Facebook Parenting Youtube video

[hobbitkniver]

"Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl1ujzRidmU&feature=g-logo&context=G21474ceFOAAAAAAABAA)

So a man makes a youtube video in which he sits down in chair and reads a rude post by his teenage daughter. It's rated pretty highly and had about 14 million views when I saw it. Everyone thinks this guy is so freaking hilarious because he makes fun of his daughter on the internet. Am I the only one who thinks this is at least slightly cruel? There is no parenting problem that can be fixed by embarrassing your child. First of all, he hacked into his daughter's profile. I consider that intrusive and inappropriate but I accept other opinions on that one. At then end, he pulls out a handgun and shoots her laptop repeatedly while saying that she is going to pay for the bullets. Obviously, this girl needs a talking to and maybe some discipline, but this is certainly not the correct way of doing it.

I'm interested in hearing some other opinions and frankly, people on youtube are too stupid to argue with.

[pffh]

Well he had already told her that if she posted like that again he would shoot her laptop and she did so he did.

[hobbitkniver]

Well he had already told her that if she posted like that again he would shoot her laptop and she did so he did.

I think children learn from their parents. Do you really want your children to thing its correct to vent by shooting things?

I guess that he was partly justified, but he seemed more vengeful than anything else.

[Partof1]

It's definitely harsh, but it seems justified to me, and this is coming from an internet addicted teen. It's gonna get the message across that she can't act like she's entitled to everything

[MCerberus]

I get the feeling that a ton of the reaction to this stems from the fact that we don't know anything about the parent/child relationship other than this.

[bluewind95]

I saw that one. Frankly, all the whining about how they treat her like a slave and all is just that: whining. But the part where she says that when her parents are old and they need her, she won't be there was just horrible and cruel and plain low and disgusting. I'd rank it nastier than what he did to her.

[Dienekes]

This dude is my hero.

[Raistlin1040]

Teenagers can be jerks. I bet when this guy was a teenager, he was a jerk to his parents too. Sure, that may have been in the 60s or 70s and he might have been smacked for it, but that doesn't make disproportionate punishment okay. Grounding her? Absolutely. Taking away her laptop or her camera or blocking Facebook from her computer? Fine. Making a video on the internet designed to humiliate her and then destroying her property? Not okay.

Everyone I know has said "I hate my parents" at least once. A lot of people whine about chores. These are normal behaviors. Yes, teenagers should be disciplined if they do something wrong. Yes, this girl was being a bitch to her family. But really, if you simplify the idea down, the message is "if you say something I don't like, I'll break your stuff and humiliate you". That isn't parenting. Parenting is sitting your kid down and having a real conversation with them, not responding to an immature internet post with an immature internet video. If he hacked her account, he should have deleted the post, changed her password, and then talked with her about what is and is not appropriate. Shooting her laptop and uploading a video designed to humiliate her just sends the message that he has power and she doesn't and he can throw it around whenever he wants, however he wants.

I have no doubt that some punishment was needed here, but I think public humiliation and destruction of property is WAY over the line.

[Tiki Snakes]

So, without watching the vid let me get this straight; She's posted somewhere about how her parents are horrible, going so far as to say that when they are old she will not be there to help them?

In return, the Dad has recorded a video mocking her, uploaded it to the internet, and then shot her laptop repeatedly?

Without knowing them, or any more of the details, it's hard to say for sure she wasn't bang on the money in the first place.

[Corvus]

If it wasn't staged then the whole thing is totally awesome.

Kids today are the biggest bunch of whining ingrates, and worse are those that 'empower' them, those that have a vested interest in seeing them remain undisciplined.

Frankly if more parents acted this way (and note he did it without any physical discipline to her) there'd be a lot less trouble.

[Andre]

Why didn't he take his hat off in the first place? He reminded me of the texan billionaire in the Simpsons going 1-2-3-4! YEEHAW!.

[Seerow]

Important things to remember:

1) She's had this problem before. The last time, they grounded her for a few months, and told her if it happened again he'd put a bullet through the laptop. At that point, after she did it again, his choices were to either show his threats had no meaning and she could walk all over him, or put a bullet through the laptop.

2) The guy didn't expect the video to go viral. He put it on youtube because it's the easiest place to upload to, then posted it to his daughter's facebook wall. The fact that it went ballistic past that isn't something he really could have anticipated. From what I read of the dad's facebook wall, and his reactions since, he has some regrets about the exact nature of how he handled it, but stands by the action as a whole regardless. The guy seems like a pretty okay dude, and in the last couple days since the video went viral, CPS and the police have both shown up at his house and came to the same conclusion. Anyone else trying to judge him or how he handles his daughter can butt out.

3) The girl really was being a whiny ****. Seriously. She complains about having to pour coffee for her dad at least 3 times in that post, like it is the most miserable thing in the world. And her chores which boil down to "pick up after yourself, sweep the floor, and do the dishes". Forcing her to do some real work to earn her laptop back might just make her realize how easy she had it, and make her appreciate it that much more. It's not like he's doing this and then telling her she can't ever leave the house again or do anything at all. He's encouraging her to find a job and buy the things she wants for herself. This is something a lot of kids could stand to learn at a much earlier age than they tend to.

[Zevox]

So, without watching the vid let me get this straight; She's posted somewhere about how her parents are horrible, going so far as to say that when they are old she will not be there to help them?

In return, the Dad has recorded a video mocking her, uploaded it to the internet, and then shot her laptop repeatedly?

Without knowing them, or any more of the details, it's hard to say for sure she wasn't bang on the money in the first place.
Yeah, that's definitely my initial reaction to reading this thread. No matter how much of a bitch a kid may be, public humiliation and destruction of her property - especially something as expensive as a laptop - is definitely over any line between reasonable punishment and downright cruelty. The latter is probably even a crime.

Zevox

[Traab]

Meh, shooting the computer was silly, but i consider the video itself to be a proportional response. She wants to embarrass and attack her parents on the internet? Well guess what princess, they can do that too. Maybe now that you cant waste your time angsting about how your mean old parents make you do chores on facebook all day, you can go out and get a freaking job. Only down side is, how will she get to see the video if her computer has bullet holes in it? :smalltongue:

[Seerow]

Yeah, that's definitely my initial reaction to reading this thread. No matter how much of a bitch a kid may be, public humiliation and destruction of her property - especially something as expensive as a laptop - is definitely over any line between reasonable punishment and downright cruelty. The latter is probably even a crime.

Zevox

The laptop was one he bought. Good luck proving it was legally owned by her as opposed to owned by him and him letting her use it.

[Cespenar]

The man was having pretty fair points overall, right until he pulled a gorram .45 and emptied it on the laptop. Which, ironically, explained the whole situation better than him reading the message and commenting on it.

[Dienekes]

Yeah, that's definitely my initial reaction to reading this thread. No matter how much of a bitch a kid may be, public humiliation and destruction of her property - especially something as expensive as a laptop - is definitely over any line between reasonable punishment and downright cruelty. The latter is probably even a crime.


Wouldn't it be his property, going by property laws? She's I believe 15-16.

In any case my dad threw out my entire comic collection when I did something similar. It's disciplining no more, no less.

Hell he took away her laptop. I never even knew a kid who had a laptop before college.

Also, as a side note. When will kids learn that posting things on the "World Wide Web" means that your parents or other important folks have a very good chance of seeing what you were up to? Dumb kids.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I still have yet to understand what she said that was so bad. Is complaining about your parents in what you believe to be a private setting so bad? Really. I mean, maybe things are different in the US south. Maybe it's just me being raised by really chill parents. Maybe I'm just siding with her because I'm of an age (roughly) with her.

But I just don't see where she went wrong. She was venting emotions. Free speech. She's allowed to say what she wishes, as long as it ain't hate speech, and hate speech that wasn't.

[Merellis]

Think of it more of a combination that at her age he was working and doing a lot more things, and she's complaining about emptying dishwashers, sweeping the kitchen, and doing her own laundry. Plus threatening to just leave them if they get old and disabled.

Add in that she's done this before and was grounded for over a month with the threat of a bullet in the laptop next time.

Yes, the father went over the top with the gun, should have just taken it away or sold it.

But it certainly is going to get the point across, and maybe she'll go and get a job.

Still laughing at the "and one from your mother" part.

[Seerow]

I still have yet to understand what she said that was so bad. Is complaining about your parents in what you believe to be a private setting so bad? Really. I mean, maybe things are different in the US south. Maybe it's just me being raised by really chill parents. Maybe I'm just siding with her because I'm of an age (roughly) with her.

But I just don't see where she went wrong. She was venting emotions. Free speech. She's allowed to say what she wishes, as long as it ain't hate speech, and hate speech that wasn't.

So where you come from you aren't expected to have common decency, or show respect towards your parents? And no, posting on facebook is not in a private setting. The only thing private about it was she had blocked her parents accounts from seeing it (As an aside, in the end she got caught because apparently their dog has a facebook page that she didn't think to block as well. Funny little tid-bit).

She went wrong when she decided to not take the previous threats seriously and continue to air her issues on the internet. The best part is that the video he made is a perfect example to her of how something you post on facebook to friends and family can quickly explode to far beyond that, and how you need to be careful about what you say there.



Still laughing at the "and one from your mother" part.

Apparently right before making the video he called the mother and asked her "Please convince me to not put a bullet through her laptop", then after reading the message to her his wife actually said "Put one through it for me too".

[Tiki Snakes]

Where I come from, parents are expected to discipline their children without the use of fire-arms. :smallwink:

Also, he's capable of weedling out a post that was deliberately hidden from him, but we're expected to believe that he's not net savvy enough to realise that a lot of Youtubers could potentially see the video he uploaded (and specifically didn't mark as private)?

[hobbitkniver]

If it wasn't staged then the whole thing is totally awesome.

Kids today are the biggest bunch of whining ingrates, and worse are those that 'empower' them, those that have a vested interest in seeing them remain undisciplined.

Frankly if more parents acted this way (and note he did it without any physical discipline to her) there'd be a lot less trouble.

I think if parents were as bad as most people wish they would be, then the kids would all grow up into even worse parents. Kids will be kids, have some damn compassion and stop treating them like they should have all the wisdom and experience of an adult.

Meh, shooting the computer was silly, but i consider the video itself to be a proportional response. She wants to embarrass and attack her parents on the internet? Well guess what princess, they can do that too. Maybe now that you cant waste your time angsting about how your mean old parents make you do chores on facebook all day, you can go out and get a freaking job. Only down side is, how will she get to see the video if her computer has bullet holes in it? :smalltongue:
Complaining to your friends is different than showing millions of people on Youtube how terrible your child is.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I'm judging purely on the information given to me. I don't know how she actually addressed her parents or anything. But if you're not allowed to complain to your friends about your parents, I don't know what. Notably, she wasn't complaining about having to clean her OWN stuff, but having to clean her PARENTS stuff.

The way her dad was going on about it, it was as if she was personally insulting him, going "MY DAD IS SUCH A POOPY-HEAD". I was going through her letter going "Ok, and? When is she going to get to the rude bit..." And he's starting to freak out.

Maybe in America, you're not expected to criticize your parents at ALL. But I don't think that's right. You should be able to complain in private. And she did try to make her Facebook private from certain people. Whether she succeeded or not is irrelevant.

Look at it from her perspective. She's stuck with these people for the next several years of her life, with no way of getting out of their TOTAL control. She tries to find somewhere where she can vent her frustration at what she sees as being legitimately unfair. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, not only does she get the laptop which she thought was going to be fixed, with FRICKIN BULLET HOLES IN THEM I AM SO FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW IT IS NOT COOL TO SHOOT THINGS SHOOTINGS THINGS IS NOT GOOD SHOOTING THINGS IS NOT HOW YOU FREAKING DISCIPLINE PEOPLE YOU SICK FREAKS

TRIGGER HAPPY FREAKS
UUUUUGH

oh, and on top of that, now she's shamed across the ENTIRE INTERNET.

Because she needed somewhere to vent her frustrations. Whether those frustrations were justified is irrelevant, they were her legitimate frustrations.

also.
GUNS. WHY THE FREAKING GUNS. NOT. FREAKING. COOL.

[Seerow]

Complaining to your friends is different than showing millions of people on Youtube how terrible your child is.


He posted straight to her facebook wall, same place where she made her post. It's not like he went out advertising the video on a dozen different sites. He posted in the exact same place she posted. The fact that his video went crazy and is showing up everywhere just shows exactly what could have potentially happened with her own post. The internet is a very fickle place and silly things can be spread further than you would expect.

[Maxios]

I would've done the same thing. Except I don't own a firearm, so I probably would've just threw the laptop in a lake. The daughter had no right to post that on Facebook. I mean come on, there was no reason for her to rant and rave just because she had some chores. Plus, the dad spent the entire day before upgrading the laptop.

[Seerow]

I'm judging purely on the information given to me. I don't know how she actually addressed her parents or anything. But if you're not allowed to complain to your friends about your parents, I don't know what. Notably, she wasn't complaining about having to clean her OWN stuff, but having to clean her PARENTS stuff.

*snip*

Seriously, you've already said you're about the same age she is. Hardly appropriate to be judging someones parenting.

You make a point about her trying to make the issue private. I repeat, he made exactly as much attempt to make his response private as she made to make her post private. If she really wanted to vent, she could have complained to friends in person, or even over the phone. Written in a journal. Whatever. She took it to a public forum and disrespected her father, mother, step mother, and a family friend, all in one go, and was pretty nasty about it.

As to complaining about having to clean her parents stuff, you'll note in his response he points out that the extent of cleaning her parents stuff is loading a dishwasher, and sweeping the floor. She doesn't even need to do their laundry, just her own. She has a pretty short list of chores, and gets asked to do something else occasionally (such as pouring coffee, which she apparently hates more than everything else combined. I find it particularly hilarious that since this posting she received a job offer from a coffee house).

Also, seriously, the way some people are going on about the gun, I would almost think it was the girl who got shot, not an inanimate object that he owned. "What's that, you shot that tin can? You violent irresponsible monster!"

[ric0]

This guy was more than justified in what he did, he held up his side of the bargin.

Today people think they can do what they like and not suffer any ill effects at all, bravo sir, bravo.

[Tiki Snakes]

Seriously, you've already said you're about the same age she is. Hardly appropriate to be judging someones parenting.

You make a point about her trying to make the issue private. I repeat, he made exactly as much attempt to make his response private as she made to make her post private. If she really wanted to vent, she could have complained to friends in person, or even over the phone. Written in a journal. Whatever. She took it to a public forum and disrespected her father, mother, step mother, and a family friend, all in one go, and was pretty nasty about it.

As to complaining about having to clean her parents stuff, you'll note in his response he points out that the extent of cleaning her parents stuff is loading a dishwasher, and sweeping the floor. She doesn't even need to do their laundry, just her own. She has a pretty short list of chores, and gets asked to do something else occasionally (such as pouring coffee, which she apparently hates more than everything else combined. I find it particularly hilarious that since this posting she received a job offer from a coffee house).

Also, seriously, the way some people are going on about the gun, I would almost think it was the girl who got shot, not an inanimate object that he owned. "What's that, you shot that tin can? You violent irresponsible monster!"

Youtube has an option to keep files private, this would be analogous to making a post visible to friends only on facebook. Father did not select this option. Additionally, he did fill in several tags, whose only purpose (as is explained on the site if I remember from the one time I uploaded something) is to make it easier for other people to find your video.

He may not have expected it to become the next big thing, but I'm not convinced that it wasn't being put out there for public consumption.

Facebook may be so full of security holes as to be a joke, but putting a friends-only post up on it hardly counts as a Public Forum.

[Psyren]

Whether or not she deserved it, this was a terrible idea. That video (and parodies thereof) will be around forever, far longer than any father/daughter spat ought to last.

And teenage girls get mad over trivialities and vent on Facebook all the time. The parent's job is to parent, not to sink to their level and air the family's dirty laundry in public. Yeah, she vowed never to be there when they got old and gray. I told my mother I hated her once when I was a child and we had a fight. It's called hyperbole, and kids outgrow it. At least, they're supposed to. But now, with this lasting forever, who knows what kind of permanent damage has been done to their familial relationship?

[KillianHawkeye]

I still have yet to understand what she said that was so bad. Is complaining about your parents in what you believe to be a private setting so bad? Really. I mean, maybe things are different in the US south. Maybe it's just me being raised by really chill parents. Maybe I'm just siding with her because I'm of an age (roughly) with her.

But I just don't see where she went wrong. She was venting emotions. Free speech. She's allowed to say what she wishes, as long as it ain't hate speech, and hate speech that wasn't.

You seem to be confused on the nature of free speech. It's not "I can say whatever I want with no consequences from anybody," it's "I can say whatever I want and with no consequences from the government." Other people still have the right to do or say something in response, which is why most people practice the concept of self-censorship. Just because you CAN say something doesn't mean that you SHOULD say it.

[Brother Oni]

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, not only does she get the laptop which she thought was going to be fixed, with FRICKIN BULLET HOLES IN THEM I AM SO FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW IT IS NOT COOL TO SHOOT THINGS SHOOTINGS THINGS IS NOT GOOD SHOOTING THINGS IS NOT HOW YOU FREAKING DISCIPLINE PEOPLE YOU SICK FREAKS.

He spent 6 hours and 130USD fixing the laptop the day before. She then takes the laptop and posts that on her Facebook page (bear in mind that he could have self-censored it during the reading).
Is it any wonder that he got angry?

While I agree with the discipline, I regard shooting the laptop as wasteful, although understandable - I've certainly been that angry before and the thought of using physical force would have certainly crossed my mind.



Facebook may be so full of security holes as to be a joke, but putting a friends-only post up on it hardly counts as a Public Forum.

I don't use Facebook, but it was explained to me that even if you set your wall to 'friends only', it doesn't mean that other people's settings are the same, so her post could have quite easily have done the rounds with a simple copy-paste.

Bear in mind that this is apparently the second time that she's done this - the first time netted her a 3 month grounding and a warning never to do it again or else things would be worse.

The father kept his word, something that teens need to remember in my opinion - if you say you're going to do something, then you should do it.

If she had written her grievances in a personal journal and the father had found it and read it, that would be an invasion of privacy and I would side with the daughter, likewise verbally complaining to her friends to blow off steam although she shouldn't do it while her parents are around.
Putting it up on Facebook, something that's she's been specifically told not to do, then ineptly trying to hide it? The father was just showing that two can play the social media game.

[Zevox]

Meh, shooting the computer was silly, but i consider the video itself to be a proportional response. She wants to embarrass and attack her parents on the internet? Well guess what princess, they can do that too.
Right, because of course the best way to show someone that something is unacceptable is to go and do the exact same thing to her. Brilliant.


The laptop was one he bought. Good luck proving it was legally owned by her as opposed to owned by him and him letting her use it.
My point there was not that he would actually be charged with a crime for doing it, but to illustrate just how beyond rationality his actions were. When your idea of disciplining your child involves doing something you are legally barred from doing in any other circumstance, you really need to reevaluate what you're doing.

Zevox

[Seerow]

Right, because of course the best way to show someone that something is unacceptable is to go and do the exact same thing to her. Brilliant.

It actually is a rather good way of showing her why it's wrong. Telling her that posting something can have more implications than she thinks may be something she'd listen to, then ignore immediately after. This is a prime example that she won't forget.



My point there was not that he would actually be charged with a crime for doing it, but to illustrate just how beyond rationality his actions were. When your idea of disciplining your child involves doing something you are legally barred from doing in any other circumstance, you really need to reevaluate what you're doing.

Zevox


So your belief is that he would be legally barred from destroying his own property to prove a point? Still not sure what you're trying to get at here.

He identified it as her laptop, as it's the laptop she uses. It doesn't mean he doesn't own it, didn't pay for it, didn't put in the effort as the one upgrading it and adjusting the settings.

If she had saved her money to buy the laptop, I'd agree with you that it was wrong for him to destroy it, even if she wasn't legally able to claim ownership of the laptop. But this is a case of him destroying something he bought as punishment she had previously been warned would come.

