Angry Laptop Dad and Other First World Problems

February 11, 2012 By Star Foster

Some NSFW language. You may be offended by what I’m about to write. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The internet is all agog over the latest bit of outrage: an angry father shoots his daughter’s laptop as a punishment for being a whiny, spoiled brat.

Wow, everyone is so upset that this young woman who has three stable parental figures in her life, a roof over her head, food to eat, a faith community to rely on, and an education might be scarred for life because her dad shot her laptop. Obviously she’s going to become a serial killer, a stripper or worse over this.

I wish my heart could bleed for this middle class white girl who’s had her laptop taken away in such a dramatic fashion. But her dad took something that was important to her, which she was using to trash her family, and made it permanently unusable. He didn’t make empty threats. He didn’t equate disrespecting her parents to a week without Facebook. He took the tool she used and made it unrepairable.

I remember what it was like to be a teen. It was rough, and admittedly there were times when I was a real nightmare. However, unlike this girl’s family, my family didn’t always give a crap. There were points in my life where I was subject to actual abuse: no heat in the winter, no food, no access to education, isolation from the outside world, physical, financial and emotional abuse. I even had to live in a women’s shelter for awhile. But I consider myself lucky, because compared to many kids I had it good.

Some kids are sexually abused. Some are sold into prostitution. Some are killed by their parents. Some commit suicide from bullying. Some kids are homeless. Some are beaten. Some are denied medical care. Some are kidnapped and sent to foreign schools to “cure the gay.” Some work in sweatshops.

No one has raped this girl. No one has hit her. No one has imprisoned her. No one has denied her an education. No one has left her homeless and abandoned on the streets. No one is pimping her out for money or drugs. No one is taking her hard earned money away from her. No one is denying clothing, food or shelter. No one is keeping her from her friends, school or faith community.

She’s not being threatened by violence. Anyone raised with guns knows there is a huge difference between firing at an object and firing at a person. Had the father used a hammer, dropped it off a cliff or building, thrown it in a fire, submerged it in a bucket of water or run it over in his car, it still wouldn’t be a threat of violence. My father once burned my wooden toys (not as punishment but because he decided I was too old for them and he was trying to clean up the yard) and although I was upset my toys were burned, it never once crossed my mind that it was a threat towards me or that my father might burn me.

Since we seem to forget so quickly what a privileged world we live in, let’s look at other kid’s like laptop girl:

Remember the ungrateful Christmas tweets?

Remember the girl who had a meltdown over getting the wrong color car?

The internet is a public forum. If you publicly behave like an ass on the internet, then you should be willing to take the public consequences. It’s a lesson we all have to learn. And the second lesson is that anything on the internet is one click away from being public. Privacy online is an illusion.

And if you want to get angry about actual abuse, then look at the video below. I warn you, it’s not for the faint of heart. And the abuser isn’t even sorry.

Filed Under: Pagan Tagged With: abuse, angry laptop dad, judge beats girl, Pagan, Paganism, ungrateful Christmas tweets

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About Star Foster

Polytheistic Wiccan initiated into the Ravenwood tradition, she has many opinions. Some of them are actually useful.

Philip Posehn

The kid is a spoiled brat. No question. Probably had help getting that way too, but that is neither here nor there. Taking away the laptop, and even destroying it are certainly reasonable responses. I suggest though that shooting the computer is symbolically a really bad message and example.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Lamyka-L/649965363 Lamyka L.

