Facebook parenting for the troubled teen

[obfuscator]

It may be excessive, but it certainly got the point across. Nice to see not all parents are afraid to discipline their children.

[sees_all1]

Guy shoots his own laptop. Doesn't matter the reason, he's perfectly legal.

[RpgGamer]

I love that he posted it on her facebook wall. He was a little rough, sure, but you can tell this dude didn't have much of a childhood and if I were him I'd be just that pissed too. So yeah, I support his parenting. Kinda wish more parents were like that haha

[Ember]

.

[stevepole]

I believe his actions were justified and in the long run, his daughter will hopefully look back and see the lesson her father is trying to teach her.

[Assume Nothing]

Good intention doesn't mean its a good action/decision.

[highlanders]

To make a parenthesis, at school there were many teachers that were harsh. They yelled, threatened and wanted things done their way. During class, they would often start ranting about how inferior or ignorant we were compared to them. Just total nonsense. Everyone hated them, and many students would go out of their way just to create problems in their class. Many of these teachers ended up going in burnout and blaming the students for it. In fact their own behaviour was what causing the problems in the first place.

 

Then there was a minority of teachers that were quite different. They respected the students, were pleasant to us, made conversation to us and allowed us to use their first names. Basically they treated us like people. In return the students respected and loved them and there were very few interruptions or problems during class. Which isn't to say that these teachers let us do whatever we wanted, however when problems arose they were handled calmly and sometimes even skilfully defused with humour. None of them went into burnout, they just enjoyed their jobs.

 

I feel that parenting works similarly. If you act like a tyrant, look down on your children, use violence and yelling to get points across, it's a given your children will resent you and be vindictive. If you treat your children like people, respect them, pay attention to what they think and how they feel about things, take in account their input and react calmly in difficult situations, they are much more likely to have good behaviour.

 

Few children are inherently bad. There's no shortage of bad parenting however. There seems to be a disturbingly large amount of parents that believe that children are just born to follow their orders blindly. The way I see it, being a parent means you're in charge of guiding a soul through life on earth until they are able to stand on their own. It makes you a mentor, not an army general.

[Assume Nothing]

I can't say I disagree with that.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I think another issue is the original punishment.

 

I'm not sure what a three-month grounding achieves that a two-week grounding doesn't already accomplish. The point's been made. I'm not entirely convinced bad mouthing someone on Facebook (the term 'slander' is very disingenuous) is a crime proportionate to that punishment either. She's clearly done wrong, but that video is evidence that his original punishment was 1) an overreaction, and 2) completely ineffective.

 

So I'm not sure how anyone can call this good parenting because it clearly hasn't worked. She responded to despotic parenting by doing the same offence again.

[Kimberly]

I'm not sure what a three-month grounding achieves that a two-week grounding doesn't already accomplish. The point's been made.

 

I don't think they enforce the same thing. Duration of grounding is supposed to match the severity of what you did. During the bus ride home when I was a kid, after months of being teased and treated like dirt, I verbally harassed a fellow student until she cried. When her best friend told my mother of this, I was grounded for a week. When I explained what was going on, the punishment was increased to 2 months and no electronics. I constantly remembered why I couldn't play my gameboy - a 12yr old without pokemon? a crime against humanity - and the lecture that came along with it. I don't know if I would have given two you-know-what's about the lecture if it didn't come with the lengthy timeframe along with it. It's just not as black-and-white as people make it to be when it comes to punishments.

 

A different child in my situation could have reacted entirely different, though. Say, a child like we're imagining from the video: well-off, needs repeated disciplining, impetuous. A grounding probably wouldn't have re-enforced the lesson that it needed, and something different would have had to be tried.

[Assume Nothing]

I don't believe that disciplinary action works beyond the age of 13. What incentive does the girl have to behave in an acceptable way, beyond avoiding punishment (which isn't really an incentive)?

[Ginger_Warrior]

I've made the conscious decision to ignore the above poster. I haven't enough hours to go around in never-ending circles.

 

I don't think they enforce the same thing. Duration of grounding is supposed to match the severity of what you did. During the bus ride home when I was a kid, after months of being teased and treated like dirt, I verbally harassed a fellow student until she cried. When her best friend told my mother of this, I was grounded for a week. When I explained what was going on, the punishment was increased to 2 months and no electronics. I constantly remembered why I couldn't play my gameboy - a 12yr old without pokemon? a crime against humanity - and the lecture that came along with it. I don't know if I would have given two you-know-what's about the lecture if it didn't come with the lengthy timeframe along with it. It's just not as black-and-white as people make it to be when it comes to punishments.

Did that only happen once? But it worked, right?

