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Originally Posted by Cavey
I completely disagree with some of your statements. Psychologists say by age twelve a person has set the "moral compass" of their life and, in some cases, only a strong intervention will change it.
(Of course, I don't know this girl, and I don't presume she is a "bad person.")
Also, we have no idea of the context of "bad person." The girl may have reinterpreted the statements made to her.
I once caught 2 girls shoplifters in the clothing store I worked at in college. The younger girl was 12. The older was 16 and commented that this was not going to look good to her probation officer. That's when I lit into the two of them about how they were throwing away there lives and that if the older didn't make some decisions about what kind of person she wanted to be, she's going to ruin her friend's life as well.
I think a 15 year old girl, made to feel humiliated and bad about herself for a comment made, is a small price to pay for opening her eyes to making right decisions.
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There is only one context when you call a child a bad person (quite different from calling their behavior bad or inappropriate) and while a bit of humiliation arising from a situation teaches us something, active humiliation of a child by an adult only shows the adult is behaving more like a child.
It seems two mistakes were made in the confrontation (one by a child learning a lesson and one by an adult who should already know).
Do any of us parents call our children 'bad persons'? My last (hopefully humble) word on this.