[Fiery Diamond]

Before watching the video, I was on the "dad is in the wrong even if his daughter is being an (expletive)" side.

After watching the video? Hundred percent on the dad's side.

[Traab]

I don't use Facebook, but it was explained to me that even if you set your wall to 'friends only', it doesn't mean that other people's settings are the same, so her post could have quite easily have done the rounds with a simple copy-paste.

Bear in mind that this is apparently the second time that she's done this - the first time netted her a 3 month grounding and a warning never to do it again or else things would be worse.

The father kept his word, something that teens need to remember in my opinion - if you say you're going to do something, then you should do it.

If she had written her grievances in a personal journal and the father had found it and read it, that would be an invasion of privacy and I would side with the daughter, likewise verbally complaining to her friends to blow off steam although she shouldn't do it while her parents are around.
Putting it up on Facebook, something that's she's been specifically told not to do, then ineptly trying to hide it? The father was just showing that two can play the social media game.

This. Ive seen it happen too freaking often nowadays. "Dont do that or else ill punish you!" Does it again. "Dont do that or else ill punish you!" Does it again. "I mean it, dont keep doing that!" repeat forever till the kid gets tired of it and stops on their own. Or the parents actually do start a punishment, say a week long grounding. Then a day or two later they figure thats enough and let them off. She got caught doing this, got punished and was warned what would happen if she did it again. She did it again and bam, her punishment took place, no hesitation, no extra chances, no half effort, he followed through. That is the only way to really get a kid to respect your authority, is if you actually do what you say you will.

Yes, teens are rebellious, yes they say this kind of thing all the time. But there is a HUGE difference between griping to your best friend, or writing it in a journal, and announcing your rant over your high school PA system. You say it was a friends only comment? So what? Do you have any idea how many "friends" the average facebook account has? 120. All it takes is one person to copy/paste that onto their wall and the sheer number of people who get to read it explodes.

[Brother Oni]

Right, because of course the best way to show someone that something is unacceptable is to go and do the exact same thing to her. Brilliant.

Again, I point out that this is at least the second time she's done this.
Obviously the first punishment didn't work, so he's had to do something else.

I believe Einstein was quoted as saying (paraphrased): Insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting different results.



My point there was not that he would actually be charged with a crime for doing it, but to illustrate just how beyond rationality his actions were. When your idea of disciplining your child involves doing something you are legally barred from doing in any other circumstance, you really need to reevaluate what you're doing.


I agree that he could have sold it or given it away instead, but the end result is that the laptop is permanently unavailable for her to use.

The fact that he decided to vent his own frustration and disappointment by shooting it, is his way of dealing with it and makes a very powerful statement to his daughter.

With the amount of frustration computers have given me over the years, the idea of taking a hammer to all the internals has crossed my mind more than once, so I do understand what he's going through.

[Howler Dagger]

Overreaction? If, like people claim, he had hacked into her facebook, he should have done something like post an apology about it.He didn't have to SHOOT THE FREAKING LAPTOP.

I fell like both sides of the story are skewed on the matter of the chores.

[Seerow]

Overreaction? If, like people claim, he had hacked into her facebook, he should have done something like post an apology about it.He didn't have to SHOOT THE FREAKING LAPTOP.

I fell like both sides of the story are skewed on the matter of the chores.


Who is claiming he hacked her facebook?

He found the post because she didn't regulate the privacy as well as she thought, and found it through their dog's facebook page.

[Maxios]

...he didn't hack into her Facebook. He logged into the dog's facebook account to post a picture of the dog, then noticed her post.

Edit: ninja'd

[Merellis]

So the dog was the mastermind? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDogWasTheMastermind) :smallamused:

[Maxios]

So the dog was the mastermind? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDogWasTheMastermind) :smallamused:

Pretty much :smalltongue:

[Brother Oni]

Further information on the story, including a full statement from the father regarding the video's response (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099958/Dad-shot-daughters-laptop-complained-chores-Facebook-said-let-family-gain-new-fame.html).

Kudos to the man - he appears to be a man of very strong convictions and integrity.

[Seerow]

I originally found out about this story via reddit a couple days ago - is there anywhere that more up to date information is being put out?

You've mentioned that the police and CPS (Child Protection Services?) have been out to interview the father and the fact that he discovered the post via his dog's facebook page, none of which is mentioned in the video or his facebook post (http://www.facebook.com/tommyjordaniii/posts/299559803434210).

Check his facebook wall. He's been making new posts pretty regularly since the video went viral, and it's all publicly viewable. Among the things already mentioned, he's also turned down people calling and offering for him to show up on talk shows, apparently CBS offered his family their own mini-series, and he had to get a friend to help chase a news crew off his front yard this morning.

He did respond to some interview questions that were sent to him via email (which has been his request: He won't go on TV, but anyone who sends him questions via email he'll answer when he gets to them through the thousands of junk emails he's been getting), and posted a followup indicating his daughter was far less offended by his action than most of the people on the internet are for her. Which to me indicates either he's one hell of a liar, or he's a better judge of how his daughter will react than a bunch of strangers on the internet.

As an aside he's also using the attention to try to raise some money for a charity (he was trying to raise money for the last month, but apparently in the last day or two they've raised 3x more than in the month previously).


edit: most of the facebook posts I alluded to are in the article that Oni edited his question to, so there you go.

[Tiki Snakes]

I can't help but chuckle at the mental image of him chasing a news crew off his front lawn.

[Brother Oni]

I can't help but chuckle at the mental image of him chasing a news crew off his front lawn.

He probably didn't have to do too much with his newfound reputation though. :smalltongue:

[Seerow]

Just double checked, it was Good Morning america.


I just had a friend run Good Morning America off my lawn.. grr.

They came running into the bedroom an hour ago and said "What do we do? Good Morning America is at your front door?"

I said "let 'em wait" and went back to sleep for another half hour...

I really hope this isn't the beginning of a trend. People show up in my yard, it's gonna be a whole different Tommy.... #walktallandcarryabigstick

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Maybe it's just my gun-hating that's getting to me. I was kinda with him up to the point where he pulled a freakin' gun out. There is NOTHING that ANYBODY could EVER say that would make me think OWNING a gun at ALL is justified, with exception for hunting rifles. Maybe this is getting into politics, I dunno. But the only places I want to see guns are either a) in the hands of military or police, or b) hunting rifles locked away in a cabinet.

Edit: Having read his response, I support him much more now. But I still literally freaked out when he brought the gun out...

[Traab]

Maybe it's just my gun-hating that's getting to me. I was kinda with him up to the point where he pulled a freakin' gun out. There is NOTHING that ANYBODY could EVER say that would make me think OWNING a gun at ALL is justified, with exception for hunting rifles. Maybe this is getting into politics, I dunno. But the only places I want to see guns are either a) in the hands of military or police, or b) hunting rifles locked away in a cabinet.

Meh, shooting it was a bit over the top, but it was a solid statement that no, there wont be time off for good behavior, no you wont EVER get this back, and yes you WILL pay the full price for disobeying your father. Plus, apparently thats what he threatened to do if she repeated her error, so he kind of had to do it, once again, just to show that he wont back down when his kid breaks the rules. Nothing creates a disobedient child faster than not backing up your words with action when it comes to punishments. And yeah, pretty sure gun control discussions are off limits.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Either way, I don't think I've ever been threatened by my parents at all... Everything that they've made me do, they've sat me down, and explained to me exactly how this was the best thing for me, whether I thought so at the time, and this is how, and this is why. Comparing this to friends of mine who have had varying levels of punishment by their parents, I feel it's definitely a better strategy. Most of them end up... not detesting, but strongly disliking their parents. Resenting, that's the word I'm looking for. While me and my best friend, who's parents are even MORE open than mine, we're very open with my family. Yes, we do do "bad" things that teenagers do. But ALL of my friends do. Some of them just have to go to greater extents to make sure their parents don't find out than others.

[Whiffet]

Huh. My reactions as I watched the video were basically, "He's publicly shaming his daughter? Huh, whatever she did, it can't be worth that. Wait, is she whining about basic chores? WHAT did she just say? Why that little... she's done this before? Follow through with your punishment, man, teach her a lesson. Uh, is that a gun?... WHOA THAT WAS AWESOME!!" I still felt kinda upset about how public the response was, but then after seeing people point out the lesson about how anything online can potentially be seen by anyone I even felt okay with that.

I still think the punishment was a bit much, but I like this guy.


Maybe it's just my gun-hating that's getting to me. I was kinda with him up to the point where he pulled a freakin' gun out. There is NOTHING that ANYBODY could EVER say that would make me think OWNING a gun at ALL is justified, with exception for hunting rifles. Maybe this is getting into politics, I dunno. But the only places I want to see guns are either a) in the hands of military or police, or b) hunting rifles locked away in a cabinet.

Edit: Having read his response, I support him much more now. But I still literally freaked out when he brought the gun out...

Yes, that gets into politics. It would be very bad to go into detail. And I am very upset that I am facing such a massive temptation to break forum rules. I keep having to delete parts of my post because I keep typing things that I shouldn't say. It's so, so tempting.

[Brother Oni]

Either way, I don't think I've ever been threatened by my parents at all... Everything that they've made me do, they've sat me down, and explained to me exactly how this was the best thing for me, whether I thought so at the time, and this is how, and this is why.

All teenagers are individuals. This approach works for some, while others need a a different way.

Like many things concerning individuals, there is no 'one size fits all' standardised response and trying to treat something like parental discipline in the same way is doomed to failure.

Staying away from gun control laws, may I ask why do you apparently find firearms so abhorrent?


I still felt kinda upset about how public the response was, but then after seeing people point out the lesson about how anything online can potentially be seen by anyone I even felt okay with that.

I still think the punishment was a bit much, but I like this guy.


Apparently his daughter's original post reached about 450 people even with the privacy settings turned on to block her family and Church friend lists.
The father's reply reached about 550, and at last count, the original video (not including all the reposts) had hit over 16million views. I think that pretty much proves his point about unintended consequences about posting things online. :smalltongue:

[The Extinguisher]

Honestly, if it wasn't for all the statements and stuff afterwords, I'd say this was fake.

It seems a little over the top.

[Whiffet]

On another note, what really struck me was how much the chores upset her. Okay, most people have that one job in the house they can't stand, right? I get that. But does she think that every one of her chores is such a burden? I mean, come on, most of it is just taking care of your own stuff.

On the other hand, I thought my parents were just as unfair when I was her age, even if I was too timid to say anything about it. Aren't a lot of teenagers like that? She'll hopefully grow out of it as she starts wanting to be more independent.

[Brother Oni]

Honestly, if it wasn't for all the statements and stuff afterwords, I'd say this was fake.

Possibly, but I've watched his other videos (he does quite interesting introductory tutorials for first time firearm owners) and his stutter is even more pronounced there, in a relaxed, non-emotional environment.

Speaking from personal experience, the last thing a person with a stutter wants is to draw attention to themselves, especially with a video where they're speaking.

[Mordokai]

I don't think punishing her was out of line. I don't think shooting her laptop was out of line, since it was basically his laptop, if nothing else. However, I think public humiliation(and we're talking about world wide public, even if 99+ % of that public will never get to know the daughter personally) is a bit too much. For all I care, he could take her out to the yard, do all the same thing he did(yes, even the "shooting the laptop" part) and there would be no need for public humiliation. The message would still get across and all of this could have been avoided. So in a way, this guy is a hero. In another way... he's a massive jerk, who over reacted way too much.

Much therapy... in this kid future... I foresee.

[Moff Chumley]

Either way, I don't think I've ever been threatened by my parents at all... Everything that they've made me do, they've sat me down, and explained to me exactly how this was the best thing for me, whether I thought so at the time, and this is how, and this is why.

Can I say, for the record, that that's a relationship I'd kill to have with my parents? This is so far from the norm, at least where I am, that I initially thought you were joking. When I was younger, if I asked my parents why they were doing something, there'd be two options: they'd either tell me how obvious it was, or look at me like I'd grown an extra head and shoo me away.

Not that I'm defending this strategy. Saved them some energy, I guess, but did none of us any favors in the long run. :smallannoyed:

[MLai]

I don't think punishing her was out of line. I don't think shooting her laptop was out of line, since it was basically his laptop, if nothing else. However, I think public humiliation(and we're talking about world wide public, even if 99+ % of that public will never get to know the daughter personally) is a bit too much. For all I care, he could take her out to the yard, do all the same thing he did(yes, even the "shooting the laptop" part) and there would be no need for public humiliation.
No, no, no. You do not brandish a firearm in front of your child in anger.

I have no problem with what he did in the video. He was alone in a clearing. No one else around, no other people's property around, and he fired down at the ground.

If he did it in front of his daughter, that would have taken it to another level.

[Reverent-One]

Much therapy... in this kid future... I foresee.

Given her response to all this was "“Dude… it’s only a computer. I mean, yeah I’m mad but pfft.” She actually asked [her father] to post a comment on one of the threads (and [he] did) asking what other job fields the victims of laptop-homicide were eligible for because she wasn’t too keen on the stripping thing.", I doubt she's been mentally traumatized from this.

[Mordokai]

No, no, no. You do not brandish a firearm in front of your child in anger.

I have no problem with what he did in the video. He was alone in a clearing. No one else around, no other people's property around, and he fired down at the ground.

If he did it in front of his daughter, that would have taken it to another level.

Take a mallet and smash it. Twice the fun and racket, no guns required. Plus, the kid now owes you eight bucks less. Huzzah for being considering dad! :smallbiggrin:


Given her response to all this was "“Dude… it’s only a computer. I mean, yeah I’m mad but pfft.” She actually asked [her father] to post a comment on one of the threads (and [he] did) asking what other job fields the victims of laptop-homicide were eligible for because she wasn’t too keen on the stripping thing.", I doubt she's been mentally traumatized from this.

So we have a girl who was upset with doing chores and pouring coffee to her parents and now she's ok with dad putting eight bullets in her laptop?

Talking about character growth...

[SiuiS]

I saw this elsewhere, actually. At the time I thought the nature of the subject matter was, shall we say "playground inappropriate". But as it is here already... Allow one to indulge yes?


I get the feeling that a ton of the reaction to this stems from the fact that we don't know anything about the parent/child relationship other than this.

I disagree. It may be my familiarity with the family types, but I think there is a lot that can be accurately inferred.

For one, the character of the father can be discerned, if one looks past the emotional aspect and doesn't make snap judgements. This is a relatively measured response. The plan was devised in hot emotion, but executed well. And he had to maintain his composure; this is not just him being a mean guy, he feels deeply betrayed by his daughter's actions. This shows that he is pretty certain the action is beneath his daughter.

The daughter can be seen as well, but only slightly. We have to footer through our perceptions, and the father's mannerisms. Much harder, but we can see where he is hoping his daughter is heading.


Teenagers can be jerks. I bet when this guy was a teenager, he was a jerk to his parents too. Sure, that may have been in the 60s or 70s and he might have been smacked for it, but that doesn't make disproportionate punishment okay. Grounding her? Absolutely. Taking away her laptop or her camera or blocking Facebook from her computer? Fine. Making a video on the internet designed to humiliate her and then destroying her property? Not okay.

There are two things wrong here. The first, which I will touch on later, is that being a teenager does not give one carte Blanche to be a bad person.

The second is, he daughter is fifteen. She does not have property. If the daughter steals, the father pays. If the daughter breaks something, the father pays. If the daughter receives a gift, the father gets to keep it. Heck, unless he gives all that stuff to her when she turns 18, it's still his.

The father did no do anything to the daughter's stuff. He revoked a privilege she had begun to take for granted.


Everyone I know has said "I hate my parents" at least once. A lot of people whine about chores. These are normal behaviors. Yes, teenagers should be disciplined if they do something wrong. Yes, this girl was being a bitch to her family. But really, if you simplify the idea down, the message is "if you say something I don't like, I'll break your stuff and humiliate you". That isn't parenting. Parenting is sitting your kid down and having a real conversation with them, not responding to an immature internet post with an immature internet video. If he hacked her account, he should have deleted the post, changed her password, and then talked with her about what is and is not appropriate. Shooting her laptop and uploading a video designed to humiliate her just sends the message that he has power and she doesn't and he can throw it around whenever he wants, however he wants.

I have no doubt that some punishment was needed here, but I think public humiliation and destruction of property is WAY over the line.

I don't see this at all. It does not boil down to "if you say something I don't like I will break my own stuff that I let you use and humiliate you". That requires too much entitlement. The daughter did something that could rightfully be considered a breach of trust; she was talking about her parents behind their backs. She did so in a manner that in the business world will get you fired and black-balled. She did so in a way that shows underhandedness, and in a way that would prompt an extreme response.

The impression given by the video is one of 'actions have consequences'. Not that the father must be pleased. Not that the daughter must obey. It is simply causative. This is further backed up by his grace in responding to the consequences of his own actions with acceptance.

The public humiliation, I will admit is a grey area. I can only say that as this man gives me an impression of integrity, and thoughtfulness, that I must trust his judgement as to whether his daughter would take this video in the right light. She did, luckily. And I know that some people would take this poorly. But I think, again, it is a matter of entitlement.

See, public humiliation can only happen when you feel you have a right to looking good in public. The notion that you are entitled to a certain level of treatment and the expectation that you will get it despite what your actions may prompt. When things do not go according to your sense of expectations, you feel slighted. How dare they?

But one can easily see how this peel of expectation is incorrect. You should expect love from your parents. You should expect protection, guidance, and nourishment. You should expect respect commensurate with what you give. And I see all of these things in the admittedly narrow window in which I can view these people.


The man was having pretty fair points overall, right until he pulled a gorram .45 and emptied it on the laptop. Which, ironically, explained the whole situation better than him reading the message and commenting on it.

I do not see what you mean.

Are you saying that the father negated his whole point about perspective, by pulling out a firearm and unloading it into a computer?

Are you saying that only actions, and not words, have meaning, and so his violent action undoes his measured verbal response?

Are you saying that he should have just posted a video of himself shooting the laptop in a vaccuum?

Are you saying that his emotional outlet retroactively vindicated the daughter by showing that he is likely to have been at fault?

Are you saying that a man who indulges in an admittedly emotional catharsis is somehow incapable of also being a man of logic?

Are you saying something else entirely? I do not wish to seem sarcastic, nor do I want to put words in your mouth. These are the most likely readings of your post I can find though.


I still have yet to understand what she said that was so bad. Is complaining about your parents in what you believe to be a private setting so bad? Really. I mean, maybe things are different in the US south. Maybe it's just me being raised by really chill parents. Maybe I'm just siding with her because I'm of an age (roughly) with her.

It is that on the Internet forum, the two (father and daughter) can be seen as equal. It shows a distinct lack of character, and sharp disrespect, to take any opportunity to disparage you "co workers". When the daughter feels she is on an even fooling with her parents, she bad mouths them, curses, and whines. And while yes, that is going to happen, so too are responses to those outbursts going to happen. I do not See how people can defend the right of the daughter to speak her mind, while decrying the rights of the father to also speak his mind. Arguing that his words damage the father/daughter relationship are silly, because that sword cuts both ways. How are her words not damaging the father/daughter relationship? He has firmer ground, all things being equal. This makes him look stronger, but that should not be taken to mean he is in a position of power and so should be lenient.


But I just don't see where she went wrong. She was venting emotions. Free speech. She's allowed to say what she wishes, as long as it ain't hate speech, and hate speech that wasn't.

All actions have consequences, as I said. She is free to say what she wants (not that no one stopped her), but to say she should get off with disrespecting her parents without reprisal is not advocating free speech.

The tidbit that tells me a lot is the one both folks failed to elaborate on - the coffee. She got so upset over something as simple as her dad saying "get me a cup of coffee". They're family. It was probably voiced in the same way one would issue any "command" of the same callibur. It's a request, and fully open to refusal provided you have better grounds than not wanting to. That she would rather roll her eyes and complain to the world than tell her father "look dad, I don want to get you coffee. it makes me feel like you only think of me as a servant". And she felt that the 'cleaning lady' should do the chores instead. This, again, speaks volumes about her sense o entitlement, her feeling that the buck can be passed to anyone lower on the totem pole. Luckily, she has been shocked enough to, presumably, see how she was acting.