 

I mean, of course every child's different, but from the video, it sounds like this guy tried a massive grounding once, discovered it hadn't worked, gave the same punishment again ('coz it'll work this time, right?), and blew the situation completely out of proportion by popping eight bullets into her laptop, as if that has any relevence to the behaviour he wants from her in future. Could've confiscated the laptop, could've taken its cost out of her allowance, could've given it to a charity ("someone more appreciative"). Why completely destroy it in a very petulant, [bleep]-for-tat way, whilst complaining that your daughter is being petulant on Facebook?

 

That's the part I don't get. It doesn't add up from a correctional point of view.

[Flyingjj]

I like to think of this as teaching that there are consequences to your actions. If I could afford it, I'd have done the same thing.

 

One thing I think really gets people on this is that he used a gun. In a lot of places, using a gun is some "mighty act" done only by police and crazy people. Around where he's from, as well as around here, that's just not the case. Guns are used for recreation. I hunt, my family hunts, and when we're out hunting, we're not opposed to some recreational shooting of various objects.

 

Also, I think he provides not only an adequate punishment, but compliments it with an incentive: "You can have a new laptop, but you're going to earn it this time."

 

I really respect this guy. Kids often end up far too spoiled these days; I know this first hand from my own siblings who are much younger than me.

 

Yes, this is a shocking act, but I think it makes its point quite elegantly.

[Ginger_Warrior]

You can like it all you want, his attempts thus far haven't worked. Forget the gun politics, he could've put it on a bonfire or chucked it into a river and it wouldn't make a difference, that's the real problem.

[sees_all1]

You can like it all you want, his attempts thus far haven't worked. Forget the gun politics, he could've put it on a bonfire or chucked it into a river and it wouldn't make a difference, that's the real problem.

His parenting attempts haven't worked, so he's done something radically different in hopes of getting results.

When your kid is out of control, tough love works.

 

[obfuscator]

You can like it all you want, his attempts thus far haven't worked. Forget the gun politics, he could've put it on a bonfire or chucked it into a river and it wouldn't make a difference, that's the real problem.

How do you know it hasn't made a difference? You aren't a part of the family...

[Assume Nothing]

It's sufficient, but unnecessary. For the sake of argument - maybe you're right, it may have worked for that specific incident. Does that justify it? It doesn't, because the most likely outcome doesn't suggest that the girl would learn from it. It's merely a form of retribution.

 

Good parenting entails providing the correct incentive to behave, and to develop an understanding of the implications of misbehaving or disobedience. A punishment, such as grounding, is likely to be ineffective after a certain age because they start developing critical thinking skills to question authority.

 

I don't support the use of guns on laptops for the same reason I don't support corporal punishment - it's unlikely to be effective, and if it is effective, it's effective for all the wrong reasons (fear, anguish, etc.) It's pretty universally accepted that growing up in a loving, nurturing family would improve their life chances - why can't the parents in this scenario be less emotional, and act on reason? What benefit does shooting a computer do, beyond making an unnecessary point that did not necessitate the use of a firearm on a laptop?

 

It unfairly compromises any of the work she may have had on the computer too. What's worse is the parents having the audacity to upload it onto YouTube. They may have received unnecessary media attention that does little but distract them from their true objective - to teach the girl a lesson. Parents ought to learn from this - shooting laptops because your child ranted on Facebook isn't exactly a wise decision.

[Kimberly]

Why completely destroy it in a very petulant, [bleep]-for-tat way, whilst complaining that your daughter is being petulant on Facebook?

 

If someone destroyed something so important to me in front of all my friend, I think that would leave a stronger impression on me than giving it away. And since learning from and remembering the lessons she's gone through, I can see why he thought that it was important to do something to shock her and take her out of her normal routine to break the bad behavior.

[stevepole]

instead of shooting the laptop, what would you have done Assume?

[Assume Nothing]

I wouldn't touch the laptop at all. I'm not sure what I would have done, but I know what I wouldn't have done. It's one of the difficulties in good parenting. I shall research it later.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Poor response.

[Ezee]

I wouldn't touch the laptop at all. I'm not sure what I would have done, but I know what I wouldn't have done. It's one of the difficulties in good parenting. I shall research it later.

 

How can you research something that you would do?

[Assume Nothing]

I wouldn't. I would research what I should do, and base what I would do on that.

[Ezee]

Ohh, that makes much more sense now.

[Giordano]

I wouldn't. I would research what I should do, and base what I would do on that.

So as a parent, you'll put your kid on standby as you try and Google a parenting guide?

 

"Hey lil' sis, lets take advantage of Dad's slow responses and steal the cookie jar!"