Original comment from my own FB:

Sometimes a very visceral point has to be made because it’s one thing to act like you’re cinderella–and another thing to proudly exclaim that you’d leave your parents high and dry in their old age. Some say the shooting of the laptop was childish on the father’s part, I don’t. It was his and his wife’s property to dispose of, in the manner in which they felt needed to be disposed of. Some would say donate the laptop BUT with a child this spoiled, she would probably then harbor feelings of hate to those receiving it and miss the point entirely to head straight to a pity party. Sad but we’ve all seen that before. She’s lucky she has parents who care enough and are willing enough to do something about their errant child.
Stef

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Child Protective Services needs to investigate this family pronto. This time it was a laptop; next time it may be the child that gets shot, or the whole family. Sane, stable people do not use a firearm to destroy property to prove a point. This was a dangerous, violent act.
- Tony Burton
  
  Get a grip on reality, Stef. Real abusers would not advertise themselves like this. This dad used an (admittedly) extreme but acceptable method to get a point across to his little spoiled princess. I, too, think that perhaps it could have been done more profitably, such as donating the laptop to a cause, or even selling it on Craigslist and giving the money to some cause. But the laptop belonged to him, and it’s his to do with as he wishes. If you are simply anti-gun, then fine–admit it and go on. But don’t even equate proving a point by shooting a laptop in the middle of an open field, endangering no one, with being insane and unstable. If so, the guys on Mythbusters need to be committed, and pronto.
kenneth

I’m a little surprised that a day or two after blogging about the culture of violence and intimidation in this country that you can’t connect the dots on something like this. Seriously, where do you think the dynamic of anonymous threats, domestic violence, rape, and the staggering rates of homicide in this country come from? How do you think we’ve become a country where torture, pre-emptive war and basically murder as a national team building exercise are ok?

That’s learned behavior and the lesson is that raw power is always right. The only sure way to respect is through intimidation. That’s the whole point of Iraq, and of the drone program. It has more to do with psychology than real concern over the enemy’s operational capacity. Violence is about sending the message :”You live (or not) at our pleasure. We can crush your world at a time and place of our choosing. Don’t ever forget that.”

Can anyone seriously tell me this father’s action didn’t come from the same place? I have no doubt he was fed up with the kid, and yeah, kids need boundaries and a good kick in the ass from time to time. This went way beyond that. This was just an exercise in raw power and dominance.

The point of parental authority is not (or should not be), to simply break a kid to your will. The goal of parenting, and tough love, should be to lead them to a place where they don’t need fear to keep them in line. They can internalize real respect for themselves and others and become their own masters, not compliant animals or slaves who can only be kept in check with external threats. This guy could very easily have accomplished this by simply taking the computer away.

He could have taught a deeper lesson by giving it to some kid or organization who had a true need for one and who would use it in a responsible manner. The only lesson this kid has to work with now is that those with the authority and power to destroy get their way, every time. The lesson most people will draw from that is not mutual respect, but to dedicate their lives to making sure they’re always on the right side of that power equation.

We are also fools if we buy into the notion that this was not at some level a calculated form of intimidation. Was it meant as a threat of violence toward her? Probably not. In all likelihood, the father would never consider harming her. But how do we know that? More importantly, how does she? When someone displays a capacity for extreme violence and proclaims it comes from a place of love and that it would never cross any real line of safety, what real assurances do you have? This sort of behavior may very well just be the actions of a good dad at the end of his rope. But it is also the sort of behavior found in essentially 100 percent of men who abuse and even murder their own wives and children. Those guys are big on weapons and on destroying property to make a point.

Will he have the capacity to keep things only “a little crazy” and confine violence only to objects if the argument escalates next time, or if some booze gets added to the mix? I don’t know, and I don’t think the parties involved know either, until it gets tested.

Further, as pagan people concerned with respect for the divine and temporal feminine, can we honestly be cool with men who feel the need to resort to this level of violence to relate to the women in their lives?

When all is said and done, I think it’s ok to sympathize with the dad’s frustration and the willingness to crack down on bad behavior. That said, if we celebrate or even excuse his methods, we ought not to be surprised when we have a culture of online death threats and misogyny.
- http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
  
  Had this been a son receiving the reprimand, would you have the same reaction? Had the mother, rather than the father, made the video would you have the same reaction?
  
  Again, he did not perform an action of violence against his daughter. He never threatened her with violence. In fact, a little internet searching shows that his daughter is comfortable with firearms and trained with them.
  