Where I come from, parents are expected to discipline their children without the use of fire-arms. :smallwink:

Yes. I think the firearm was excessive. Perhaps not; as a tool of destruction it is beautifully efficient. We're he to use a hammer, or a hatchet or chainsaw or anything else... It would send a different message. There is a big difference between a visceral, grunting swing, and a matter-of-fact explanation that the hole you just saw? That costs $1 USD.

But in the end I think the destruction was wrong. I think that the worst part is, the event will not be broken down into its constituent parts. The idea as a whole will be taken as a good thing, and that overshadows the mistake. Translated, it conveys to the father that shooting the laptop was a good thing. It is tragic that after all this, he himself will not be able to notice his mistake and correct it in the future.


Also, he's capable of weedling out a post that was deliberately hidden from him, but we're expected to believe that he's not net savvy enough to realise that a lot of Youtubers could potentially see the video he uploaded (and specifically didn't mark as private)?

This is a good point, but I think it begins to fall apart the more we attribute action through inaction to him. Still, it makes me re-evaluate. That is good.


I think if parents were as bad as most people wish they would be, then the kids would all grow up into even worse parents. Kids will be kids, have some damn compassion and stop treating them like they should have all the wisdom and experience of an adult.

I disagree on two counts.
One, the already mentioned sense of entitlement.

Two, I'd you do not hold a teenager to adult standards, how will they ever grow to fit these standards? Being young is an excuse to be inexperienced. It is not an excuse to willfully do something bad.


Complaining to your friends is different than showing millions of people on Youtube how terrible your child is.

Complaining to your friends is different from posting a letter ostensibly to your parents on a public website, while trying to hide said letter from said parents.


I'm judging purely on the information given to me. I don't know how she actually addressed her parents or anything. But if you're not allowed to complain to your friends about your parents, I don't know what. Notably, she wasn't complaining about having to clean her OWN stuff, but having to clean her PARENTS stuff.

The video addressed this. The daughter left out information, or the father lied. Probably a middle ground; the daughter does the work of of a sense of obligation, and the father does not think she should be given slack on volunteer work.


The way her dad was going on about it, it was as if she was personally insulting him, going "MY DAD IS SUCH A POOPY-HEAD". I was going through her letter going "Ok, and? When is she going to get to the rude bit..." And he's starting to freak out.*

Maybe in America, you're not expected to criticize your parents at ALL. But I don't think that's right. You should be able to complain in private. And she did try to make her Facebook private from certain people. Whether she succeeded or not is irrelevant.

She did personally insult him. Worse, she insulted him to everyone but him. Publicly.


Look at it from her perspective. She's stuck with these people for the next several years of her life, with no way of getting out of their TOTAL control. She tries to find somewhere where she can vent her frustration at what she sees as being legitimately unfair. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, not only does she get the laptop which she thought was going to be fixed, with FRICKIN BULLET HOLES IN THEM I AM SO FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW IT IS NOT COOL TO SHOOT THINGS SHOOTINGS THINGS IS NOT GOOD SHOOTING THINGS IS NOT HOW YOU FREAKING DISCIPLINE PEOPLE YOU SICK FREAKS

TRIGGER HAPPY FREAKS
UUUUUGH

oh, and on top of that, now she's shamed across the ENTIRE INTERNET.*

Because she needed somewhere to vent her frustrations. Whether those frustrations were justified is irrelevant, they were her legitimate frustrations.*

also.*
GUNS. WHY THE FREAKING GUNS. NOT. FREAKING. COOL.

I believe you are focusing overmuch on the gun.

How would you feel if he ended the video by chainsaw img his laptop in half? Or smashing it with a brick? Throwing it? Running it over with his car?

This is important. This is what matters. Not the alphabet used, but he message conveyed.


Youtube has an option to keep files private, this would be analogous to making a post visible to friends only on facebook. Father did not select this option. Additionally, he did fill in several tags, whose only purpose (as is explained on the site if I remember from the one time I uploaded something) is to make it easier for other people to find your video.*

He may not have expected it to become the next big thing, but I'm not convinced that it wasn't being put out there for public consumption.

Facebook may be so full of security holes as to be a joke, but putting a friends-only post up on it hardly counts as a Public Forum.

I disagree on the public forum part. Once something is online, it never comes down. It is archived somewhere. It doesn't matter how secure you think it was.

I do agree that adding tags makes this an entirely different thing however.


Whether or not she deserved it, this was a terrible idea. That video (and parodies thereof) will be around forever, far longer than any father/daughter spat ought to last.

This is a good thing. That the evidence is forever and yet the hurt is fleeting will be a sign of the daughter's growth.


And teenage girls get mad over trivialities and vent on Facebook all the time. The parent's job is to parent, not to sink to their level and air the family's dirty laundry in public. Yeah, she vowed never to be there when they got old and gray. I told my mother I hated her once when I was a child and we had a fight. It's called hyperbole, and kids outgrow it. At least, they're supposed to. But now, with this lasting forever, who knows what kind of permanent damage *has been done to their familial relationship?

The fact that it happens all the time does not make it acceptable. discipline is to be expected when a child steps out of line, as it sets the rubric for future deviations as well. In fact that is one of the most important lessons to take away from this, in the daughter's instance; other people doing something does not grant me right or permission to do similar. Teenage girls also drink, smoke, drive while intoxicated and have casual sexual relationships all the time. These things are also punishable in their own right, regardless of how many other teenage girls do them.


You seem to be confused on the nature of free speech. It's not "I can say whatever I want with no consequences from anybody," it's "I can say whatever I want and with no consequences from the government." Other people still have the right to do or say something in response, which is why most people practice the concept of self-censorship. Just because you CAN say something doesn't mean that you SHOULD say it.

Thank you. That was much more succinct an explanation than I seem capable of.


Right, because of course the best way to show someone that something is unacceptable is to go and do the exact same thing to her. Brilliant.


My point there was not that he would actually be charged with a crime for doing it, but to illustrate just how beyond rationality his actions were. When your idea of disciplining your child involves doing something you are legally barred from doing in any other circumstance, you really need to reevaluate what you're doing.

Zevox

I disagree with the first paragraph. You are focusing on the wrong part; it was not the public humiliation bit, necessarily, that was the problem. It was the daughter striking the first low blow in an otherwise friendly match that was a problem. She escalated the conflict. His actions were designed to show that he, too, could go over the top, and generally chooses not to ecause it is inappropriate. But he is also willing to do what needs to be done. The core dichotomy of temperance and severity is one of the major fundamental difficulties of any authority figure. I find that he handled himself well for the first 8 minutes or so.

I also do not see what crime you are talking about; firing the gun is not a crime, nor is reaming his computer. If you mean breaking the computer of a stranger, then yes, but I is an action I would be hard pressed to hold against him in similar circumstances. So long as he pays the weregild, then both parties have been rightfully punished.

I am not so sure he was irrational, either. I do think the gun was too much, but it follows a certain logical recourse. It may have been too rational, in that sense, where he set his logic into gear and did not let illogical things get in the way. Things such as compassion, say.


The fact that he decided to vent his own frustration and disappointment by shooting it, is his way of dealing with it and makes a very powerful statement to his daughter.

With the amount of frustration computers have given me over the years, the idea of taking a hammer to all the internals has crossed my mind more than once, so I do understand what he's going through.

This. The phrase 'powerful statement' in particular.
I think I have been around Thanqol Too much, but I cannot help but view this mans emotions and actions as a kind of poetry. It is orchestrated, accidentally, in such a way as to show a lot of the emotion beneath the surface.

I wonder, has anyone stopped and considered from the other side o the Fence? Not that this man is a whack job and shot his computer, but that he is a stable, same man of integrity and still shot his computer? I believe if you ask what would drive him to these actions were he NOT completely bonkers, you would have a better idea of what is going on.

I know what's sla of emotion are requisite for this behavior in an otherwise good man. I envy his temperance. I would have acted much more rashly.


Further information on the story, including a full statement from the father regarding the video's response (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099958/Dad-shot-daughters-laptop-complained-chores-Facebook-said-let-family-gain-new-fame.html).

Kudos to the man - he appears to be a man of very strong convictions and integrity.

He does indeed. I am glad both that he is acknowledging his error in putting the video up as he did in such good graces, Nd that his daughter has taken this in proper stride.


Maybe it's just my gun-hating that's getting to me. I was kinda with him up to the point where he pulled a freakin' gun out. There is NOTHING that ANYBODY could EVER say that would make me think OWNING a gun at ALL is justified, with exception for hunting rifles. Maybe this is getting into politics, I dunno. But the only places I want to see guns are either a) in the hands of military or police, or b) hunting rifles locked away in a cabinet.

Edit: Having read his response, I support him much more now. But I still literally freaked out when he brought the gun out...

Understandable.

I have a theory though. Manners are more prevalent in places where guns are acceptable (in the US, as I have no sampling elsewhere). I have anecdotal evidence that this has been true for a very, very long time. Like, multiple centuries long time, not American long time.

Across the world, it has always been more important to show respect when there was a possibility the guy you were disrespecting could and would stove your head in. When the right to even minor retaliation is made criminal, then bad men will still perpetrate violence and good men can no longer back their word up in good conscience.

Is this right? I cannot say. But it seems true.


Either way, I don't think I've ever been threatened by my parents at all... Everything that they've made me do, they've sat me down, and explained to me exactly how this was the best thing for me, whether I thought so at the time, and this is how, and this is why. Comparing this to friends of mine who have had varying levels of punishment by their parents, I feel it's definitely a better strategy. Most of them end up... not detesting, but strongly disliking their parents. Resenting, that's the word I'm looking for. While me and my best friend, who's parents are even MORE open than mine, we're very open with my family. Yes, we do do "bad" things that teenagers do. But ALL of my friends do. Some of them just have to go to greater extents to make sure their parents don't find out than others.

That you are willing to accept your friends doing admittedly bad things, and hiding them from the authorities, calls the validity of this into doubt.

Why should we trust a system of parenting that seems to implicitly allow delinquency when the system you speak against actively tries to discourage this trait? All things being equal on the effort front, this seems like a very, very big oversight.

For reference, I was raised with corporal punishment, and I do not resent my parents.


On another note, what really struck me was how much the chores upset her. Okay, most people have that one job in the house they can't stand, right? I get that. But does she think that every one of her chores is such a burden? I mean, come on, most of it is just taking care of your own stuff.

On the other hand, I thought my parents were just as unfair when I was her age, even if I was too timid to say anything about it. Aren't a lot of teenagers like that? She'll hopefully grow out of it as she starts wanting to be more independent.

Yes, this is true. She is lucky, actually. From ten on, I had an aunt who did most of the chores as busy work just so she would have something to do. It's ingrained; I have to actually put forth effort to remember to do these things for myself. It's so easy to just continue letting dishes pile up, say, or to take the trash out "tomorrow". The chores do seem Unfair, but only from a vantage point that lacks perspective.


I don't think punishing her was out of line. I don't think shooting her laptop was out of line, since it was basically his laptop, if nothing else. However, I think public humiliation(and we're talking about world wide public, even if 99+ % of that public will never get to know the daughter personally) is a bit too much. For all I care, he could take her out to the yard, do all the same thing he did(yes, even the "shooting the laptop" part) and there would be no need for public humiliation. The message would still get across and all of this could have been avoided. So in a way, this guy is a hero. In another way... he's a massive jerk, who over reacted way too much.

Much therapy... in this kid future... I foresee.

Honestly? I think she's fine. In fact, I know for certain that this will no show up as a black mark on the father's memory if she ever needs therapy. People see a gun and freak out; the gun does not matter. Most of the set pieces are superfluous for the play.

The daughter disrespects her parents a second time, without realizing they are standing right behind her.
The father punishes her right then and there, irrespective of the audience.
The father strips her right to exercise autonomy until she can demonstrate she has integrated the lessons made available.

That's pretty much it.


No, no, no. *You do not brandish a firearm in front of your child in anger.

I have no problem with what he did in the video. *He was alone in a clearing. *No one else around, no other people's property around, and he fired down at the ground.

If he did it in front of his daughter, that would have taken it to another level.

I have to agree here. That would have changed the entire tone.


I think children learn from their parents. Do you really want your children to thing its correct to vent by shooting things?

Yes, I want my children to learn that in times of passion so high that you WILL do something, that the best response is to moderate; to take time to cool off; to clear your head and make sure your message is taken seriously, and not just as a tantrum; to isolate the phenomena so that there is no collateral damage; to execute with precision whatever they feel they, as adults, must do; to take full responsibility for the consequences, good and bad, thereafter.

That is what he did, after all.


I guess that he was partly justified, but he seemed more vengeful than anything else.

It was vengeful. The catch in the voice, the boy language, the tonal shifts. This is a man who is calm, until he pulls out the memories of the event again. He was motivated by pettiness to a degree. He had the foresight to make that pettiness work for him, by aligning it with more positive aims (gonna remove the laptop anyway, may as well both calm down, and impart exactly how serious this is, while I'm at it) but it was still petty.

This is an important thing here. There is no mutual exclusion. Just because he was acting out of vengeance, does not mean he was not acting out of love, rational thought, planning, and hope for his daughter.

[Scorpionica]

{Scrubbed}

[Brother Oni]

So we have a girl who was upset with doing chores and pouring coffee to her parents and now she's ok with dad putting eight bullets in her laptop?

Talking about character growth...

Are you intentionally ignoring the middle part where she bad mouths and disrespects her parents and a family friend? :smallconfused:



I do agree that adding tags makes this an entirely different thing however.


There are 4 tags on the original video: Facebook, Teens, Parenting, disrespect. I don't really consider that a concerted effort to ensure that the video is picked up by every search engine bot or meta tag crawler.



I have a theory though. Manners are more prevalent in places where guns are acceptable (in the US, as I have no sampling elsewhere). I have anecdotal evidence that this has been true for a very, very long time. Like, multiple centuries long time, not American long time.


I personally think that manners, or rather emphasis on social etiquette, are more prevalent where the population density is higher, so that people don't kill each other over accidental or unintentional discourtesies due to personal space infringement.

Take Japan or the UK for example - very little gun ownership here, yet we have the stereotype of being unfailing polite to each other.

[Cespenar]

I do not see what you mean.

Are you saying that the father negated his whole point about perspective, by pulling out a firearm and unloading it into a computer?

Are you saying that only actions, and not words, have meaning, and so his violent action undoes his measured verbal response?

Are you saying that he should have just posted a video of himself shooting the laptop in a vaccuum?

Are you saying that his emotional outlet retroactively vindicated the daughter by showing that he is likely to have been at fault?

Are you saying that a man who indulges in an admittedly emotional catharsis is somehow incapable of also being a man of logic?

Are you saying something else entirely? I do not wish to seem sarcastic, nor do I want to put words in your mouth. These are the most likely readings of your post I can find though.

I'm saying gun, period. I also don't wish to go further on this avenue, because it will probably cross some forum rules.

[Dogmantra]

The biggest issue I have with this video is that he complains multiple times about this happening right after he spent half a day fixing up her laptop.

Now, I think that complaining about your parents (or anyone) right after they do a favour you asked them to do which took them a long time is not a good thing to do, but I find it very odd that the time and money he spent on improving her laptop clearly meant a lot to him, but he's totally okay with entirely invalidating all that work by breaking the laptop. I think that he would have a much stronger position if he had instead given the laptop to a friend as a gift or sold it to someone rather than just destroy it.


I also think that this whole situation was an overreaction on the part of both people involved. I do not think that complaining in such a passive aggressive manner is a good thing, but I also don't think that responding in kind is good either.


I'm saying gun, period. I also don't wish to go further on this avenue, because it will probably cross some forum rules.
I feel I have to agree with this as well.

[Brother Oni]

Now, I think that complaining about your parents (or anyone) right after they do a favour you asked them to do which took them a long time is not a good thing to do, but I find it very odd that the time and money he spent on improving her laptop clearly meant a lot to him, but he's totally okay with entirely invalidating all that work by breaking the laptop. I think that he would have a much stronger position if he had instead given the laptop to a friend as a gift or sold it to someone rather than just destroy it.


Well he promised to escalate her punishment if she repeated the offence and he took it out on the primarily responsible piece of equipment.

As somebody who's done informal tech support for friends and family, spending 6 hours on fixing it up is a long time, moreso if you have to do it on a workday and if you're self-employed to some degree like the father appears to be.
I don't think people really appreciate how long 6 hours of leisure time is until they start proper employment along with juggling other commitments and demands on your time.

Again, I agree that it would have been better to donate or sell the laptop (then again he'd have to wipe the drive clean before doing so, taking even more time), but if the man wants to take out his frustrations on a piece of his property, in a safe, controlled manner, he's more than entitled to.

[Ecalsneerg]

What I want to know is... why blow it to bits? There are a bajillion other more productive ways to punish someone by taking away their computer. Like just locking it in a cupboard, or confiscating it for your own use, or selling it on, or passing it on to a family member or friend who could use it (maybe a cousin's going off to college?). Why blow it to bits?

Although, honestly, that kind of attitude really annoys me. Yes, he bought it and paid for it, but one assumes he gifted it to his daughter. I mean, seriously, that's not cool.

[hobbitkniver]

What I want to know is... why blow it to bits? There are a bajillion other more productive ways to punish someone by taking away their computer. Like just locking it in a cupboard, or confiscating it for your own use, or selling it on, or passing it on to a family member or friend who could use it (maybe a cousin's going off to college?). Why blow it to bits?

Although, honestly, that kind of attitude really annoys me. Yes, he bought it and paid for it, but one assumes he gifted it to his daughter. I mean, seriously, that's not cool.

Destroying it seems a bit hypocritical to me since he complains about how much hard work he put into it. Why let that work go to waste?

[Dogmantra]

Destroying it seems a bit hypocritical to me since he complains about how much hard work he put into it. Why let that work go to waste?

Yeah, this is my point that I was trying to make. I know he's more than entitled to destroy it (even if I think that destroying a perfectly good laptop you HAVEN'T just spent six hours working on is not really a very good idea), but if the work he put into it was so important to him, why did he then invalidate all his work? It makes it seem to me like he can't really have cared about that time he spent if he's willing to make its effects irreversibly destroyed, which is in contrast to the earlier points he made about his daughter's actions being even more disrespectful coming after he spent a long time that he could have done something better in helping her.

It also seems like destroying it is punishment for punishment's sake, whereas giving it to someone else would have taken it just as much away from the daughter as possible, but also helped someone else be happy. Could also be used to teach a lesson about responsibility (this person has been respectful and kind to me, so I'm going to give them your laptop because you have been disrespectful and unkind, so now you can see that if you're respectful and kind, you will reap the rewards).

[jpreem]

So, without watching the vid let me get this straight; She's posted somewhere about how her parents are horrible, going so far as to say that when they are old she will not be there to help them?

In return, the Dad has recorded a video mocking her, uploaded it to the internet, and then shot her laptop repeatedly?

Without knowing them, or any more of the details, it's hard to say for sure she wasn't bang on the money in the first place.

+ 1 for this.
But the thing that angers me at least as much as this "parenting" here. Is the irresponsible firearm use.
I see a lot of post saying in defense of shooting a gun which argue that, but he had better stick to his word he already promised it!
Well what the hell is wrong with a guy who promises such a thing.
I can understand that when the girl is causing trouble you say you take away the computer, sell it or destroy it. But this!
Threatening to destroy your kids stuff and destroying your kids stuff is not what firearms are for. Responsible gun ownership this ain't.
People like this should not have firearms.

[Traab]

{Scrubbed}

[Helanna]

What I want to know is... why blow it to bits? There are a bajillion other more productive ways to punish someone by taking away their computer. Like just locking it in a cupboard, or confiscating it for your own use, or selling it on, or passing it on to a family member or friend who could use it (maybe a cousin's going off to college?). Why blow it to bits?

