NBC’s Today Show’s “Professional” Donny Deutsch Says Put Parents of Bullies in Jail

I try and watch the Today Show on NBC as much as I can but these morning shows are getting longer and longer and as a writer/blogger, I really don’t have as much time as I used to. On Wednesday June 20^th, however, I did catch the segment where “Today Professionals” discuss hot topics and offer their opinions.

One topic was about the poor grandmother who in her volunteer job as a school bus monitor was bullied by students. One student on the bus taped the horror and uploaded the video to YouTube. I won’t go into the names she was called by kids on the bus before she finally broke down in tears. (There is a link to the YouTube video below, but beware, it’s brutal!).

One of the “professionals” Donny Deutsch did get very angry and rightly so. He said  “To throw the God Damn parents  (of these school bus bullies) in jail” and if  one would visit the homes of these horrid kids and meet the parents, they’d find “older versions of the bullying kids.” And he’s right!

I know bullying is a problem in the U.S. but too many parents want to blame the schools for not attending to these issues as they arise when in fact, how your children behave in public really starts in the home—or is controlled and dealt with in the home.

So parents, the buck stops with you.

When I was growing up, you never disrespected your elders or if someone did, they were “a bad kid we couldn’t play with.” Also, neighborhoods were truly neighborhoods back in the day and everyone knew who each kid belonged to so if a bad act was seen, it was reported to the offender’s parents. Things weren’t swept under the carpet and our parents were more proactive in discipline, trust, dignity and honor and if we crossed them, we endured our punishments.

My mother never believed in smacking or hitting a child, but she used other methods like talking and actually, I think her method made me and my sisters feel worse if we acted out badly. We didn’t want the lectures nor did we want to respond to what we should have done instead. We also hated the in-person apologies and of course the grounding or extra chores that came with our punishments.

So, once again parents, the buck stops with you!

On another note, since I’m sort of talking about The Today Show, there’s a rumor going around the Web that co-host Ann Curry will be replaced after only one year on the show. Today Show producers are scrambling because they’ve been losing the ratings game of late when they used to proudly hold the top spot for morning shows—each and every day.

In my opinion (because I do prefer The Today Show) Ann Curry has nothing to do with the failure. Where in the World is Matt Lauer is an annual segment they do on the show, but lately, a viewer could ask this daily. He’s appearances on the show seem intermittent so is he a co-host or not? At best he’s a part-time co-host leaving those not so popular to pick up the slack the best they can. Jeers to you Matt. Since you’ve been outspoken about wanting to stay on the show, appear on it more than once a week!

I don’t think firing Ann Curry will fix their problem. What will fix their problem is consistency. In any advertising medium or branding campaign, consistency is essential and if we “consistently” expect Matt Lauer to show up for his job and he doesn’t, that’s a turn off. So much so, I’ve turned off the show off on days he wasn’t there. I’m not saying the other hosts are bad, but with all this mish-mash of deciding who is doing what segment when we’ve all been used to “consistency” is what’s harming the show. Get it together NBC. Maybe Matt should go and you should keep Ann!

YouTube Video