  He spoke about this action with the girl’s mother, and presumably her stepmother, before he took this action. Those are not the actions of a misogynist. Let’s not pull the sexism card so easily.
  - Lotusfae67
    
    I replied to this when I saw it on Twitter. I didn’t realize you were replying to someone on here. While this might have been slightly extreme, at least this is a parent who cares enough to follow through. He said in the video that he warned her months earlier about this kind of behavior. Plus this kid has a nice life that she doesn’t appreciate. It just makes me sad that teens today think they are entitled just because they exist.
  - kenneth
    
    It’s much more fundamental than whether it is misogyny or not. It is glorification of a ridiculous over-use of power to make a point. The fact that he spoke with the mother and/or stepmother likewise means nothing. A consensus on a foolish action does not convert it to a wise one. Plenty of cases or real and overt abuse are perpetuated by both parents acting in concert.
    Would I feel different if the gender of the parent and or kid were different? Not much. I don’t have a hell of a lot of respect for the judgement or character of any adult who needs that sort of power display to command respect, or obedience from an adolescent.
    I also don’t think any adult who considers a firearm an appropriate mechanism of discipline, even indirectly, to have their head on straight, and I’m not some anti-gun nut by any means at all. Setting an example that says it’s ok to wantonly destroy something with your gun, even if you’re “entitled” to do so, and especially done in a fit of rage, erodes the sense of respect and sobriety that parents should be imparting to children where gun use is concerned.
    The men who taught me firearm safety from the time I was 12 made that clear in no uncertain terms. A gun was a tool for hunting, target practice, or as a last resort for defense when you were in legitimate fear of your life. It was not something you used to make a point, or wield as a surrogate badge of manhood or horsing around or anything else. These were not sissy liberal men in any sense of the word. They were chain smoking old school war vets for the most part, many of whom probably had no reservation about taking a belt or a maple switch to their kids hides. But I know in my heart they would be appalled by this guy’s actions, if for no other reason than it shows a disrespect for the spirit, if not the law of gun safety. More to the point, any man who truly can’t figure out a less dramatic way to disable a computer or put it beyond a teen’s grasp isn’t bright enough to be trusted with a gun.
    The fact that this action was, in all likelihood, not abuse of any kind, does not diminish my discomfort with it. For one thing, what good did this display of power accomplish? It deprived this child of ONE avenue of access to the Internet where she was apparently publicly disrespecting her family. Does anyone seriously think she won’t have access some other way? More importantly, how did destruction of her computer teach her anything about empathy or lead her to any reasoning that might lead her to a change of heart and true respect?
    When has violence ever changed someone’s deepest convictions or led them to a better place? I would venture to say that more than half of the readers of this very forum who came to a pagan path at a young age had some fundamentalist Christian parent or pastor confiscate or burn their books and craft tools. Certainly all of us know someone that happened to. Those parents felt every bit as entitled to do so as this guy did with the computer. Did those acts of destruction lead any of you to embrace your parent’s position or faith or to give up your convictions?
    Even if this man’s actions are understandable and not abusive in any serious sense of the word, to embrace his action WILL feed the dynamic of intimidation and “power over” atmosphere that we say we abhor. Making this guy a folk hero for his lunacy is a very small contribution to that ugly ecosystem, in the grand scheme of things, but it is a contribution nonetheless. If we help sow and water the seeds of senseless violence by giving it our approval in even small ways, we have no grounds to complain when we reap its bitter harvest.
    - http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
      
      When you are a child you are subject to your parent’s rules. Which is why I advise young Pagans to wait until they are legal adults to seek teachers or accumulate books/tools.
    - GimliGirl
      
      Kenneth, thank you so much for your well thought out reply to this issue. I’ve been trying to process the video and my thoughts/reactions/feelings to this whole thing and you’ve done so beautifully. Thank you.
    - http://www.facebook.com/FoolishWitch Trace Ogaz
      
      I disagree with you. Anything can be used as a tool for intimidation. Would you have felt so strongly against this father’s methods if he had used a sledghammer? what about if he had shot the laptop with his daughter present and she was ok with it? Would that be any different?
      
