Parents Force Teen to Hold Humiliating Sign as Punishment: Tough Love or Too Far?

Worried about their 13-year-old daughter's increasingly disrespectful behavior, two parents decided to make her punishment humiliating and public.

Gentry and Renee Nickell of Crestview, Fla., made her spend 90 minutes standing at a busy intersection with a hand-written sign describing her sins:

The sign they made her hold says: "I’m a self-entitled teenager w/no respect for authority. I’m also super smart, yet I have 3 'D’s' because I DON’T CARE."

Passing motorists saw the teen and took pictures with their phones. Some of the photos ended up on Facebook, where they were shared within the community.

Someone called the cops, who showed up to talk to the teen and left after deciding that she was "aware of her punishment and she was not in any harm."

Now, however, the parents are feeling a little humiliation of their own.

“I wasn’t even thinking about what the public was going to think,” her mom, Renee told the Northwest Florida Daily News. “I was thinking about our daughter."

"It was for her to be in the public and recognize what she had done."

"We spend so much focus on not wanting to hurt a child's self esteem that we don't do anything," the Nickells said in a statement defending the punishment.

"As they say, walk a mile in someone's shoes," the statement read.

"We must undo at home what the world tries to tell her is better."

Renee Nickell said the family has had a hard time since Renee's brother was killed in Afghanistan in December 2011. Her kids were close to him and his family.

Since losing her uncle in the war, Renee's 13-year-old girl has become much more defiant at home and at school, and her grades have dropped.

"We just felt like she just kind of gave up," Renee told the newspaper.

Holding a sign in public wasn't their first choice for punishment.

They tried grounding her, but it didn't help. They didn't forbid her from attending church, they said, because that was supposed to reinforce strong values.

They didn't confiscate the teenager's electronics because neither she nor their two younger children, ages 2 and 6, even have any, the couple said.

"We just got to the point where we just didn't know what else to do," Renee said, then they heard about the sign idea from a Christian counselor.

The girl's dad stood next to her the whole time. "At the end, she gave me a hug in front of a police officer and she told me she was sorry," Gentry said.

But soon, the Nickells were surprised to find out that their daughter's punishment had gone viral, and were shocked by the anger leveled at them.

What do you think? Was a little tough love warranted in this case? Or did they go a little too far? Are they the worst parents ever? Discuss below.