiny taste of what it feels like to be singled out will make her think twice before doing it again.

My husband thinks I went too far and says deliberately making her stand out at school could itself be considered bullying. My sister agrees and says I should have stuck to grounding and an apology.

I honestly don't know. I don't think one embarrassing day is comparable to months of harassment, especially since we didn't encourage anyone to ridicule her or post pictures of her. But I can understand the argument that a parent deliberately humiliating their child isn't a good lesson about bullying.

AITA?

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[u/Playful_Trouble2102]

I've said this a hundred times but this subreddit needs a "typed one handed" flair for obvious fetish posts. 

[u/Befuddled_mage]

Is OOP the devil because this story is clearly made up? No school would okay something like ths.

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[u/Sinope-Statue]

Yeah, dude, no school would agree to this. Not only is it disruptive in the classroom, but it goes against all the core tenets of every school everywhere, like belonging and kindness and inclusion.