      And as for a “boot up the kids butt”, at what age do you stop spanking a minor? I don’t feel comfortable at the thought of spanking teenagers. At that point in their lives they are pretty much young adults and to me its almost assault.
      
      Furthermore, I spanked my oldest when she was young and she turned out to be a responsible young adult (she is 18 now). My 11 yr old son however, I have been lax with, (no spanking) and unfortunately it shows. I have tried methods of grounding. it doesn’t work.
- LezlieKinyon
  
  No one here has mentioned that – today – to keep up in school, a computer is a necessity. One can place “parental controls” on that computer and supervise one’s youngster’s usage – as a *responsible* parent would. However- has anyone here ever met a teen who *didn’t* “dis” his or her family? Sometimes using fairly awful language? Now that we have the Internet, they just do it for a wider audience. It’s pretty sad, and it’ll come back later in their lives to haunt them (because nothing ever “goes away” on the Internet.) Reacting in a dramatic – and, ultimately violent – way drives even “privileged” young people away. IMHO: The gender issue is a side argument, I am a bit surprised that it’s even coming up. In the rebellious years of young womanhood, it’s called “individuation”. Everyone one of us made out parent’s lives a living hell it how our *parents* responded to our “whiny, obnoxious” attitude that creates (or, doesn’t create) a healthy -adult- friendship once puberty is finished. What needs to happen is that the adults in question – as adults – must behave in an adult manner. I see no *grown-ups* in this video.
  - http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
    
    If her dad is IT she likely has access to the internet. She just no longer has a machine of her own.
guesticle

Stef- shut up. CPS has much worse issues to investigate than a dad shooting a computer in a field with no other people around. He does not even come close to the profile of an abuser, if this is all you are basing your assumption on. I think you need to reconsider your stance before you open your mouth to say something about which you have no authority.
- http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
  
  You will be civil or you will be banned. Only warning.
kenneth

I posted something earlier that got held for moderation. Can you have a look at it and post it?
- http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
  
  Done. The filter catches weird stuff and I’m not always glued to a laptop.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=579027990 Allyson Szabo

I saw the video earlier today, and honestly… I thought, “bravo.” Now… I admit, I didn’t see the girl’s post, don’t know what her life is like. However, I suspect that if she did live a life of drudgery and horror, as she intimated on her FB post, that school officials would probably have noticed it by now. We’re talking about a child who has access to the internet with an assumption of privacy (which, imo, was stupid on her part), a room of her own to post from, and a laptop (not even a desktop!) for games and such. It seems pretty obvious to me (from my outside vantage point) that there was no violence involved in this man’s act.

For those who feel that it’s overkill, we know from her post and her father’s words that she went three months without FB because of similar actions. She had been warned several times. She had her computer taken away previously. Knowing that it was all going to be handed back to her on a silver platter after “doing her time” she was just fine with it, and learned nothing. What she learned from that video, from the punishment, is that now she has to pay her own way. She also has to pay back her father for the updates he did on her now-broken computer. She learned that she has, indeed, been *getting paid* to do things around the house, in the clothes she wears, the computer and phone and ipod and other toys she has, etc. And now she’s going to have to get those things on her own.

By the by, the shooting of the laptop tells a tale about just how much money dad has and she has had access to in the past. Those of us who struggle to provide these toys for our children would be more inclined to take it back and use it ourselves (I know that if we had a spare laptop around, it sure wouldn’t be given to a teen!).

I have huge issues with the attitudes put out by children and teens today. I have no problem saying that I think a large number of them could use a spanking (mind you, not an abusive belting like the last video *sigh*). It might teach them a bit of humility.
- Recursivenickname
  
  There are plenty of things school officials aren’t going to see. As an example, I had access to computer-based social networking (it wasn’t the internet when I was a teen) with an assumption of privacy, a room of my own to post from and a computer on which to do so (again, no laptops when I was a teen)… and yet no one — not my friends, not my teachers or school officials, not my extended family — knew about the abuse that was a regular part of my childhood.
  