Although, honestly, that kind of attitude really annoys me. Yes, he bought it and paid for it, but one assumes he gifted it to his daughter. I mean, seriously, that's not cool.

Well, the guy said he already has taken away her laptop multiple times as a punishment, and the girl barely even remembered it. Chances are she's not gonna forget this for a long time.

Also - if he bought and paid for it, then I'd say it's totally his right to take it from her if he feels there's a valid reason. Part of his problem seems to be that she doesn't understand that a lot of hard work and time goes into buying her the things that she wants. Now they're revoking her privileges until she understands the value of the things she owns.


Destroying it seems a bit hypocritical to me since he complains about how much hard work he put into it. Why let that work go to waste?

That's the sunk cost fallacy - the six hours spent repairing the laptop was already spent. It doesn't matter if he destroyed it or gave it away, he already lost the time and money. He could've sold it for at least partial recompense, but again, that wouldn't have had quite the same impact on his daughter. And of course, over all, it's his computer. Personally, I can't afford to destroy expensive things that I could sell instead, but if he can, great for him. And who hasn't wanted to cause some serious damage to a troublesome computer once in a while? This guy just had the opportunity.


And to everyone complaining about the fact that a gun was involved - would you say it's just as irresponsible if he'd taken a baseball bat to it? I'm genuinely curious, I want to know whether your objection is to the destruction or to the gun. Because if it's the gun, then what's the big deal? He was being safe about it, so I don't think it's a problem. And no, I don't think a sixteen year old girl is going to walk away from this with the lesson 'it's okay to use guns on things that annoy you'. She's not a complete moron, let's give her some credit.

[Seerow]

And people are still upset primarily about the gun thing. This is something I don't get. I can't help but want to get one of those patrick star memepics saying "Let's take our cultural values.... and apply them to other people!"

I mean lets put this in perspective. The guy is obviously familiar with guns. A lot of his other youtube videos are how-tos for gun safety. The main thing he mentioned in his visit from CPS was how all of his guns were properly stored, unloaded, and following all regulations. When talking about things his daughter wants, he mentions SHE wants a rifle just like the one he has. This is not a family that is a stranger to gun use. The simple act of holding or firing a gun is not foreign to the family. Seeing a gun being fired isn't something that is going to be traumatic to her, any more than any other means of destroying the laptop would have been. Asserting that it would be is taking your own values and projecting it into an environment that is clearly very alien from what you yourself are used to, and is wrong.



And to everyone complaining about the fact that a gun was involved - would you say it's just as irresponsible if he'd taken a baseball bat to it? I'm genuinely curious, I want to know whether your objection is to the destruction or to the gun. Because if it's the gun, then what's the big deal? He was being safe about it, so I don't think it's a problem. And no, I don't think a sixteen year old girl is going to walk away from this with the lesson 'it's okay to use guns on things that annoy you'. She's not a complete moron, let's give her some credit.


Seriously, reading some peoples thoughts on how the daughter will react to this, or what she will learn from it... if I was just reading that without knowing the story, I would have thought the girl was 4 or 5, not 15. I mean, do we actually consider 15 year olds completely incompetent now? In under a year she'll be trusted to drive. In a time not too far past she would have been a legal adult in most places (and I'm sure she still is in some places). I mean I used to make jokes about "If she's under 18 she may as well be 3", but I never realized some people legitimately believed that.

[Dogmantra]

That's the sunk cost fallacy - the six hours spent repairing the laptop was already spent.

Not really, the time's gone, but the effects are still there, the laptop is still nicer than it was before. It's like if you made someone a picture and they didn't like it, if you tore it up no-one would have it, but if you gave it to someone who actually liked it, your time would not have been wasted, no?

[Cikomyr]

A big point of the video was about how easy she had it and didn't realized it, only wanting it more. Treating a family friend as a lowly employee. Complaining she should get paid for basic chores. Misusing property gifts her parents were providing her AND keeping an upkeep on. Refusing to find a job.

Ultimately, this kind of behavior/mentality is important to break down. It's important for people to understand the value of things, and Hannah was clearly underrating other people and their work, while overvaluing hers.

Also, on the topic of "OMG she will be humiliated forever", seriously? Like we will still remember or care this video in 3 months, unless a meme comes out of it. Trut me, it's the internet with it's classic catfish memory. Nobody will be remembering the video, except to those it personnaly mattered.


And to adress the stupid argument that "oh, but she should have a way to vent her frustration", I say: BUY HER A DIARY!! Facebook/Twitter is not your ****ing personal diary! When are you kids going to get through your thick head that if you say anything on these outlets it's because you specifically ACCEPT that EVERYBODY in the world is basically going to see it if they damn want to.

"Privacy settings" is a convenience, but it's not an actual filter. If you wanna post something on Facebook, make sure you can stomach that these people can see it:

- your parents
- your employers (actual or potential)
- your insurance company

How hard is it to understand, damn it?!? I give the girl no slack whatsoever about that. She had to understand what it mesa being treated like **** in front of everybody, and at least her father had the decency to show it to her face and not in her back.


As for gun thing, I find stupid people's objections might be based solely on this. The message would have been the same had he used oil+ fire, a basebal bat, a chainsaw or anything else. (kinda sad he didn't used a shotgun).

[The Glyphstone]

A chainsaw would have been cool.

[Psyren]

This is a good thing. That the evidence is forever and yet the hurt is fleeting will be a sign of the daughter's growth.


How on earth do you know what will be fleeting and what won't as a result of this? :smallconfused:

The daughter is an entitled and disrespectful pillock, but a video response for the whole world to see is sinking to her level, not parenting.

And Rule 0 of gun safety is never to use the damn thing when you're angry. Didn't he get that memo?

[Traab]

I just wanted to say this part again. To those who make excuses for the girl, saying how she should be allowed to vent, and how all teens go through this. You are absolutely right. All teens gripe and moan about their parents at some point. All of them think their parents are the worst thing in the world since they made brussel sprout flavored milkshakes. The difference is, most of them will gripe to their small circle of friends, or write it in a journal. She made a post that was seen by hundreds of people, most of whom were likely only casual acquaintances at best.

What she did was the equivalent of hijacking her high schools PA system during lunch and reading off her manifesto on why her parents are scum. More than that, it was as if she then gave everyone a parting gift of her rant on dvd so they could show it to everyone THEY knew if they felt like it. Thats so far out of the realm of acceptable that it boggles the mind. The fact that this was the second time she did it, after being punished for it already, just compounds the entire issue even further.

[Brother Oni]

Not really, the time's gone, but the effects are still there, the laptop is still nicer than it was before. It's like if you made someone a picture and they didn't like it, if you tore it up no-one would have it, but if you gave it to someone who actually liked it, your time would not have been wasted, no?

Except that before giving it to a friend or donating it, he would have had to wipe all the data on it. Since he's in IT, he'd probably take the effort to permanently erase all personally identifiable data then he'd have to re-install the OS back at least to not make it a useless lump of electronics.

He probably decided it was faster and less stressful to just get shot of it (literally!). :smalltongue:



And Rule 0 of gun safety is never to use the damn thing when you're angry. Didn't he get that memo?

As I understand the timeline, he found out about his daughter's post, got angry then called up his wife, begging her to give him a reason not to shoot it.
She got him to read the post back to her then demanded that he put one in the laptop for her.

After all this, he then came up with the idea of demonstrating the pitfalls of social media to his daughter, so while he's angry, he's not in a rage, which I think what your Rule 0 is intended to warn against.

[Psyren]

What she did was the equivalent of hijacking her high schools PA system during lunch and reading off her manifesto on why her parents are scum. More than that, it was as if she then gave everyone a parting gift of her rant on dvd so they could show it to everyone THEY knew if they felt like it. Thats so far out of the realm of acceptable that it boggles the mind. The fact that this was the second time she did it, after being punished for it already, just compounds the entire issue even further.

So the proper response is to hijack the PA system yourself?

[TheSummoner]

Rule 0 of gun safety is never to use the damn thing when you're angry. Didn't he get that memo?

He didn't seem very angry to me. Hurt, yes, but I wasn't feeling the anger. The man calmly sat down. Read off the letter. Explained his perspective on why it was bull and why she was being a little brat. And finally, carried through on something he said he would do if she pulled that kind of crap again. And one from her mother.

Something I've been seeing a lot of "Why did he shoot the thing? So damn wasteful!" Because he said he would. Because last time she did something like that he said he would put a bullet in her computer if she did it again. Because he didn't do it after that, he would've been sending a clear sign that she is free to walk all over him with little to no consequence.

Someone (I'm too lazy to look back at who) wanted to know what kind of person would even say something like that in the first place. Someone who was upset and hurt. Everyone says crazy things when their emotions run high. Usually they don't mean them. This man in particular, he decided it was better to go through with it than show his daughter that she could get away with anything without consequence. He even tried to get the girl's mother to talk him out of doing it, and that says to me that he said it in a moment of passion and only carried it out to keep good on his word and send a message that she can't get away with saying that sort of thing in a place where all the world can see it.

[Traab]

So the proper response is to hijack the PA system yourself?

Yep. You want to assassinate someone in the court of public opinion? Be prepared for them to fight back.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Staying away from gun control laws, may I ask why do you apparently find firearms so abhorrent?


It comes down to this: hunting rifles are not built for killing people. All other guns are built for killing people. I don't want people other than the authorities having the capabilities to kill me, or others, so easily. That's as far as I can go on the subject.


Can I say, for the record, that that's a relationship I'd kill to have with my parents? This is so far from the norm, at least where I am, that I initially thought you were joking. When I was younger, if I asked my parents why they were doing something, there'd be two options: they'd either tell me how obvious it was, or look at me like I'd grown an extra head and shoo me away.

Not that I'm defending this strategy. Saved them some energy, I guess, but did none of us any favors in the long run. :smallannoyed:

Aye. It really does help building a positive family spirit.


And in reply to SiuS, who I'm not quoting because I'm to lazy to go through his gigantic post to find the bits addressed to me:

My point is less that I get away with delinquency. My point is that the other approach doesn't STOP others from doing the same. It just teaches them to resent their parents.
Hell, I had a friend who I haven't seen in months, because she slept with someone and her parents, in reply to this, completely cut her off from seeing ANY of her friends, and switched her schools to make sure she never saw any of us ever again. You can imagine how that worked out: she was depressed for months. At one point, it was so bad she couldn't go back home after school, and ended up staying at a schoolmates house for a few days because she couldn't deal with seeing her parents. At least her brothers helped her though...

[McStabbington]

I'm not seeing how he has the right to do with the laptop as he wants. If A conveys an object to B, even as a gift, that does not grant A the right to later destroy said object if he gets miffed at B. If I give Traab a house purely as a gift, and then later I get mad at him, it's still arson under the criminal code and conversion at civil action if I burn the house down in retaliation. The fact that Traab and I are strangers, and this man is the father of his daughter, makes absolutely no difference as a matter of law. Nor does the fact that, as a matter of law, she was arguably engaging in slander by damaging his reputation (although there's no indication of actual damages suffered by the father). The penalty for commiting a tort is liability, not allowing the victim license to commit torts on you. The insistence that the daughter pay for damage done by the father is simply icing on the cake.

Really, the thing that went through my mind when I watched the video was that I can see immediately where this girl gets her penchant for drama and overreaction. The problem of course is that she's 15. He looks to be in his late 30's. In the words of Bobby Singer, a kid's job is to eat your food and break your heart. To play tit for tat with a child is just idiotically poor parenting. To play tit-for-tat, plus destroying an object worth roughly $500 that you yourself describe as "hers", plus billing her for the costs associated with destroying it, plus part of the value of the item itself, is parenting usually reserved for the heir to the throne of a Kingdom of Idiots. Really, the only lesson that I would draw if I were her would be 1) keep my ideas about myself behind a plastic mask until I'm 18 and 2) when I'm 18 remove any possible chance that this person has to damage and destroy what is mine permanently. Which are lessons that loving parents really don't want to teach their children.

[Dragonus45]

I agree with virtually everything and everything this guy has to say, right up until he puts it on youtube. At that point he has stopped parenting and started being a whole new level of wrong.

[jpreem]

Someone (I'm too lazy to look back at who) wanted to know what kind of person would even say something like that in the first place. Someone who was upset and hurt. Everyone says crazy things when their emotions run high. Usually they don't mean them. This man in particular, he decided it was better to go through with it than show his daughter that she could get away with anything without consequence.

<sarcasm>Well that's totally reasonable. </sarcasm>
Everybody says crazy things when their emotions run high. Only crazy people would think that I should do crazy things because I already said them (WHEN I WAS EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE). Glad that he will never ever promise to hurt anybody when he's angry i hope? A lesson we should learn from this is that the girl should abandon her parents when they are old and feeble - because she promised to do so when her emotions were high. You just can't back of from a promise like this you know.

[Traab]

I'm not seeing how he has the right to do with the laptop as he wants. If A conveys an object to B, even as a gift, that does not grant A the right to later destroy said object if he gets miffed at B. If I give Traab a house purely as a gift, and then later I get mad at him, it's still arson under the criminal code and conversion at civil action if I burn the house down in retaliation. The fact that Traab and I are strangers, and this man is the father of his daughter, makes absolutely no legal difference as a matter of law. Nor does the fact that, as a matter of law, she was arguably engaging in slander by damaging his reputation (although there's no indication of actual damages suffered by the father). The penalty for being the victim of a tort is liability, not license to commit torts of your own. The insistence that the daughter pay for damage done by the father is simply icing on the cake.

Really, the thing that went through my mind when I watched the video was that I can see immediately where this girl gets her penchant for drama and overreaction. The problem of course is that she's 15. He looks to be in his late 30's. In the words of Bobby Singer, a kid's job is to eat your food and break your heart. To play tit for tat with a child is just idiotically poor parenting. To play tit-for-tat, plus destroying an object worth roughly $500 that you yourself describe as "hers", plus billing her for the costs associated with destroying it, plus part of the value of the item itself, is parenting usually reserved for the heir to the throne of a Kingdom of Idiots. Really, the only lesson that I would draw if I were her would be 1) keep my ideas about myself behind a plastic mask until I'm 18 and 2) when I'm 18 remove any possible chance that this person has to damage and destroy what is mine permanently. Which are lessons that loving parents really don't want to teach their children.

Well, if I am your underage child, I dont own the thing you gave me, I legally cant own it. So its your property. But arson is another issue entirely, the reason arson is illegal even if its your own property is because of the danger involved in burning down a building. A more accurate example would be you giving me say, a crystal vase, then getting pissed and breaking it. If I am a legal adult, then thats destruction of private property and a crime. If I am your underage kid, then thats destroying your own property, which isnt a crime. If it was a crime to break your own property, then every time I chew the bic pen I bought id be committing a misdemeanor.

The lesson you SHOULD bring away from this is, "If I want to hate my parents, perhaps I had better not announce it to the world. If I DO announce it to the world, I shouldnt be shocked at receiving a negative reaction from my parents." Its like you only see this as two possible options. Either she can say whatever she wants, whenever she wants, to whoever she wants with no restrictions, or she cant talk about her feelings at all to anyone in any way. It doesnt work that way. There are so many other ways she could express herself without getting into trouble. She could keep a private journal, she could get together with her friends after school and take part in a gripe fest, she could channel her anger into poetry, and wear lots of black to express how downtrodden and emo she is now, whatever.

There was no need to announce to hundreds of people, with the potential to spread to thousands more, how much you hate your family and how awful evil lazy and stupid they are for daring to ask you to wash dishes. Its uncalled for, and it is deserving of punishment. ESPECIALLY since she had already been punished for that exact same thing and she didnt learn her lesson, instead choosing to try to hide it from her father so she could intentionally ignore his rules and try to get away with it.

Thats an important factor to include here. She had done this before, just finished getting punished for doing this exact same thing in fact, and she decided to learn NOTHING from her punishment, except to try and cover her tracks better so she wouldnt get caught. This wasnt a spur of the moment punishment for a first time offense. This was on the arena of escalating punishments for repeating your rule breaking until the lesson finally sinks in. Clearly just grounding her didnt get the lesson to sink in.

[Dragonus45]

There was no need to announce to hundreds of people, with the potential to spread to thousands more, how much you hate your family and how awful evil lazy and stupid they are for daring to ask you to wash dishes. Its uncalled for, and it is deserving of punishment. ESPECIALLY since she had already been punished for that exact same thing and she didnt learn her lesson, instead choosing to try to hide it from her father so she could intentionally ignore his rules and try to get away with it.

By that logic how is it ok for him to post this to almost a thousand people with potential to spread to MILLIONS more. I get that she needed to be punished, and i wish he hasn't shot that laptop only cus im a broke 2X year old who happens to need one and thinks its a waste, totally his right though. BUT posting this online was not parenting, shaming your child on the internet just because you want to make a point to them is not discipline its abuse.

[jpreem]

Just noticed Mcstabbingtons post and I must say that I totally agree on seeing where the drama genes/memes are coming from. Apple does not fall far from the tree in this case.
Emotional **** like that will lead to really bad decisions (as read from facebook and seen on youtube :D).
Emotional *** like this should be kept far away from firearms. I'd like to iterate that guns are not meant for family conflict resolution.

If I'd find myself shooting up my offspring's stuff to prove a point .. I'd go and return my firearms license.

[Traab]

By that logic how is it ok for him to post this to almost a thousand people with potential to spread to MILLIONS more. I get that she needed to be punished, and i wish he hasn't shot that laptop only cus im a broke 2X year old who happens to need one and thinks its a waste, totally his right though. BUT posting this online was not parenting, shaming your child on the internet just because you want to make a point to them is not discipline its abuse.

Its no different then taking your child who is acting out at the grocery store and punishing them there in public. The misbehavior was public, so is the punishment. And shame is an excellent motivational tool when standard methods of punishment, like grounding, arent working. Shooting the laptop was really the only dumb move he made imo.

[Toastkart]

Really, the thing that went through my mind when I watched the video was that I can see immediately where this girl gets her penchant for drama and overreaction. The problem of course is that she's 15. He looks to be in his late 30's.

I'm not going to watch the video, as at this point I see no need. This, however, is my impression of its contents from reading this thread.

The father's response is so far beyond appropriate that the girl's behavior is essentially irrelevant. No, it doesn't matter whether he used a gun or a baseball bat or a brick, the message is the same. That message is: next time, this could be you. And there will be a next time, whether it is a similar issue or not. What is he going to shoot/destroy then?

The thing is, discipline is not just levying punishment when a child does something you don't want them to do. If that were the case, previous punishments would have had an effect on her behavior. More violent punishment does not mean more effective.



Hell, I had a friend who I haven't seen in months, because she slept with someone and her parents, in reply to this, completely cut her off from seeing ANY of her friends, and switched her schools to make sure she never saw any of us ever again. You can imagine how that worked out: she was depressed for months. At one point, it was so bad she couldn't go back home after school, and ended up staying at a schoolmates house for a few days because she couldn't deal with seeing her parents. At least her brothers helped her though...

A few years ago I had a friend who was similarly punished for the same reason. They took away her phone, her car, forced her to quit her job, and from what I understand kept her from seeing anyone that wasn't family for several months. When they finally eased up, she moved out.

[TheSummoner]

<sarcasm>Well that's totally reasonable. </sarcasm>
Everybody says crazy things when their emotions run high. Only crazy people would think that I should do crazy things because I already said them (WHEN I WAS EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE). Glad that he will never ever promise to hurt anybody when he's angry i hope?

The laptop is an inanimate object. A person is not.

With the laptop, the options are "Shoot the laptop, losing the value of the machine itself or show my daughter that she can get away with anything because my word is worthless and there won't be any punishment." If he had instead said something along the lines of "Do it again and I'll strangle you." The options are "Show my daughter that I'm not going to strangle her" or "Murder a family member, run from the police, get caught, get thrown in prison, spend the rest of my miserable life rotting in a cell and getting aquainted with my cellmate, Bubba."

