NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) — After he found out his son was bullying classmates at his middle school, a central Florida dad made his son hold a sign in public as punishment.
Michael Yager said he was outraged when he found out his 13-year-old son Jacob had been bullying multiple students at New Smyrna Beach Middle School.
So the frustrated father took an unorthodox approach: he wrote up a sign that read, “I’m a bully. Honk if you hate bullies.”
Then Yager drove Jacob to a busy intersection, and had him hold the sign on the corner.
“I figured I would teach him a lesson that would embarrass him and make him feel the way that the kids feel,” Yager said.
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Jacob said people quickly started honking, and he felt “embarrassed and kind of nervous.” Some people, including law enforcement officers, even stopped to talk to the father and son.
Yager said that, while he received a mostly-positive response from those in his neighborhood, he knows not everyone agrees with his style of parenting.
“I had one woman come up and call me every name in the book,” Michael Yager said. “In my mind, I thought I was doing the right thing, but I guess you just can’t please everyone.”
For his part, Jacob said he learned his lesson, and will change his ways.
“You never know what someone can be going through. If you want to be the bully and if you have something inside you need to tell someone, go to a guidance counselor or someone,” he said.
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