  The fact that a whole lot of us are fed up with the attitude of entitlement in some of the young people of today and can understand the feelings that might make us want to take a laptop out in a field and put a round or two through it to teach a kid a lesson doesn’t mean we should be denying the potential that something untoward might be going on in that household. We’re not there, we don’t know. Also, what we have for follow-up is just the man who took the action some people are getting polarised over reporting what his daughter’s reactions have been.
  
  By the same token, just because this guy lost his cool and took a laptop out into a field and shot it does not necessarily mean that he *is* an abuser, however we might feel about guns, destruction and violent action. Again, we’re not there, we don’t know.
  - http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
    
    DFACS has visited the home twice since the incident and found no signs of abuse.
A.C. Fisher Aldag

The Bestest Kids in the Universe (mine) saw this video and absolutely loved it. Thought it was justified. Recommended that I watch it. These are a boy and girl, late teens / early twenties, who do have laptops of their own, that they use for work (yes, real work) and online school. Yes, and foolin’ around on FB and playing games, too. When they’re not working or doing household / farm chores. They also own guns, and have used them in self defense against rabid or attacking animals. TBK in the U were subjected to punishment when they were younger which Steph and Kenneth prolly would’ve disapproved of — but apparently it worked — since they’ve now grown a fairly decent work ethic. Hopefully Laptop Girl will have done the same when she gets older. Facilitated by the notion that Dad will use appropriate punishment… as will the Real World, when she gets out there in it.
sindarintech

This has to be one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen. The U.S. would be a much better place if MORE parents dealt with their kids with the same kind of straight-forward, no-nonsense way that this dad did. I hope she learned her lesson.
Zevenster

I understand Dad, and I agree
but I wouldn’t choose to use violence to expose my anger with my child. Just taking it away and not giving it back would have been signal enough – even selling it would be an option.
The signal given is valued, but chooting in front of your child ? I don’t think so.
Lol - driving your pick up over it would have been better hahaha
- http://www.facebook.com/FoolishWitch Trace Ogaz
  
  she wasn’t there when he shot it. Furthermore, he stated that he had grounded her several months before about the same thing and she still did it again. I think she will think twice about insulting her parents and others on the internet now.
http://ladyimbriumsholocron.wordpress.com/ ladyimbrium

He paid for the laptop, right? He can shoot it if he wants to. Bravo, Dad.
Soliwo

Well, I am Dutch, so I am against any private ownership of fire arms. I am definitely not shocked or even angry, but having a gun around can lead to accidents or can make arguments go really bad in an instant. If they didn’t have a gun in the house, this whole discussion would not even exist.
LezlieKinyon

You do realize that she interpreted his act of shooting her laptop as shooting her by proxy? He actually may be doing that in his mind. The situation is analogous to the young man I wittnessed breaking down in a class discussion about family systems because his mother burned his favorite stuffed bear over his refusal to obey her in in eating his dinner as she saw fit.

This family is dysfunctional on levels that no one here can see because we are not there. That says that there is much, much more to this tale. The fact that Dad also thought it appropriate to “go public” is also indicative of serious systemic problems in the family.
- http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
  
  Do you have a source to back that up?I haven’t seen any statements issued by Hannah Jordan.
  - LezlieKinyon
    
    Just about any review of the literature of family systems will give you all the data you need to make this inference. As a social science researcher with a deep background in human behavior… well… the video and subsequent “going public” behavior of the parents tells the tale. Clothed in new garments (the Internet – lap top shooting). This is an old, old, story in family counseling: teen “acting out”/parents committing a “by proxy” violent act against something valuable to the teen/ = boundary/control/power issues. Sad to say. Tragic really. I’m sure everyone here has seen it played out again and again within families they know and all sorts of inanimate objects from stuffed toys to cars to TVs to clothing (and, even living things, like pets or a wild creature a child has an attachment to). The consequences are life-long.
    - http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
      