There's a world of difference between the two. I really hope you can see that.

[Seerow]

There's a world of difference between the two. I really hope you can see that.

Laptops are people too!

[McStabbington]

Well, if I am your underage child, I dont own the thing you gave me, I legally cant own it. So its your property. But arson is another issue entirely, the reason arson is illegal even if its your own property is because of the danger involved in burning down a building. A more accurate example would be you giving me say, a crystal vase, then getting pissed and breaking it. If I am a legal adult, then thats destruction of private property and a crime. If I am your underage kid, then thats destroying your own property, which isnt a crime. If it was a crime to break your own property, then every time I chew the bic pen I bought id be committing a misdemeanor.


I'll stop you here because everything else seems premised off this point. Put simply, that is incorrect. There is no limit on the ability to convey title and ownership to children in the law. If I die and my estate conveys $5,000, a diamond ring and a house to my hypothetical infant son, my hypothetical wife (his hypothetical mother) most certainly does not take ownership of them by virtue of relation. In point of fact, in most cases a guardian or conservator will be appointed specifically to protect the child's interest in case any dispute about the will is made. Further, if I convey property to a child during life, whether that conveyance is personal property or real estate, that conveyance is considered as valid as if I had transferred it to an adult. Adulthood confers full unrestricted ability to use or convey that property as you see fit, but there is nothing about being beneath the age of majority that makes ownership a legal nullity.

[Dragonus45]

Its no different then taking your child who is acting out at the grocery store and punishing them there in public. The misbehavior was public, so is the punishment. And shame is an excellent motivational tool when standard methods of punishment, like grounding, arent working. Shooting the laptop was really the only dumb move he made imo.

It may look the same but it isn't. A parent in a grocery store has no choice about pusnighsing there child in a public place, and you should never go out of your way to shame your child or make them feel less. In what way does attempting making your child feel small, less, or in some other way belittle them with a public shaming encourage anything but a negative lesson. This person took what should have been a private matter after he deleted post and turned it into an internet frenzy. She may be doing well but it is a terrible precedent to set.

[jpreem]

^^ @ the Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll quote and Evrin's reply there. Pretty horrible. It's hard for me to see parents like this. The Evrin's case would be just the most logical reaction - what really were those parent THINKING they would accomplish.
(Though here seems to be a lot of posts who seem to think that a thought process-"Hmm my child did not obey me even after I punished him/he. I must punish him/her HARDER and then EVEN HARDER until that little *** breaks". is normal.)

Also this last post reminded me the film "Virgin suicides".

[jpreem]

With the laptop, the options are "Shoot the laptop, losing the value of the machine itself or show my daughter that she can get away with anything because my word is worthless and there won't be any punishment."

Or give it to charity. And show that I'm not a total nutter who has to do whatever I spew out from my mouth when I'm angry. It'll lose a lot in the department of showing your 15 yo daughter how frikking terrifingly mucho man I am. Which if of course the most important thing.

Don't mess with me kiddo - you know I'm crazy loco :smallcool:

[Reverent-One]

The father's response is so far beyond appropriate that the girl's behavior is essentially irrelevant. No, it doesn't matter whether he used a gun or a baseball bat or a brick, the message is the same. That message is: next time, this could be you.

No, it doesn't. That would be the message if he said it was, but he hasn't said that as far as we know.


And there will be a next time, whether it is a similar issue or not. What is he going to shoot/destroy then?

Crazy idea, but maybe he doesn't shoot/destroy anything. We know that isn't always his method, since he grounded her for 3 months previously, so you're jumping the conclusion that he must always do it.

[Traab]

It may look the same but it isn't. A parent in a grocery store has no choice about pusnighsing there child in a public place, and you should never go out of your way to shame your child or make them feel less. In what way does attempting making your child feel small, less, or in some other way belittle them with a public shaming encourage anything but a negative lesson. This person took what should have been a private matter after he deleted post and turned it into an internet frenzy. She may be doing well but it is a terrible precedent to set.

Except it already wasnt a private matter. She made it public, for the second time. She took her standard normal nonobjectionable grounding punishment, and learned nothing from it. Obviously grounding alone didnt work. Neither did taking the computer from her for that time period. This? This has apparently worked. Im pretty sure she wont be stupid enough to publically trash her family anymore.

[Dragonus45]

Except it already wasnt a private matter. She made it public, for the second time. She took her standard normal nonobjectionable grounding punishment, and learned nothing from it. Obviously grounding alone didnt work. Neither did taking the computer from her for that time period. This? This has apparently worked. Im pretty sure she wont be stupid enough to publically trash her family anymore.

How was it not a private matter, she posted something of facebook whining about her parents and he deleted it and pushed her for it. What part of that story needs a demeaning public shaming at the hands of 18,743,511 (at the time if this posting) Just because it works doesn't make it right, and i don't really feel the need to list some of the examples i could come up with for that train of thought.

[Helanna]

I'm not going to watch the video, as at this point I see no need. This, however, is my impression of its contents from reading this thread.

The father's response is so far beyond appropriate that the girl's behavior is essentially irrelevant. No, it doesn't matter whether he used a gun or a baseball bat or a brick, the message is the same. That message is: next time, this could be you. And there will be a next time, whether it is a similar issue or not. What is he going to shoot/destroy then?

The thing is, discipline is not just levying punishment when a child does something you don't want them to do. If that were the case, previous punishments would have had an effect on her behavior. More violent punishment does not mean more effective.


So you're not even going to watch the video and see what happened and what was said, but you feel qualified to say what the message of it was? Because at no point was that video even remotely threatening, and saying that the father implied that he would shoot his daughter if she acted up again is disgusting. I feel like a lot of people are making drastic assumptions about these people's characters based solely on the video, but to make such a drastic leap without even seeing it is just awful.

Honestly, I just don't see what the huge deal here is. I can't really condone the punishment, and there were almost certainly better ways to handle it (I can't say for sure, what with not personally knowing the family in question), but seriously? The father is fine, the daughter is fine, nobody's angry, and they're both laughing at it. I would imagine the girl is still pissed that she lost her laptop, but overall a bunch of strangers on the internet are getting way more worked up about this than anyone actually involved was.

Besides, I see way, way worse parenting every single day at the Walmart I work at. Teaching your kids to shoplift? Letting them run around destroying store property? Dropping them off at the toy section and then leaving the store to run errands? Having screaming fits because they were laughing a little too loudly? This happens to little kids all the time, frankly I'm not too concerned about a teenager getting her laptop taken away because she was using it to be a *****.

[Traab]

How was it not a private matter, she posted something of facebook whining about her parents and he deleted it and pushed her for it. What part of that story needs a demeaning public shaming at the hands of 18,743,511 (at the time if this posting) Just because it works doesn't make it right, and i don't really feel the need to list some of the examples i could come up with for that train of thought.

Just because you dont like it doesnt make it wrong either. It was already public because she decided to post her rant in an area where it was viewed by hundreds of people. That isnt even CLOSE to private. The fact that she clearly showed she was incapable of learning not to do that kind of thing is why the punishment had to be escalated beyond the normal methods of punishing a child. She made her comments publicly, so her dad did the same, he posted it on the facebook page to shame her in front of the same people that she decided to air her dirty laundry in front of in the first place.

I would never recommend this as a first time punishment, but in this case I feel it was justified. She did it once and got punished for it. She lost her computer and got grounded over it. Instead of learning her lesson and not doing that anymore, she decided to get the delusion that she is clever and did it again, only this time she tried to hide it from her parents. The fact that the standard method of punishment clearly didnt work is reason enough for escalation of some sort. The public way she acted made a public response a reasonable alternative.

[KnightDisciple]

A few thoughts.

1.)Having thought it over, he should have given the laptop to charity.
...Possibly after shooting it with a paintball gun and posting the video. Then it's clearly a collector's item. Or sell it on eBay and donate the proceeds. Anyways. Either way, show her that she's actually really blessed to have what she does, and that other people have less, and she should be thankful for what she has.
2.)The list of chores given by the father, and given by the daughter, are disparate.
I'm inclined to believe the regular list is the father's, and the daughter's is either a complete exaggeration, or a couple of one-two time incidents that she's blown out of proportion.
3.)I bet if she'd just said something like "I feel like a slave my parents make me do all this stuff" and she hadn't been cussing about them and so severely disrespecting them, he wouldn't have punished her so harshly.
4.)People are missing the part where the thing that probably made him the most angry was where the punk teenager referred to the family friend who volunteers to help them around the house as the "cleaning lady". Notice how he emphasized she will never call her that again?
5.)Teenagers have the freedom of speech to say all sorts of things about their parents. But as minors in the care and authority of their parents, their parents also have a right (and I would say a responsibility) to discipline them and teach them that such disrespect isn't "right" or "part of being a teenager", especially when you take it to something like Facebook, toss it up on your wall, block your family and church friends (that one's a bit telling; it's like she knows it's not really a good thing she's doing, so she doesn't want their church circle to see, but she's still determined to do it), all with the hope your fellow teenager friends will give you an echo chamber.
6.)If my kid (theoretical at this point) ever uses that sort of language toward myself or his/her (probably her, as the eldest of 3 boys I'm guaranteed nothing but girls) mother, you can be sure they're going to be disciplined.
7.)It's hilarious that the kid is asking to be paid, when they're also asking for a bunch of rather expensive gadgets.
8.)Chores are not like employment. You do them to contribute to your own household, to help our your parents who are working themselves to the bone to help keep you fed and clothed, and because hard work might just build some character and teach you a lesson or two.
9.)While I wasn't nearly so thoroughly busy as the father was at that age, I did have a job by 16, one that I worked regularly until I left for college.
10.)Man, what is it about each generation getting less and less thankful? Is our culture just flooding them with the "knowledge" that they "deserve" everything right now?
11.)In a decade she'll look back and thank her father for caring about her attitude and work ethic, as well as for providing so much for her. And realize her parents aren't quite as stupid as she thought.

Ok. Think I'm done.

FYI, that's a 20-something-who's-closer-to-30 perspective. Not a hot-headed teenager. :smalltongue::smallwink:

[Toastkart]

No, it doesn't. That would be the message if he said it was, but he hasn't said that as far as we know.
What he says doesn't matter. What he's shown is that escalation to violence is his response to her behavior that he doesn't like.


Crazy idea, but maybe he doesn't shoot/destroy anything. We know that isn't always his method, since he grounded her for 3 months previously, so you're jumping the conclusion that he must always do it.
And when this punishment fails to work or another similar issue arises, how far is he going to escalate his response because shooting her laptop and publicly humiliating her didn't do the trick? I'm not jumping to conclusions, I'm extrapolating based on what I know. He's just thrown down an ultimatum. When they have another disagreement, and they will, what happens after the usual groundings, etc. don't work (since they didn't work before)?

Where does this father have left to go now? Ok, I suppose he showed some restraint in harming her things rather than her the first time, but that's not a compliment.


She took her standard normal nonobjectionable grounding punishment, and learned nothing from it. Obviously grounding alone didnt work. Neither did taking the computer from her for that time period.
Out of curiosity, what does grounding even mean anymore? The last time I was grounded by my parents was 10-12 years ago, and basically meant that for a few weeks instead of watching tv or playing videogames in my spare time, I read more books. I read more books anyway, most of the time, so it didn't mean a whole lot. It was also, for the most part, for minor transgressions such as not bringing home straight A's from school.

The point I'm getting at, is that grounding is considered by the average person to be a punishment, but unless it actually means something to the person being grounded, it's not going to be effective in reducing the unwanted behavior.



So you're not even going to watch the video and see what happened and what was said, but you feel qualified to say what the message of it was? Because at no point was that video even remotely threatening, and saying that the father implied that he would shoot his daughter if she acted up again is disgusting. I feel like a lot of people are making drastic assumptions about these people's characters based solely on the video, but to make such a drastic leap without even seeing it is just awful.
Reading this thread has given me enough information to say everything I have said. I am a psychology graduate student, and I regularly have to interpret small, often disparate, accounts of events and people and draw conclusions. I'm not saying that this man will be violent in the future, I'm saying he opened that possibility, and upped the ante so high that things could spiral out of control very quickly. It's not an unreasonable thing to say.


Besides, I see way, way worse parenting every single day at the Walmart I work at. Teaching your kids to shoplift? Letting them run around destroying store property? Dropping them off at the toy section and then leaving the store to run errands? Having screaming fits because they were laughing a little too loudly? This happens to little kids all the time, frankly I'm not too concerned about a teenager getting her laptop taken away because she was using it to be a *****.

Same here, and I agree. All kinds of messed up things happen when parents are punishing their children, and it goes on or unnoticed because no one sees it, and when they do see it they raise all the wrong kinds of concerns. I've worked retail before, too, and one of the worst experiences I've ever had in this regard was when two young girls, one was probably about 5, the other was about 7. They were both misbehaving slightly, but the younger one was being threatened by her mother with being sent to the 'doctor's' if she didn't act right, which for me was a really chilling thought because it could mean so many different things.

[Traab]

Out of curiosity, what does grounding even mean anymore?

It means you cant go hang out with your friends, you cant watch tv, cant use the computer, cant talk on the phone, cant do anything but stay in your room. Admittedly its less effective against a person who has a nice library and enjoys reading it, but a social butterfly would likely find it a fairly effective deterrent.

[Cikomyr]

Reading this thread has given me enough information to say everything I have said. I am a psychology graduate student, and I regularly have to interpret small, often disparate, accounts of events and people and draw conclusions. I'm not saying that this man will be violent in the future, I'm saying he opened that possibility, and upped the ante so high that things could spiral out of control very quickly. It's not an unreasonable thing to say.

I weep for the future of Psychological science if "reading the comments of random people over the internet" actually count as proper ground to base any behavioral theories about someone, without even going to see the source material.

I am sorry, but that's basically talking out of your ass and using a your degree as a credential license. You disparage your field of study and your profession if you try to use it in a way to establish a position of authority while talking about things you are purposely remaining ignorant about.

[Reverent-One]

What he says doesn't matter. What he's shown is that escalation to violence is his response to her behavior that he doesn't like.

And when this punishment fails to work or another similar issue arises, how far is he going to escalate his response because shooting her laptop and publicly humiliating her didn't do the trick? I'm not jumping to conclusions, I'm extrapolating based on what I know. He's just thrown down an ultimatum. When they have another disagreement, and they will, what happens after the usual groundings, etc. don't work (since they didn't work before)?

Again, you're assuming that he has to escalate the punishment every time. In this one case, he grounded her before for this issue with the warning of an increased punishment if she did it again. But you're trying to turn a single event into a repeated one. I'm willing to bet he's punished her for things other than this issue before, and yet we've heard nothing of similar escalation. Given the likely number of times he's had to punish her before, he should be far past this point if he had to escalate every time.

[Brother Oni]

Reading this thread has given me enough information to say everything I have said. I am a psychology graduate student, and I regularly have to interpret small, often disparate, accounts of events and people and draw conclusions.

So what you're apparently saying, is that you're willing to take the biased interpretations of people of an event OVER viewing the event for yourself? :smallconfused:

Surely primary sources of evidence trump secondary sources, especially in behavioural sciences where nuances such as body language and tone of voice are critical to context?

The father commented on a Dallas news programme interviewing a psychologist over the video, who came up with a whole bunch of subsequently erroneous conclusions, all based on an ~8.5 minute video.
Bear in mind that he was subsequently inspected by local Social Services and the police, who found absolutely nothing wrong even after the social worker interviewed the daughter privately for over an hour.

I'm not saying that the psychologist was wrong to draw the conclusions that he did based on his current information, but refusing to refine or consider changing your conclusions based on new evidence is unprofessional and sometimes dangerous.

[McStabbington]

Again, you're assuming that he has to escalate the punishment every time. In this one case, he grounded her before for this issue with the warning of an increased punishment if she did it again. But you're trying to turn a single event into a repeated one. I'm willing to bet he's punished her for things other than this issue before, and yet we've heard nothing of similar escalation. Given the likely number of times he's had to punish her before, he should be far past this point if he had to escalate every time.

It also runs counter to what he actually said. He described the prior incident in singular terms explicitly, and perhaps more significantly for me, he didn't even remember what she had done. As a simple heuristic, if you can't remember what someone did to you, it's probably not that big a deal. It's probably also not significant enough to warrant the punishment that he meted out, which was 3 months of grounding, even without considering the later attempt to teach the child gratitude by emptying a handgun into what is likely her most valuable personal possession.

[Traab]

It also runs counter to what he actually said. He described the prior incident in singular terms explicitly, and perhaps more significantly for me, he didn't even remember what she had done. As a simple heuristic, if you can't remember what someone did to you, it's probably not that big a deal. It's probably also not significant enough to warrant the punishment that he meted out, which was 3 months of grounding, even without considering the later attempt to teach the child gratitude by emptying a handgun into what is likely her most valuable personal possession.

If it was that valuable to her, she wouldnt be breaking the rules when she gets warned about what will happen. Obviously it wasnt that important to her. If your parent tells you, "You do that again and you lose it forever." And then you do it again, you have no room to complain about losing that item forever. Its that simple.

[Lappy9001]

Sounds like good parenting to me, given the circumstances.

While my parents have never resorted to physical discipline, my father probably would have done something similar, or at least have Shouted me into submission using his Thu'um :smalltongue:

[McStabbington]

If it was that valuable to her, she wouldnt be breaking the rules when she gets warned about what will happen. Obviously it wasnt that important to her. If your parent tells you, "You do that again and you lose it forever." And then you do it again, you have no room to complain about losing that item forever. Its that simple.

With respect, you don't really believe this is true any more than I do. If a child's most valuable possession is their dog, a parent threatens to take the dog away if they don't learn to clean up after the dog, and the child fails to do so, I don't think you're really going to argue that it's appropriate to make a video of shooting the dog and posting it to their Facebook page. Surely you would concede that some measure of judgment, discretion and plain old proportionality must prevail in any legitimate attempt to discipline one's child properly.

The problem, however, is that while this is by no means as disproportionate as shooting the dog, it's ridiculously disproportionate to the offense. Kids say mean things about their parents. Kids say mean things about their parents even when the parent in no way deserves it. Kids say mean things about their parents because they are kids and kids are ungrateful little idiots who have no conception of the amount of day in, day out sacrifice that parenting requires. Thiis is especially true in adolescence, when children are first attempting to forge an identity, and usually take the view of "not my parent" as their first stab at it.

The obvious implication is that if an offense is a fairly normal, typical result of the status of the child, you don't punish in a wildly disproportionate manner. If a 4-year old gets into the Lysol, you don't punish the kid by making him finish the bottle before you call Poison Control. If a 6-year old wets the bed, you don't punish by hanging the sheets in the front yard for all his friends to see. If a ten year old is repeatedly inattentive, there is never a point at which you're justified in deafening the kid in one ear with a loudspeaker. And if a fifteen year old badmouths a kid, logic dictates that permanently destroying a $500 possession and then billing her for part of the damages, as well as the cost to destroy it, falls under the concept of "overkill", and by extension really shouldn't be accepted.

[Reverent-One]

And if a fifteen year old badmouths a kid, logic dictates that permanently destroying a $500 possession and then billing her for part of the damages, as well as the cost to destroy it, falls under the concept of "overkill", and by extension really shouldn't be accepted.

Not really. Lesser punishments didn't teach her anything and destroying the possession did no undue harm, so I can't call it overkill.

[Toastkart]

Disparaging remarks aside, you all seem to be taking what I am saying not only out of context, but certainly out of proportion. Everything that I have said is in relation to one act out of this whole thing--using a gun to destroy a laptop in a public display of shaming as a form of punishment--and everything I have said is only in reference to that. I have not said that this man will escalate his punishment, I have said that he is likely to, which is a very different thing.

Further, whether I am a psychology student or not, is irrelevant to what I have said about this act. I mentioned it only to show that I'm used to dealing with snippets of information, many of which conflict, and drawing conclusions from them. In this case, the only thing that matters is the act of punishment that he used. Seeing it doesn't make a difference in knowing that it happened, and thus, in what I have said.

Case in point,

The father commented on a Dallas news programme interviewing a psychologist over the video, who came up with a whole bunch of subsequently erroneous conclusions, all based on an ~8.5 minute video.
Bear in mind that he was subsequently inspected by local Social Services and the police, who found absolutely nothing wrong even after the social worker interviewed the daughter privately for over an hour.

I'm not saying that the psychologist was wrong to draw the conclusions that he did based on his current information, but refusing to refine or consider changing your conclusions based on new evidence is unprofessional and sometimes dangerous.
If I were the psychologist who was going to be evaluating this family after these events, yes, I would gather all available information and keep it in mind as I began the process of interviewing these people.

The reality of the matter is, if you're evaluating a family in a situation like this, you usually have a lot less information to go on starting out and usually the information that you do have conflicts in many ways. So yes, primary sources are best for evaluating people, but as far as I'm concerned the primary sources are the people involved, and I obviously don't have access to them.

The video in question is not a primary source, it was a staged production (in the sense that it was made specifically to be seen, not that it was faked). Their facebook comments aren't even really primary sources, either, as they're now being made to be seen by the public at large. That's probably a different take on what primary/secondary sources means to most people, even in various psychological contexts, but I think it is appropriate in this case.

But I'm not evaluating the family, or even really the father. I'm talking about a single act (grossly inappropriate punishment) in a single context (future punishments), and I'm speaking in as general terms as possible. I'm not evaluating his character, I'm not evaluating whether he is an immediate physical threat to his daughter (I seriously doubt he is), all that I am doing is calling into question whether he can avoid using such grossly inappropriate punishment in the future now that he's done it, and whether he can avoid escalating that punishment.

That being said, where I went wrong was in not further distancing my comments from this particular instance. Let me try again.

I think the punishment he gave his daughter was inappropriate. It was forceful and violent, even if it wasn't directed at her physically. I also think that parents who resort to this kind of punishment after traditionally accepted punishments fail to produce the results they want are going to find it difficult to not continue escalating the level of force, violence, and authoritarian control.

For one, conflicts between parents and their children happen, sometimes repeatedly. Two, traditional punishments i.e. grounding, don't work if they're not meaningful. Three, just because a parent punishes a child, doesn't mean the child has to like it. Four, it certainly doesn't mean that the child won't try to 'get away with it' given the opportunity. Five, you shouldn't punish your child for not enjoying the punishment you gave them before. Six, if you have to repeatedly punish for the same/similar issue, then you should re-evaluate why you're punishing, and how you're punishing. Most people don't do this. Instead they think well this didn't work last time, so now I have to do something else, a better, harder punishment. And the whole thing becomes cyclic.

The gist of what I am saying is this: I think the punishment was excessive and grossly inappropriate. If it was that bad this time, what happens next time? Is the punishment going to be even more excessive and grossly inappropriate? And that's a valid question to raise.



The obvious implication is that if an offense is a fairly normal, typical result of the status of the child, you don't punish in a wildly disproportionate manner. If a 4-year old gets into the Lysol, you don't punish the kid by making him finish the bottle before you call Poison Control. If a 6-year old wets the bed, you don't punish by hanging the sheets in the front yard for all his friends to see. If a ten year old is repeatedly inattentive, there is never a point at which you're justified in deafening the kid in one ear with a loudspeaker. And if a fifteen year old badmouths a kid, logic dictates that permanently destroying a $500 possession and then billing her for part of the damages, as well as the cost to destroy it, falls under the concept of "overkill", and by extension really shouldn't be accepted.
This is the kind of point I am making. McStabbington just did it better.

[Dogmantra]

Not really. Lesser punishments didn't teach her anything and destroying the possession did no undue harm, so I can't call it overkill.

I think if punishments didn't work before, then maybe one should try a different method of stopping the offense before trying more and more punishments.

If I steal a Mars bar, and you slap me on the wrist, then next week I go and steal another Mars bar and you slap me on the wrist twice, then next week I steal another Mars bar and you hit me three times, I don't think that it's reasonable to expect I won't steal another one the week after that.

[Reverent-One]

Disparaging remarks aside, you all seem to be taking what I am saying not only out of context, but certainly out of proportion. Everything that I have said is in relation to one act out of this whole thing--using a gun to destroy a laptop in a public display of shaming as a form of punishment--and everything I have said is only in reference to that. I have not said that this man will escalate his punishment, I have said that he is likely to, which is a very different thing.

No, I am aware that you're only saying he's likely to. It's just that that statement is equally ridiculous and flawed.


I think if punishments didn't work before, then maybe one should try a different method of stopping the offense before trying more and more punishments.

If I steal a Mars bar, and you slap me on the wrist, then next week I go and steal another Mars bar and you slap me on the wrist twice, then next week I steal another Mars bar and you hit me three times, I don't think that it's reasonable to expect I won't steal another one the week after that.

Which is why instead of a simple temporary loss of the laptop, she loses it permanently. It's not analogous to getting two slaps on the wrist instead of one.

[Whiffet]

Anyone here raised kids up to adulthood? I think that would be a reasonable perspective. Certainly more reasonable than what most people here have to offer. Obviously we'd need perspectives from different families with kids who acted really different, but still.

[McStabbington]

Not really. Lesser punishments didn't teach her anything and destroying the possession did no undue harm, so I can't call it overkill.

It is difficult to teach a 15-year old not to do things 15-year olds do, since they are, after all, only 15. Prudence dictates that the goal of punishment is not to get a 15-year old never to act like a 15-year old at all, but to act it above her years as much as possible and to regress to being 15 when she is, say, 20 as little as possible. I'm at a bit of a loss to explain how reducing the net value of her assets by $500, and billing her $138 for doing so, somehow accomplishes any of this, or how exactly it did not constitute "undue harm."

Just to point out exactly what is at issue: If a stranger took my laptop, shot it, and then tried to bill me for doing so, he would go to jail for grand larceny. After, of course, I sued him successfully for conversion to recover the costs of the computer plus the punitive damages that are entitled when one commits an intentional tort, plus getting the $138 bill dismissed for lacking the status of a valid oral contract, plus court costs and fees. In other words, if what he did was to someone at arm's length, he would be guilty of a felony. And there is nothing in the law that somehow makes felonies okay if they are committed on people who aren't at arms-length, but rather families. So if I could sue a stranger, and see him put in jail for potentially over a year for what happened there, I'm having a hard time seeing how this is not somehow overkill when done to someone whom you have significantly greater obligations of care to.

[TheSummoner]

How was it not a private matter, she posted something of facebook whining about her parents and he deleted it and pushed her for it. What part of that story needs a demeaning public shaming at the hands of 18,743,511 (at the time if this posting) Just because it works doesn't make it right, and i don't really feel the need to list some of the examples i could come up with for that train of thought.

He put the video in the same place she put her bratty little rant. Both had the same potential to be seen by as many people. He obviously didn't intend for it to be seen by 18 million+ people, just roughly the same people who had seen (and possibly got a laugh out of) her rant. Two wrongs may not make a right, but what he did was no worse than what she did regardless of the fact that his video got as much of a reaction as it did.

Personally, I don't see what was so bad about him posting the video there. She put a private issue in a public place for all to see. He turned it around on her to give her a taste of why that sort of thing is undesirable. The internet is a pretty unpredictable place at times... He had no way of knowing so many people would see it, and if anything, it does a better job of making his point about not putting private things out on the internet.


What he says doesn't matter. What he's shown is that escalation to violence is his response to her behavior that he doesn't like.

Violence, really? Destroying an inanimate object is violence now?


If a child's most valuable possession is their dog, a parent threatens to take the dog away if they don't learn to clean up after the dog, and the child fails to do so, I don't think you're really going to argue that it's appropriate to make a video of shooting the dog and posting it to their Facebook page.

You I would like to refer to something I said earlier.


The laptop is an inanimate object. A person dog is not.

[...]

There's a world of difference between the two. I really hope you can see that.

I would say the father in your hypothetical would be perfectly justified in getting rid of the dog. Shooting the dog? Of course not. But getting rid of the thing, yes. You can't compare destroying a computer to killing or injuring a living creature. The two just aren't on the same level and any arguement trying to present one as having the same weight as the other is just laughable.

And yes, it probably would've been better (as in less wasterful) for him to sell it or give it away. I've never claimed that shooting it wasn't wasteful. However, it was his property to do with what he wanted. He thought destroying it would get the point across better and I'm inclined to agree. As for why he used a gun... Because he owned one? Because it was easy? Because it's a lot easier to be calm and not look like a sociopath while destroying a laptop with a gun than it would be with a sledge hammer, a chainsaw, or an axe? Why does it even matter that he used a gun?

[Reverent-One]

It is difficult to teach a 15-year old not to do things 15-year olds do, since they are, after all, only 15. Prudence dictates that the goal of punishment is not to get a 15-year old never to act like a 15-year old at all, but to act it above her years as much as possible and to regress to being 15 when she is, say, 20 as little as possible.

On this we agree. This punishment fits that idea, teaching her the value of the dollar and the way things on the internet can spread.


I'm at a bit of a loss to explain how reducing the net value of her assets by $500, and billing her $138 for doing so, somehow accomplishes any of this, or how exactly it did not constitute "undue harm."

Just to point out exactly what is at issue: If a stranger took my laptop, shot it, and then tried to bill me for doing so, he would go to jail for grand larceny. After, of course, I sued him successfully for conversion to recover the costs of the computer plus the punitive damages that are entitled when one commits an intentional tort, plus getting the $138 bill dismissed for lacking the status of a valid oral contract, plus court costs and fees. In other words, if what he did was to someone at arm's length, he would be guilty of a felony. And there is nothing in the law that somehow makes felonies okay if they are committed on people who aren't at arms-length, but rather families. So if I could sue a stranger, and see him put in jail for potentially over a year for what happened there, I'm having a hard time seeing how this is not somehow overkill when done to someone whom you have significantly greater obligations of care to.

Really? You're saying a parent doesn't have right to take away a possession of a child because you can't do it a stranger? And you don't see how those are totally different things at all?

[Traab]

With respect, you don't really believe this is true any more than I do. If a child's most valuable possession is their dog, a parent threatens to take the dog away if they don't learn to clean up after the dog, and the child fails to do so, I don't think you're really going to argue that it's appropriate to make a video of shooting the dog and posting it to their Facebook page. Surely you would concede that some measure of judgment, discretion and plain old proportionality must prevail in any legitimate attempt to discipline one's child properly.

The problem, however, is that while this is by no means as disproportionate as shooting the dog, it's ridiculously disproportionate to the offense. Kids say mean things about their parents. Kids say mean things about their parents even when the parent in no way deserves it. Kids say mean things about their parents because they are kids and kids are ungrateful little idiots who have no conception of the amount of day in, day out sacrifice that parenting requires. Thiis is especially true in adolescence, when children are first attempting to forge an identity, and usually take the view of "not my parent" as their first stab at it.

The obvious implication is that if an offense is a fairly normal, typical result of the status of the child, you don't punish in a wildly disproportionate manner. If a 4-year old gets into the Lysol, you don't punish the kid by making him finish the bottle before you call Poison Control. If a 6-year old wets the bed, you don't punish by hanging the sheets in the front yard for all his friends to see. If a ten year old is repeatedly inattentive, there is never a point at which you're justified in deafening the kid in one ear with a loudspeaker. And if a fifteen year old badmouths a kid, logic dictates that permanently destroying a $500 possession and then billing her for part of the damages, as well as the cost to destroy it, falls under the concept of "overkill", and by extension really shouldn't be accepted.

Now who is being disproportionate? Obviously a sane parent wouldnt film themselves shooting a dog to punish their kid, but that is not anywhere near the same thing as destroying a computer, an inanimate object, that she has proven she isnt mature enough to handle using. Its just a freaking laptop, it isnt some priceless family heirloom, or a living breathing thing, It isnt something she bought and paid for with her own money, its a computer. It would be gone forever whether he shot it, put it into a wood chipper, or just gave it away to goodwill. Shooting it was silly, not some insane stunt that makes you think he has no sense of proportion.

It would have been disproportionate if her dad had overheard her griping to her friends over the phone and decided to punish her this way. It would have been way off base if he snooped through her diary and did the same thing. She publicly insulted her parents, twice. Even after being punished for it once already, she insisted on doing it again KNOWING WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES WERE. Every last bit of her shame and property loss, is on her head. I have no sympathy for this girl, none at all. She clearly doesnt deserve to have a computer or even a facebook account, if she cant bring herself to use either responsibly. What she did was way over the line and she deserved her punishment.

She is 15 years old. That is more than old enough to be held accountable for your own stupid decisions. The way you handle punishments changes as your child grows older. You dont ground a 6 year old for 3 months for saying a bad word. You dont make a 15 year old stand in time out for 10 minutes for talking back. So comparing how this man punished his teenage daughter to how its inappropriate to do similar stuff to a 6-10 year old is pointless.

[Knaight]

A brief overview of what the guy did.
1) He broke into his daughter's private correspondence and read it. I'd point out that reading other people's mail is a felony in many countries, and the defense that "she didn't secure her communications well enough" is analogous to "well, it's not like the mailbox I took this out of was locked, so it's their fault". Thinking that you should have access to all of somebody else's information is textbook entitlement. Facebook is not a public forum, and is far more equivalent to a diary than to YouTube.

2) He then shared this information with a huge amount of people. Given how often the video has been reposted, and the number of views 20 million is a conservative estimate. This isn't a measured response, this is escalation - to the tune of five orders of magnitude or so. "For every one of your friends you complained about me to, I'm going to complain about you to ten thousand strangers" is not reasonable, and is not proportionate. Responding to what could possibly be a privacy violation with two massive privacy violations (reading private correspondence, the video) is a petty and immature act.

The message here is clear. The father believes he is entitled to the private correspondence of others, and believes that he has the right to dictate how people who respond to his actions respond, instead of being aware that actions have consequences and being willing to accept them. Everything he criticizes in his daughter - and these are actual flaws - he demonstrates to a much higher degree. Either there's a double standard in place where he is allowed to do this things and other people aren't, or he is endorsing drastic violations of privacy. "You can open other people's mail whenever you want, and prevent them from sending messages you don't like. If they didn't want you to open their mail, they would lock their mailboxes" is not a message that is remotely acceptable.

[Reverent-One]

A brief overview of what the guy did.
1) He broke into his daughter's private correspondence and read it. I'd point out that reading other people's mail is a felony in many countries, and the defense that "she didn't secure her communications well enough" is analogous to "well, it's not like the mailbox I took this out of was locked, so it's their fault". Thinking that you should have access to all of somebody else's information is textbook entitlement. Facebook is not a public forum, and is far more equivalent to a diary than to YouTube.

Wrong, he saw it because she didn't block it from the family dog's account, not because he snooped.


2) He then shared this information with a huge amount of people. Given how often the video has been reposted, and the number of views 20 million is a conservative estimate. This isn't a measured response, this is escalation - to the tune of five orders of magnitude or so. "For every one of your friends you complained about me to, I'm going to complain about you to ten thousand strangers" is not reasonable, and is not proportionate. Responding to what could possibly be a privacy violation with two massive privacy violations (reading private correspondence, the video) is a petty and immature act.

He shared it with a similar number of people that she shared her post with. That the internet went and sent it all over the place just A) disproves your point that facebook is like a diary, and B) serves as a lesson on how things can spread far beyond you meant them to on the internet.

[Whiffet]

A brief overview of what the guy did.
1) He broke into his daughter's private correspondence and read it. I'd point out that reading other people's mail is a felony in many countries, and the defense that "she didn't secure her communications well enough" is analogous to "well, it's not like the mailbox I took this out of was locked, so it's their fault". Thinking that you should have access to all of somebody else's information is textbook entitlement. Facebook is not a public forum, and is far more equivalent to a diary than to YouTube.

Breaking into a private correspondence is not exactly what happened. From what I understand, she posted it on her wall but blocked "Family" and "Church" from seeing it. There was a Facebook page for her dog that wasn't part of those groups, so her dad noticed the message when he was logged into the dog's account.

And I'm not even going to argue about the "Facebook is like a diary" comment. :smalleek:

[Knaight]

Wrong, he saw it because she didn't block it from the family dog's account, not because he snooped.
He still chose to read it, which is snooping. If someone else's mail is accidentally delivered to your mailbox you still don't get to read it.


He shared it with a similar number of people that she shared her post with. That the internet went and sent it all over the place just A) disproves your point that facebook is like a diary, and B) serves as a lesson on how things can spread far beyond you meant them to on the internet.
He posted it on Youtube, in a channel that had active followers, then linked it to Facebook. Sliding a letter under the door doesn't change the fact that you nailed it to the door of public building in the first place, and this is the digital equivalent. That about ten thousand times as many people saw the response seems like a pretty solid indicator that it was not, in fact, shared with the same number of people.

[Frozen_Feet]

HAHAHA!

That man just earned points for having balls. Speaking as a guy who has to watch over dozen teenage girls with almost no ways of disciplining them, I think the daughter deserved this 100% (that ungrateful brat).

Of course, I've been said ungrateful brat a thousand times over. (Though I didn't go around cursing my parents to the whole town.) So it does kinda make blush to admit that. :smallredface:


I would've done the same thing. Except I don't own a firearm, so I probably would've just threw the laptop in a lake.

Switch "laptop" with "computer", and that's exactly what my parents have threatened to do countless times. (Of course, none of our computers have ever been mine in any sense.) Unlike Daddy Cojones here, they've never followed through, however. :smallbiggrin:


Yeah, this is my point that I was trying to make. I know he's more than entitled to destroy it (even if I think that destroying a perfectly good laptop you HAVEN'T just spent six hours working on is not really a very good idea), but if the work he put into it was so important to him, why did he then invalidate all his work?

He "invalidated" it because clearly, his work was not given enough value. That's the whole point: the daughter was whining about all those little things she had to do for her parents, while not giving any thanks for all the big things they'd done for her - such as, giving her a laptop to use Facebook on in the first place.

[Seerow]

He still chose to read it, which is snooping. If someone else's mail is accidentally delivered to your mailbox you still don't get to read it.

I don't get it, since when did a facebook wall post become equivalent to mail? If she had sent an email to a friend, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. She posted it publicly for hundreds of people to see, with a (obviously now) potential for far more. It's not him snooping to log on to post some new pictures, see his daughter has a new status up he didn't see before, and go "Oh hey let's see what she's saying while I'm here".



He posted it on Youtube, in a channel that had active followers, then linked it to Facebook. Sliding a letter under the door doesn't change the fact that you nailed it to the door of public building in the first place, and this is the digital equivalent. That about ten thousand times as many people saw the response seems like a pretty solid indicator that it was not, in fact, shared with the same number of people.

Funny, I'd imagine many more people found the video via friends sharing/reposting via facebook than via his youtube channel. He posted it on her wall, exactly the same way her post had initially been made. The fact that it exploded beyond that is indication of exactly what COULD have happened to her post.

Once again you're acting like the father went out of his way to advertise the video, while the daughter went out of her way to make sure only a select few people got to see that. It's a gross misrepresentation of the situation, and intellectually dishonest.

[Reverent-One]

He still chose to read it, which is snooping. If someone else's mail is accidentally delivered to your mailbox you still don't get to read it.

It's not mail, but a post made to everyone, including the dog's account, with only a few exceptions (family and church friends). He didn't have to snoop, it came to him.


He posted it on Youtube, in a channel that had active followers, then linked it to Facebook. Sliding a letter under the door doesn't change the fact that you nailed it to the door of public building in the first place, and this is the digital equivalent. That about ten thousand times as many people saw the response seems like a pretty solid indicator that it was not, in fact, shared with the same number of people.