      I think it’s not helpful to project our feelings onto someone else without asking how they feel. It’s not just rude, but arrogant.
      - LezlieKinyon
        
        Let me see if I can explain this further (and, why it is not “arrogant”):
        I have worked with women and children – physically and emotionally abused ones. My interpretation of this video is that this child may have all sorts of “things” – what she does not have are*parents*. This analyses occurs on 2 levels:
        1. the act of attempting control by committing a violent act (i see the following “gun” comments – it’s actually irrelevant to the discussion, he could have run over it with at ruck – burned all her clothing- taken away her college fund – or some other such action0n – it does not matter.)
        
        and 2. The instrument of this father’s ire: a laptop computer. I will ask you: what do you think is on this laptop? He may have bought it, but *every single item on it* belongs to his daughter.
        When you give a computer to a person and empower that person to use it, you do a special and an amazing thing: a gift of freedom.
        What would a young girl keep on her laptop? (which, hopefully, she has backed up) OK – let’s speculate:
        music library (most certainly so)
        
        a diary
        homework
        her social network (important in rural communities)
        email letters from friends & relatives (or a boy she likes)
        photos
        maybe a foray into writing or art or poetry — the Gods know – HTML programming…
        In short: a record of her dreams, ambitions, her young life.
        
        What did her father destroy by shooting her laptop?
        In short: her world.
        What did he say by doing that (and by bring $$ into the argument): “I own your world and can take it away at any time if you do not become the person I choose you to be.”
        
        Tell me – when is it OK to violate another person in this way?
        
        When – why and how is it “arrogant and rude” for those of us who work and research human behavior to point out when this violation occurs?
        
        What and how would you sound if someone did that to you as a teen? (Or, now?) Take your record or CD library, your journals, your photos and letters and put them in a dumpster never to be found again? How is this action even vaguely to be called “parenting”?
      - http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
        
        My mother took my journals and attempted to monitor my online activity. I hated it. I was living under her roof. When I was out from under her roof I had more freedom. That’s how life works.
        
        It’s always rude to speak for someone you have not spoken to and don’t know. It’s the equivalent of those specialists in tabloids speculating on whether or not someone they’ve never treated has had plastic surgery.
        
        You can say “generally in situations like this” but you specifically spoke for this girl. You projected onto her. You stated her emotional state as a fact without any evidence to back it up.
      - LezlieKinyon
        
        No- I spoke to the situation and specifically stated that the *family* had deeper issues than what was presented here.
        
        My mother never did anything like that. Ever. Even in the tumultuous era when I cam of age, I don’t think it would have occurred to her to read my diary or eavesdrop. She did – of course! -monitor who I “hung out” with, grilled my boyfriends (even in college), and supervised my activities.
        
        I am sad that you must carry that with you – let me ask you (you don’t need to answer, as this is a public forum) do you trust her, now?
        
        I did not do that to my daughter either. She is an adult, and I can honestly say that All Three of us have a deep and lasting love and acceptance of one another today. And that is entirely due to the atmosphere of respect, love, and dignity that my mother taught me as a child and I passed on to mine. We *listen* to each other and are respectful of each others’ privacy, creative works, and lives. I am now in the position where I must help my mother make some hard decisions about her life, and it will be done with respect and *dignity*. My brother is severely autistic and life was not easy. She was also *single* raising us and no one can say that she didn’t do a good job. Even with all of that, I never did any of the things that got my contemporaries into trouble – and – when I was faced with single parenthood, neither did my daughter. I know – for sure – that when you push a teen (especially a girl) they push back. the harder you push, the harder they push back.
      - http://www.patheos.com/ Star Foster
        
        ”You do realize that she interpreted his act of shooting her laptop as shooting her by proxy? ”
        
        Sounds pretty damn specific.
        