That video has, at this point in time, 28,193 shares on facebook. I very much doubt he's lying and actually has that many friends. What most likely happened is that he shared it with a his friends (the similar number of people), who then shared it with all their friends, who shared it with all their friends, and so on and so forth, resulting in a chain reaction that could occur with any post on facebook, including the one his daughter posted. Which is why saying facebook is like a diary is incredibly wrong.

[TheSummoner]

Facebook is not a public forum, and is far more equivalent to a diary than to YouTube.

THE INTERNET is a public place. ANYTHING you post online can concievably be seen by anyone with enough interest to find it. If you don't want it to be public, you DO NOT post it online. Period.


He then shared this information with a huge amount of people.

No, he shared it with roughly the same number of people (and roughly the same exact people) who she ranted to. It then blew up all over the internet. Makes a pretty strong point about why private stuff shouldn't be put online, wouldn't you say?


He still chose to read it, which is snooping. If someone else's mail is accidentally delivered to your mailbox you still don't get to read it.

Ignoring the obvious "public facebook post =/= private mail" bit, what if that same piece of mail is addressed "To my parents"? :smallamused:

[Raistlin1040]

Facebook and Youtube are not the same measure of social media. I have a sister who is almost 15 and I have seen her on facebook. She scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, types "lol haha, thanks" when people comment on her status, and flips through a 100 picture photo album in 5 minutes. I use Facebook as well, although less obsessively, and I could not tell you most of the statuses I read. I have a few friends who post huge statuses and I skip over them most of the time. I don't remember what I read on facebook often.

Youtube? I watch at least a dozen regular youtube shows and I can describe them to you all in much more detail. For most people, the audio-visual nature of a video is more powerful than just visual text, so putting it on youtube makes it more memorable and more likely to be shared. Very rarely (Only when it's a meme like Truth Is) have I seen statuses shared. I see videos shared on a daily basis. It's possible that millions of people could have seen her status, but if no one shared it, only a few hundred at the max could ever see it and most would skim over it.

By contrast, putting it up as a listed youtube video means that every youtube user can find it independently, and the powerful visual of him shooting bullets into a laptop is more likely to stir people to sharing the video than anything in a status would. It's possible that he's ignorant of the ways Youtube is more powerful than Facebook in terms of making things viral, but it's still irresponsible parenting. Even if he didn't expect it to go viral, even if he was upset about being humiliated by his daughter, HUMILIATING YOUR CHILDREN IS NOT GOOD PARENTING. Ever. He posted it to her facebook wall, intending for her friends to see it and to shame her. "You did this horrible thing, I'll show you how horrible it is by doing it to you" is not a good way to teach a lesson.

[Reverent-One]

Facebook and Youtube are not the same measure of social media. I have a sister who is almost 15 and I have seen her on facebook. She scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, types "lol haha, thanks" when people comment on her status, and flips through a 100 picture photo album in 5 minutes. I use Facebook as well, although less obsessively, and I could not tell you most of the statuses I read. I have a few friends who post huge statuses and I skip over them most of the time. I don't remember what I read on facebook often.

Youtube? I watch at least a dozen regular youtube shows and I can describe them to you all in much more detail. For most people, the audio-visual nature of a video is more powerful than just visual text, so putting it on youtube makes it more memorable and more likely to be shared. Very rarely (Only when it's a meme like Truth Is) have I seen statuses shared. I see videos shared on a daily basis. It's possible that millions of people could have seen her status, but if no one shared it, only a few hundred at the max could ever see it and most would skim over it.

And if no one shared the video, only a few hundred people would have seen it. One random video on youtube is not going to be seen by many, if any, people independent of those it was shared with. Further, there are sites devoted to sharing posts made on facebook, like this one (http://failbook.failblog.org/), making the potential number of people that could see the post the same, ie everyone on the internet. Summoner put it very simply and accurately when he said:


THE INTERNET is a public place. ANYTHING you post online can concievably be seen by anyone with enough interest to find it. If you don't want it to be public, you DO NOT post it online. Period.

[PrinceAquilaDei]

ITT: A metric ton of people I'm happy not to call my parents.

A lot of people here are swinging around two contradictory points in defence of the fathers actions about the massive and disproportionate attention the video has recieved in comparison to the original facebook post.

First, that this only goes to show even better how things on the internet can spread around, proving to our girl a very important lesson.

Second, that the father never could have expected this viral explosion, and how he has repeatedly declined media attention proves that this wasn't his intention.

Pick either, stick to it.

If he didn't want it to spread farther than the immidiate circle of friends, if he didn't want news teams on his porch, if he didn't want twenty million hits on youtube, there is this magical little itsy bitsy thing he could have done. He could have taken it down. You know, that's a thing. That you can do. He could have done that when the video hit ten thousand views or whatever he felt fitting. He still hasn't. He could do it at this point, still. It would serve little purpose, beyond showing his feelings and stance on the attention he has recieved. And yet that doesn't happen. Magical. I wonder what that shows about him.

This has been made worldwide business and subject of discussion here, because he allowed it to be.

Magic, I'm telling you.

I'm not making my point very well.

Personally, I don't feel much sympathy for the girl, and feel confident to say I carried myself better on the web at her age. Her actions were stupid. Really stupid. But So were her father's. I second whoever said that drama seems to run in this family.

And specifically to Siuis, I disagree. I read very little admirable into this man, his actions, or his words. He gives a toss about nawty words for starters, so instant points withdrawal for him. But, I wouldn't ascribe much value to my opinion on the matter, there is a massive culture barrier in front of me here, And I've heard us young'uns are notably bad at reading these things at the best of times.

[Knaight]

I don't get it, since when did a facebook wall post become equivalent to mail? If she had sent an email to a friend, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. She posted it publicly for hundreds of people to see, with a (obviously now) potential for far more. It's not him snooping to log on to post some new pictures, see his daughter has a new status up he didn't see before, and go "Oh hey let's see what she's saying while I'm here".
A facebook wall post is exactly equivalent to an email sent to a mailing list. In this case, it was sent to what is basically a "friends" mailing list, and actively intercepted by someone outside that list.


Once again you're acting like the father went out of his way to advertise the video, while the daughter went out of her way to make sure only a select few people got to see that. It's a gross misrepresentation of the situation, and intellectually dishonest.
It's on YouTube, tagged heavily, on a channel with followers. That is going out of his way to advertise the video. Meanwhile, the original posting is shared within a particular circle, with others blocked - which is her going out of her way to make sure only a select few people got to see that. She was ineffective in doing so, but that isn't the same thing as not trying to keep private information private.


THE INTERNET is a public place. ANYTHING you post online can concievably be seen by anyone with enough interest to find it. If you don't want it to be public, you DO NOT post it online. Period.
Anything offline can also be seen by someone who tries hard enough. A text inside a house can be reached by breaking in, a locked diary can have the lock removed and then be read, so on and so forth. Failing to stick your correspondence in a bank vault does not mean you are to blame when somebody else chooses to read it.

Also, email is very much private correspondence.


Ignoring the obvious "public facebook post =/= private mail" bit, what if that same piece of mail is addressed "To my parents"? :smallamused:
It wasn't, and as such this isn't relevant.

[Reverent-One]

ITT: A metric ton of people I'm happy not to call my parents.

A lot of people here are swinging around two contradictory points in defence of the fathers actions about the massive and disproportionate attention the video has recieved in comparison to the original facebook post.

First, that this only goes to show even better how things on the internet can spread around, proving to our girl a very important lesson.

Second, that the father never could have expected this viral explosion, and how he has repeatedly declined media attention proves that this wasn't his intention.

Pick either, stick to it.

Incorrect, we're arguing against the idea, put forward by people like Knaight, that the father intentionally tried to share it with many times more people than the daughter did with her post.

[Dogmantra]

He "invalidated" it because clearly, his work was not given enough value. That's the whole point: the daughter was whining about all those little things she had to do for her parents, while not giving any thanks for all the big things they'd done for her - such as, giving her a laptop to use Facebook on in the first place.

If you had a piece of art to sell that you created over a month or so and thought was worth five thousand pounds and then the best offer you got was one thousand, I'm sure you'd be disappointed, but I don't think you would destroy the piece of art.

Yes it's bad to not appreciate things that other people do for you (especially when you ask them to) but I don't think it's reasonable to go ahead and destroy those things if you don't feel it's appreciated.

[PrinceAquilaDei]

Incorrect, we're arguing against the idea, put forward by people like Knaight, that the father intentionally tried to share it with many times more people than the daughter did with her post.

Apoligies then, and point conceded.

Having learned this however, I'd argue that Knaight is right. He put in tags. Tags. They magically make videos easier to find. And the video is still there. It doesn't have to be, but it is.

[Reverent-One]

A facebook wall post is exactly equivalent to an email sent to a mailing list. In this case, it was sent to what is basically a "friends" mailing list, and actively intercepted by someone outside that list.

No, the dog's account was on the list.


It's on YouTube, tagged heavily, on a channel with followers. That is going out of his way to advertise the video. Meanwhile, the original posting is shared within a particular circle, with others blocked - which is her going out of her way to make sure only a select few people got to see that. She was ineffective in doing so, but that isn't the same thing as not trying to keep private information private.

No, she was sharing it a public site, she only intentionally wanted certain people to see it, but that is inherently contradictory to sharing it on facebook.


Also, email is very much private correspondence.

And a wall post is not email.


It wasn't, and as such this isn't relevant.

Wrong again, the post literally began with "To my parents,".

[Frozen_Feet]

A facebook wall post is exactly equivalent to an email sent to a mailing list. In this case, it was sent to what is basically a "friends" mailing list, and actively intercepted by someone outside that list.


Let's see, the girl made a post labelled "To my parents", and then excluded her parents from viewing it... effectively, to make a show before her friends.

That's such insulting behaviour that defending it based on interpretation of mail secrecy seems misplaced. If you friend went to the market place and shouted "Knaight is a ****" behind your back and you accidentally happened to hear it, you probably wouldn't feel any better because you weren't intended to hear it (I suspect the contrary, really).

[Dogmantra]

Wrong again, the post literally began with "To my parents,".

But since her parents were blocked from seeing it, was it not apparent that it was intended as a cathartic letter addressed to someone she had complaints about that she was never going to send?

[PrinceAquilaDei]

Let's see, the girl made a post labelled "To my parents", and then excluded her parents from viewing it... effectively, to make a show before her friends.

That's such insulting behaviour that defending it based on interpretation of mail secrecy seems misplaced. If you friend went to the market place and shouted "Knaight is a ****" behind your back and you accidentally happened to hear it, you probably wouldn't feel any better because you weren't intended to hear it (I suspect the contrary, really).

This is very true.

I feel I should make myself clear on this before continuing, I don't think that there is anyone coming of as intelligent or in the right in this matter. This is just Embarrasing, infantile, melodramatic behaviour in response to Embarrasing, infantile, melodramatic behaviour.

[Reverent-One]

But since her parents were blocked from seeing it, was it not apparent that it was intended as a cathartic letter addressed to someone she had complaints about that she was never going to send?

Which doesn't change that this situation isn't similar to getting mail delivered incorrectly to your address, addressed to someone else, and then opening it.

[TheSummoner]

But since her parents were blocked from seeing it, was it not apparent that it was intended as a cathartic letter addressed to someone she had complaints about that she was never going to send?

Perhaps it would become apparent after they had actually read it, but that's not much consolation after seeing that your daughter said really crappy things about you and a family friend in a public place for the world to see. Something seen cannot be unseen and something labeled "To my parents" would give those parents a pretty good reason to think they should read it, especially if they have no other information about it at the time.

[Knaight]

Let's see, the girl made a post labelled "To my parents", and then excluded her parents from viewing it... effectively, to make a show before her friends.
That was a rhetorical device, not an address.


That's such insulting behaviour that defending it based on interpretation of mail secrecy seems misplaced. If you friend went to the market place and shouted "Knaight is a ****" behind your back and you accidentally happened to hear it, you probably wouldn't feel any better because you weren't intended to hear it (I suspect the contrary, really).
I'm not defending the action, I'm criticizing the response - and if I had heard my friend shouting that because I'd installed microphones and cameras all over the marketplace and then chose to listen where I saw my friend I would really have no place criticizing them on the breach of privacy angle. Does that make yelling "Knaight is a [Some Profanity or Other]" acceptable? No, but it certainly prevents me from having the moral high ground when I start complaining about privacy breaches.

[Reverent-One]

That was a rhetorical device, not an address.

And the parents seeing this on facebook know this, prior to actually reading the contents, how?

[Knaight]

And the parents seeing this on facebook know this, prior to actually reading the contents, how?
By the way it wasn't on any of their face book pages, and instead was only on the dog's.

[Frozen_Feet]

... but from what I've gathered, the father did notice it only by accident (through their dog's profile). Likening that to installing microphones, or anything else than accidental overhearing, is pushing it.

[Reverent-One]

By the way it wasn't on any of their face book pages, and instead was only on the dog's.

First off, you're assuming that she posted on specific individuals' walls, and not on her own wall. This does not mesh with what we've heard thus far. You're also assuming that at the time the father realized that it wasn't merely something he hadn't seen yet, but something specifically blocked to him.

[TheSummoner]

By the way it wasn't on any of their face book pages, and instead was only on the dog's.

And again, how was he to know that? Was the father supposed to compare what he could see from his account and the dog's account side by side? Was he supposed to specifically remember what each and everything available from his account and compare from memory?

[Knaight]

... but from what I've gathered, the father did notice it only by accident (through their dog's profile). Likening that to installing microphones, or anything else than accidental overhearing, is pushing it.

The dog's profile is an obvious security back door, and basically is a microphone. Moreover, accidentally violating someone's privacy is still violating someone's privacy - to use another analogy, if I were to walk in on someone while they were changing, the correct thing to do is leave, and later apologize. That I didn't intend to do this doesn't mean I'm somehow free from apologizing, let alone that I should take pictures of that person and put them online.

[Fiery Diamond]

Wow. It's amazing to see the different responses and attitudes people have toward this.

My thoughts:

1) His daughter was wrong. Not "I'm a teenager doing bad things" wrong; SEVERELY wrong. I think that even if she just complained to a group of friends using those exact words and her dad happened to be nearby and overhear that she should be massively punished. And what she did was far less private than that. I CANNOT understand those who don't see what was so bad about what she did, and I find OFFENSIVE the stance someone mentioned above about him caring about "nawty words" being a negative trait. Caring about foul language is not a bad thing; I think the reverse is true, to the point of those who see no problem with it as contributing to the lack of respect in our society.

2) This was a second offense on her part. The previous punishment had not made an impression on her. A different, more memorable, punishment was required.

3) He used a method that was in the same public sphere as hers, primarily. It's explosion illustrated the point of her message not being private and the pitfalls of internet posting rather well. I do think that he should have made the Youtube Video "private" or somesuch, and just left open the video on facebook - so that's strike one against him as far as I'm concerned.

4) He expressed himself in a way that clearly demonstrated just how much emotional harm what she had done caused him and just how bad what she did was. He managed to be mostly calm, and he was rational about his approach to the situation despite how upset he was. He also followed through with a warning/threat to put a bullet through her computer if she did such a thing again - demonstrating that he was not a pushover and that he should be taken seriously. And this was after he tried to get his wife to talk him out of it, clearly indicating that he did not want his action to be just the result of his emotions.

5) He used a method that was, from what he's said afterward, effective. No one is scarred for life and the daughter is improving. This alone says a lot about the validity of what he did, regardless of whether a stranger would consider it "good parenting." Parenting is not a one size fits all.

6) The fact that he completely destroyed the laptop with a gun was wasteful, so strike two, but it was both within his right and not unreasoning or unreasonable. His use of the firearm was deliberate and intentional, not rage-driven. He seems to be a man of integrity and sanity.

7) He has made apology for the results of strike one, showing that he understands that his actions, too, can have consequences beyond his initial intentions - and he leaves things as they are because it's actually a pretty good demonstration of one of his points. He refuses to "benefit" off of this with media, however, demonstration his values.

So while I feel he made an unwise (unrestricted youtube video) decision and a wasteful (destroying the laptop) decision, I think he still made, taken altogether, a good decision.

[Frozen_Feet]

And again, how was he to know that? Was the father supposed to compare what he could see from his account and the dog's account side by side? Was he supposed to specifically remember what each and everything available from his account and compare from memory?

These questions are pretty much irrelevant. I'm certain the father did not go to their dog's facebook account specifically to see what her daughter wrote (because that would be ridiculous).

I'm positive he instead went to update said dog's page... and saw the post by accident. So arguing about mail secrecy seems more than a bit misplaced.


The dog's profile is an obvious security back door, and basically is a microphone.

... this is the most ridiculous claim I've seen. I'm certain the family did not have a facebook account for their dog just so the parents could monitor their offspring. It cannot be likened to a microphone, let alone an intentionally placed one, in any shape or form.

[Traab]

A facebook wall post is exactly equivalent to an email sent to a mailing list. In this case, it was sent to what is basically a "friends" mailing list, and actively intercepted by someone outside that list.


It's on YouTube, tagged heavily, on a channel with followers. That is going out of his way to advertise the video. Meanwhile, the original posting is shared within a particular circle, with others blocked - which is her going out of her way to make sure only a select few people got to see that. She was ineffective in doing so, but that isn't the same thing as not trying to keep private information private.


Anything offline can also be seen by someone who tries hard enough. A text inside a house can be reached by breaking in, a locked diary can have the lock removed and then be read, so on and so forth. Failing to stick your correspondence in a bank vault does not mean you are to blame when somebody else chooses to read it.

Also, email is very much private correspondence.


It wasn't, and as such this isn't relevant.

1) Your wall is not email, especially when its open for hundreds of people to see. Its literally like posting something on a bulletin board at school. You cant be angry because a parent came to visit and saw the message you slapped up there.

2) She specifically blocked all those she thought might warn her dad that she was breaking the rules set down for her, AGAIN. It was fair game to anyone else on the internet that wanted to see it pretty much. Only reason it didnt circulate farther is because teenage angst is boring and repetitive. Noone cares that you have to do dishes and take out the trash, so do they. As for the video, i cant speak on that, I never worked with youtube.

3) But posting it somewhere that might as well be a public forum does not give you an expectation of privacy. It would be like me posting on this board how much my parents suck, then being angry that they read about it.

4)This wasnt email.

[TheSummoner]

The dog's profile is an obvious security back door, and basically is a microphone. Moreover, accidentally violating someone's privacy is still violating someone's privacy - to use another analogy, if I were to walk in on someone while they were changing, the correct thing to do is leave, and later apologize. That I didn't intend to do this doesn't mean I'm somehow free from apologizing, let alone that I should take pictures of that person and put them online.

The internet is not a private place. To use your same analogy, if that same person was changing in the middle of a busy street, you wouldn't be at fault for seeing it.

[Psyren]

Yep. You want to assassinate someone in the court of public opinion? Be prepared for them to fight back.

The court of public opinion based on a teenage girl's testimony.

That post would have lingered in the "public consciousness" for... what? two weeks? A month? I can guarantee you - not nearly as long as his dadrage response will, nor will it have reached half as large an audience.

Worst of all, it will drag out this nonsensical dispute far longer than any family fight has a right to. If he has any sense of decency he'll realize he made his point and take the video down, but even if he does I fully expect it to keep popping up now that it's gone viral.



Personally, I don't feel much sympathy for the girl, and feel confident to say I carried myself better on the web at her age. Her actions were stupid. Really stupid. But So were her father's. I second whoever said that drama seems to run in this family.

Thirded.

[Knaight]

1) Your wall is not email, especially when its open for hundreds of people to see. Its literally like posting something on a bulletin board at school. You cant be angry because a parent came to visit and saw the message you slapped up there.
Hardly. It's like posting something on a bulletin board in a restricted area that you own, and complaining when someone breaks into that restricted area and looks at it - even if they break into that restricted area by accident.