        No, I don’t trust my mother, but not because she was trying to discover what I was up to. I can’t blame her for attempting to parent me. It was one of the few times she took an active interest in who I actually was.
        
        You should stop trying to treat and analyze people you have never met.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000451145781 MrsBs Confessions
  
  According to the family’s facebook page, she did not take it as any such thing. She actually offered to let him shoot her iPhone as well, so that it could be auctioned off on ebay and the money be put towards her college fund.
  - LezlieKinyon
    
    I doubt that any of the parties in question had a truly *conscious* reaction to the act – or – what led to it. That’s the problem with families, it takes all of them to create a situation. Usually over years and years.
http://ladyimbriumsholocron.wordpress.com/ ladyimbrium

Seems to me that the biggest issue is not that the father chose to remove his daughter’s vehicle for spoiled obnoxious vitriol, but that he used a (whispers because it’s a dirty word) GUN.
I know it makes me a study in contradiction (big surprise) but I’m a gun owner. Not just a gun owner, I’m a lobby-all-my-representatives-to-become-a-shall-issue-state gun owner. I hate to break it to some folks here, but trust me when I say that some of the ugliest, messiest, most brutal acts of violence I’ve ever seen did not involve guns. Guns are noisy and intimidating, but frankly I’ve not noticed that they change the outcome much. True, the father in this situation could just as easily have run the laptop over with a vehicle, but that would have been harder to film. I personally might have chosen to hit the laptop with a sledgehammer or an axe, since both of those tools are just as readily available to me as a gun and are less likely to panic the neighbors. But then again we’d be listening to how he’s taking a sledgehammer or axe to her by proxy. He made it very clear that previous less dramatic measures didn’t work, which makes this a pretty logical escalation of force, to use my own familiar terminology. Sorry, guys, but I just don’t buy the idea that this family is in any way dysfunctional. Now, if new evidence comes to light I will take it into consideration.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000451145781 MrsBs Confessions

As the parent of three teenagers, I could not agree with you more, Star. This man showed his daughter not only that she will not get away with repeat offenses, but that he keeps his word. He also followed up with a report that she took this punishment well (after the initial anger over loosing her laptop) and that they are mending the hurt of this on both sides.

She was not damaged, she didn’t feel abused, both the police and child protective services got calls and the family was completely investigated and cleared.

This was a big to do over a family issue that proved a point and the family has moved on. The man turned down numerous TV and radio opportunities for interviews and TV reality programs. He didn’t do this to get attention, he did it to help his daughter develop into a decent human being, because he loves her.
A.C. Fisher Aldag

Wonder if all the child care professionals and social workers and others with letters behind their names, who are bemoaning a parent taking control, taking charge, have ever encountered children who are rude, horrid, abuse other kids, abuse animals, and destroy property?

I wonder if they’ve ever seen kids who act like total barbarians, because their parents over-indulge them, allow them to get away with bad behavior, teach them that they’re more important than other children and adults, and don’t have to respect authority?

Have they ever encountered parents who buy their kids new property, every time the kid has a temper fit and destroys their own or others’ property? Have they ever run into kids who not only forget to say “please and thank you”, but also act out whenever they’re challenged by an adult authority figure, a teacher or police officer making a reasonable request, and find out they have parents who attempt to buy or bully their way out of socially-valued expectations? Ever seen kids who throw a fit when they lose at a game or competition, whose parents scream at the coach or caregiver?

I have. I’ve also seen some who turn into spoiled, rude, horrid, abusive adults, because they were over-indulged all during their childhoods. I’ve seen them act very surprised when they find out there are real-life consequences — like losing a job, prison, or getting the crap beat out of them by people they’ve insulted.

That’s why I think parents taking charge, enforcing “power over” is a GOOD thing.
Zevenster

Hey People! Could we get out of the “it is BLACK” “NO, it is WHITE” zone for a minute or two and start looking at all the lovely shades of grey??? I am done with this discussion, really.

Angry Laptop Dad and Other First World Problems

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