2) She specifically blocked all those she thought might warn her dad that she was breaking the rules set down for her, AGAIN. It was fair game to anyone else on the internet that wanted to see it pretty much. Only reason it didnt circulate farther is because teenage angst is boring and repetitive. Noone cares that you have to do dishes and take out the trash, so do they. As for the video, i cant speak on that, I never worked with youtube.
Where "anyone else on the internet" is "the circle of people existing on the whitelist that aren't specifically blocked". Moreover, the content is completely irrelevant as regards the privacy violation, that it was petty and juvenile whining is a side point.

3) But posting it somewhere that might as well be a public forum does not give you an expectation of privacy. It would be like me posting on this board how much my parents suck, then being angry that they read about it.
Facebook isn't a public forum. Anyone who wants to see anything on these boards can, Facebook requires white listing at any privacy setting other than completely public.

4)This wasnt email.
No, but the statement that was responding to was broad enough to claim that email wasn't private correspondence, which I disagreed with. It's largely tangential.

[Drascin]

The internet is not a private place. To use your same analogy, if that same person was changing in the middle of a busy street, you wouldn't be at fault for seeing it.

To put it in a more precise way:

You are changing in the middle of a street. But you don't want a particular person to see you, so you put a single sheet between you and his particular window. This doesn't stop everyone else in all the other three directions from seeing. And, as it so appears to have happened, it doesn't stop the fact the person in question happened to be out for groceries and stumbled upon the whole thing.

Facebook is a public thing. A ridiculously public thing, in fact. You have to realize that anything you put in there, you are basically giving up your exclusive rights over. Hell, the internet itself is a public place. And my main gripe with the father is apparently not realizing it himself and posting the video publicly as well.

[McStabbington]

I would say the father in your hypothetical would be perfectly justified in getting rid of the dog. Shooting the dog? Of course not. But getting rid of the thing, yes. You can't compare destroying a computer to killing or injuring a living creature. The two just aren't on the same level and any arguement trying to present one as having the same weight as the other is just laughable.

And yes, it probably would've been better (as in less wasterful) for him to sell it or give it away. I've never claimed that shooting it wasn't wasteful. However, it was his property to do with what he wanted. He thought destroying it would get the point across better and I'm inclined to agree. As for why he used a gun... Because he owned one? Because it was easy? Because it's a lot easier to be calm and not look like a sociopath while destroying a laptop with a gun than it would be with a sledge hammer, a chainsaw, or an axe? Why does it even matter that he used a gun?

With respect, it's laughable only because you're confusing an example designed to demonstrate that proportionality as a logical component of punishment exists with an example of how proportionality works. If you deny that courage exists, it wouldn't be surprising if my initial examples mentioned Audie Murphy or Rodger Young before discussing some guy rescuing a dog from a busy intersection. Denying proportionality, however, is exactly where we seem to be: some people seem insistent that "Father promised to punishment X if daughter disobeyed, daughter disobeyed, therefore punishment X" is straightforwardly appropriate discipline no matter what X is. So it's necessary to point out that some X's, by definition, are so ridiculously unacceptable as to be indefensible, and then peel down to say whether this particular act actually is defensible.

You've already admitted, by noting that shooting the dog would be overkill, that certain things are overkill. Which brings us to the second point: this is, while not as overkill as shooting the dog, still overkill. For starters, the computer was not his; it was hers. For one thing, he identifies the computer as hers. Further, at no point does he claim ownership of the computer. Even further, as a matter of logic, the idea that the computer is his is incompatible with the notion that this is done as punishment: only an idiot would believe that one can punish another by harming one's own pecuniary interest. I don't show my brother not to mess with me by setting fire to the contents of my safety deposit box. So the idea of punishment only works if the computer was hers.

Well, the funny thing about it being hers? Part of that claim of ownership is that nobody else has the right to destroy it. If someone else does destroy it, they have taken away from me that which is mine. Which is generally called a crime or a tort depending on the severity. In this case, the taking possession of an object and claiming as yours something that does not belong to you is called theft or larceny. The subsequent rendering of that something completely destroyed and unusable is called conversion. The first is a criminal offense. The latter incurs civil liability. There is no exception in the law for actions taken between family members: if I break my brother's nose, it's as much a battery as if I broke the nose of a stranger.

Now it is true that special consideration needs to be given to the relationship of the parties and the circumstances. But the simple fact is that "don't commit any felonies against your child" is a pretty low bar for parental behavior. He failed even that baseline standard. The facts that he either gifted the computer to the child, or he indirectly allowed its purchase by giving allowance changes nothing. If you give me a house, you're not entitled to take the house back if I later slander you. Nor are you allowed to destroy it. Same is true if you pay me for a contract, and I fulfill my contractual obligations. So while it is true, of course, that the child's behavior deserved punishment, that doesn't make this particular punishment appropriate. It's overkill.

[Traab]

that he either gifted the computer to the child, or he indirectly allowed its purchase by giving allowance changes nothing. If you give me a house, you're not entitled to take the house back if I later slander you. Nor are you allowed to destroy it. Same is true if you pay me for a contract, and I fulfill my contractual obligations. So while it is true, of course, that the child's behavior deserved punishment, that doesn't make this particular punishment appropriate. It's overkill.

This is the sticking point for me. You keep assigning the same legal ramifications to a parent taking something from a child as to two adults giving and taking things from each other. If I as a parent decide I dont want my kid to have something, that is my right, (unless that would cause the kid harm or something, exceptions will always exist) to take it away from them. If I give my kid a bike and he shows a total lack of willingness to use it safely, when exactly did it become illegal to take that bike away from him? If I give my kid a cell phone, and I catch him using it to do nothing but crank call people, then unless he is paying the bill himself, I have every right to take it away from him. And by extension, if I give my daughter a computer, and she abuses it in such a way as this girl did, it is well within my right to take it away from her. That is MY child, and as her parent it is up to ME to decide what she does and does not have, what she can and cannot keep, right up until the day comes that she is a legal adult.

[McStabbington]

This is the sticking point for me. You keep assigning the same legal ramifications to a parent taking something from a child as to two adults giving and taking things from each other. If I as a parent decide I dont want my kid to have something, that is my right, (unless that would cause the kid harm or something, exceptions will always exist) to take it away from them. If I give my kid a bike and he shows a total lack of willingness to use it safely, when exactly did it become illegal to take that bike away from him? If I give my kid a cell phone, and I catch him using it to do nothing but crank call people, then unless he is paying the bill himself, I have every right to take it away from him. And by extension, if I give my daughter a computer, and she abuses it in such a way as this girl did, it is well within my right to take it away from her. That is MY child, and as her parent it is up to ME to decide what she does and does not have, what she can and cannot keep, right up until the day comes that she is a legal adult.

Ah, well that is an entirely different objection, and if that's where your sticking point is then our disagreements are much smaller and more measured. I would say in response that what you are doing is a) entirely lawful, and b) not what he did. If he had simply taken away the computer for three months, I would have considered it on the harsh side, but something that reasonable people can disagree about. Same with your examples: you're not by taking the phone away denying them ownership. You're just denying them possession and usage, which is entirely within the scope of parental privilege. It's no different than the law placing limits on, say, a child's ability to contract or gift away real estate.

But what the guy did there was destroy her possession. That's an entirely different can of worms than denying her the use and enjoyment of her possession for a finite amount of time. That's taking it away forever, and entirely severing her from something that may have had sentimental value. That not "harsh"; that's committing a crime. And generally speaking, by the time you're saying that committing a crime is necessary to successfully raising your children, I think you really need to take a step back and reevaluate your parenting strategy.

[ric0]

To me some peoples reactions on here represent what is wrong with a large proportion of todays youth, not everyone needs extreme measures to learn how to behave, but the ones that do need it, often dont get it, because people are afraid of how there actions might be interprited in todays world.

While shooting the laptop may have been a tad extreme, his intent was to teatch a lesson, and he did. She no knows that if he says he will do something, he will follow through, and she better be willing to face the
consequences of her own actions.

As to the person saying the father had no right in reading her post, personaly i think thats gotta be a joke.

Look at it this way, if someone else he knows saw it, and gave him a copy, would he be right then?
He didnt snoop, he didnt look where he shouldent, and her febble attempts to hide what she KNEW was wrong dont make it so her actions are excusable.

So, to the people who think he was in the wrong, how would you have punished a child for actions like this??????

Not sure what i would have done, but i know i support his actions fully, and would buy him a pint any day..........

[Gnoman]

Not true. If, for example, someone gives my child a motorbike (forget the proper term, I'm referring to a low-powered version of a standard motorcycle that does not generally require the legal formalities that the full-sized version does) that I don't feel that my child is ready for, I have the legal right as parent to confiscate the offending item and dispose of it as I see fit. It's part of parental authority. While destruction of expensive objects is quite rare, it is not particularly uncommon for parents to toss magazines or tabloids that they don't want their children to possess into the fireplace, especially if the material is such that it would reflect badly upon the parent if noticed in the garbage.

While it is not the case that persons under the age of majority have no property rights, their property rights are not the same as full adults unless they are legally emancipated, and generally parental oversight of "their" property is expected.

[Traab]

Not true. If, for example, someone gives my child a motorbike (forget the proper term, I'm referring to a low-powered version of a standard motorcycle that does not generally require the legal formalities that the full-sized version does) that I don't feel that my child is ready for, I have the legal right as parent to confiscate the offending item and dispose of it as I see fit. It's part of parental authority. While destruction of expensive objects is quite rare, it is not particularly uncommon for parents to toss magazines or tabloids that they don't want their children to possess into the fireplace, especially if the material is such that it would reflect badly upon the parent if noticed in the garbage.

While it is not the case that persons under the age of majority have no property rights, their property rights are not the same as full adults unless they are legally emancipated, and generally parental oversight of "their" property is expected.

Exactly. About the only way I could see any sort of criminal charge being possible would be if the child could prove ownership. Such as having the title to a car in the childs name. (Im honestly unsure of the exact limits of property ownership as a minor) On the other hand, if I, as my childs father, give them a computer, then later on decide they dont deserve it and take it away, I am well within my rights as it isnt their computer, even if in general terms I tended to refer to it as such. It shouldnt matter if I just take it away and not let them have it, or if I destroy it. Either way, the computer is no longer in their possession. And as the guy who bought it, and as their parent, that is my right to do so.

[McStabbington]

Exactly. About the only way I could see any sort of criminal charge being possible would be if the child could prove ownership. Such as having the title to a car in the childs name. (Im honestly unsure of the exact limits of property ownership as a minor) On the other hand, if I, as my childs father, give them a computer, then later on decide they dont deserve it and take it away, I am well within my rights as it isnt their computer, even if in general terms I tended to refer to it as such. It shouldnt matter if I just take it away and not let them have it, or if I destroy it. Either way, the computer is no longer in their possession. And as the guy who bought it, and as their parent, that is my right to do so.

If an analogy helps, to ownership is like having a very large bundle of sticks. Each sticks represents something that you are entitled to do with the property that you own, and each of which can be sold or traded. For instance, if you rent out a house, you still own the property, but you exchange the "possession" and "usage" stick for payment. Selling the minerals on the land conveys the "right to own stuff that was in the land" for payment, etc.

Assuming that a kid owns his own bike, taking said bike away until your kid demonstrates that he's mature enough to ride it is temporarily taking claim of his "possession" stick. The intent is not to steal; by taking it away you're not usually claiming ownership so much as denying him access. Further, the act doesn't render the object unusable or not his property any more. He just can't use it. Which is entirely different than putting the bike in the garbage compactor.

Or if you prefer another example, if you are repeatedly caught speeding, it's fairly common that the state will suspend your driver's license for a certain period of time. As a property matter, they're not saying your car isn't yours. It's just that you can't use it because you did something wrong. If by contrast, a police officer caught you speeding for the second time, going say 75 in a 45 mph zone, and as punishment blew up the car with dynamite, I'm fairly certain you'd call that excessive. And I'm also fairly certain you'd want, quite rightly, for the state to compensate you for your loss. While the crime exists and was certainly committed, the simple fact is that the punishment was not proportional to the crime.

Well, I'm saying the exact same principle is at work here, for the exact same reasons. Being a parent gives you the power to punish, but it is not an excuse for punishing in a way wildly disproportionate to the offense. If you have the duty of punishment, then you have the obligation to tailor that punishment to the offense both with an eye for deterring the same act in the future and being fundamentally fair to the punished in the here and now. I fail to see how destroying a $500 item and then billing a kid $138 for doing it really accomplishes either of those objectives. It is, quite simply, disproportionate to the kind of offense that every child I've ever known and every girlfriend I've ever had has engaged in in some form and at one time or another: wildly exaggerating how much I take them for granted.

[Knaight]

As to the person saying the father had no right in reading her post, personaly i think thats gotta be a joke.

Look at it this way, if someone else he knows saw it, and gave him a copy, would he be right then?
He didnt snoop, he didnt look where he shouldent, and her febble attempts to hide what she KNEW was wrong dont make it so her actions are excusable.
Having looked into this further, and continued to find only more evidence for the father being way out of line.

A) According to him, he didn't snoop. Given that he's restricted his daughter's internet use all information we have comes from him, so the "family dog" excuse doesn't hold water anyways - and even if it did, he still did the equivalent of opening someone else's mail.

B) The only lesson here is "It's acceptable to steal information from people, and in the event that you use the information you stole to publicly humiliate them, very few people will call you on the theft".

C) If he got it from someone else, he's progressed from "theft" to "willfully using stolen goods". That is the most marginal improvement in existence.

This isn't parenting. This is the exercise and demonstration of control for it's own sake, by someone with massive entitlement issues. If it was just parenting, we would never have heard of it.

[Gnoman]

Or if you prefer another example, if you are repeatedly caught speeding, it's fairly common that the state will suspend your driver's license for a certain period of time. As a property matter, they're not saying your car isn't yours. It's just that you can't use it because you did something wrong. If by contrast, a police officer caught you speeding for the second time, going say 75 in a 45 mph zone, and as punishment blew up the car with dynamite, I'm fairly certain you'd call that excessive. And I'm also fairly certain you'd want, quite rightly, for the state to compensate you for your loss. While the crime exists and was certainly committed, the simple fact is that the punishment was not proportional to the crime.

Well, I'm saying the exact same principle is at work here, for the exact same reasons. Being a parent gives you the power to punish, but it is not an excuse for punishing in a way wildly disproportionate to the offense. If you have the duty of punishment, then you have the obligation to tailor that punishment to the offense both with an eye for deterring the same act in the future and being fundamentally fair to the punished in the here and now. I fail to see how destroying a $500 item and then billing a kid $138 for doing it really accomplishes either of those objectives. It is, quite simply, disproportionate to the kind of offense that every child I've ever known and every girlfriend I've ever had has engaged in in some form and at one time or another: wildly exaggerating how much I take them for granted.

This so not-anagolous that it borders on a strawman. First, a driver's liscence is nothing more than the right to operate a vehicle on public roads. You don't need one on private property. Second, property rights are not a factor in any case, as vehicle ownership is not linked to a drivers license. Third, the police can confiscate, and sometimes destroy, a vehicle under certain conditions after a court proceeding.

[SiuiS]

I think perspective has been lost enough that a QuoteWall will actually be detrimental. So.

First, the number of people who are basing their opinions, on opinions based on biased evidence, and yet who claim that one side or another was in the wrong is alarming.

The daughter left a message on Facebook. This is not equivalent to mail looting; this is equivalent, literally, to putting a note entitled "to [Person]" on a bulletin board in a wing of the building they do not often walk down.

A computer is not a person. A computer is not a dog. A computer is not something that the child, in the father's estimation, was personally attached to. She certainly enjoyed the privelages I afforded her, but I doubt the computer itself was anything more than a means to an end.

The father's response was measured. It was not performed in anger although it was informed by anger. The father decided that the best way to engage this problem was to treat his daughter as an adult. I feel I cannot articulate this point clearly, but I do understand it. Luckily, he knew his daughter well enough that it worked. All this evidence shows that she responded to it appropriately.

Similarly, some folks are focusing on how severe the punishment seems to be in a vacuum. Certainly the entire situation is unknowable, but reasonable inferences can be made based on what evidence is given to us. Any worries of escalation are misplaced; yes, some children go on to resent their parents. I posit however that this assumming the punishment is to blame, 100%, is putting the cart before the horse. I have seen from experience that those people who end up driving their children away are generally bad people irrespective of the punishments they deem appropriate. That is, they are likely to misapply punitive measures because their character is flawed, not that they (and thus, all who do) apply punitive measures are flawed of character.

Likewise, there is decrying of firearms. My only statement here is that a fire arm does not enable murder. It can facilitate it certainly, but it is not the magic key to psychopathy. If he were a threat to his daughter, the gun would not be the indicator. Countless times people who have had the misfortune to worry about such things tell me they would rather their assailant has a gun. Guns are loud. Guns can miss. A gun in the hand will make you scared. A knife? Terrified.
Let us not assume a perceived symptom is somehow a definite cause.

Aquila, I am approaching this from a position of familiarity. I was raised in similar conditions. This does not mean that I am not applying critical thinking to it, but it does mean that my assessment is based off of more than conjecture, and more than just extending the catenary based off of some formula. An I biased? Certainly. But I endeavor to account for that.
If you would like to continue discussion, I believe it could be arranged in a better format for personal reflection, rather than public discussion.

On a different point, being young is not, I repeat, IS NOT an excuse to be a delinquent. She is fifteen. She is not "acting like a fifteen year old". She is acting like a spoiled prat, and it is the fathers duty to her to correct that behavior. Two-to-three year olds frequently touch themselves in public. One does not say "he's just being a toddler", one breaks them of the habit. No amoun of age group justifies a poor behavior. No amount of lacking experience justifies lacking experience, nor should this lack, perceived as a common state, be somehow used as a defense against actually gaining that experience.

In the end, the father did the right thing in a foolish manner. He had the proper goal in mind, but he chose, as the Mage world has taught me to say, the low-wisdom application of his resources to achieve it. Goal met, but in a vulgar fashion.


I'm saying gun, period. I also don't wish to go further on this avenue, because it will probably cross some forum rules.

Understood. Sorry if I came off wrong. No hard feelings, mate?


How on earth do you know what will be fleeting and what won't as a result of this? :smallconfused:

One could see my statement as naive or worse, yes. But quite simply, I was able to see the end results before posting. I am lucky in that the fallout, and the response from both father and daughter corroborate my views. I assure you that had this backfired, I would admit it, and say it was sad, but then we are trading on my reputation, which doesn't extend far past green and pony.



I also think that this whole situation was an overreaction on the part of both people involved. I do not think that complaining in such a passive aggressive manner is a good thing, but I also don't think that responding in kind is good either.

Ah, you are mistaken. This was not passive aggressive. This was aggressive. The distinction, I feel, is critical.

[TheSummoner]

According to him, he didn't snoop. Given that he's restricted his daughter's internet use all information we have comes from him, so the "family dog" excuse doesn't hold water anyways - and even if it did, he still did the equivalent of opening someone else's mail.

Ok. Seriously. What part of

The internet is NOT a private place. Anything you put there is open to ANYONE who sees it. Anyone with enough interest in seeing it CAN see it. Public facebook post is NOT the equivalent of a private piece of mail
Are you not getting? Your argument is invalid (my hair is a bird).

[Traab]

Having looked into this further, and continued to find only more evidence for the father being way out of line.

A) According to him, he didn't snoop. Given that he's restricted his daughter's internet use all information we have comes from him, so the "family dog" excuse doesn't hold water anyways - and even if it did, he still did the equivalent of opening someone else's mail.

B) The only lesson here is "It's acceptable to steal information from people, and in the event that you use the information you stole to publicly humiliate them, very few people will call you on the theft".

C) If he got it from someone else, he's progressed from "theft" to "willfully using stolen goods". That is the most marginal improvement in existence.

This isn't parenting. This is the exercise and demonstration of control for it's own sake, by someone with massive entitlement issues. If it was just parenting, we would never have heard of it.

1) Nope, he read an open message posted to a board that he had access to. Even if your claim of it being like opening someone elses mail were true, the closest you could come to is an accident, as how the hell was he supposed to know until after he read it that it wasnt meant to be read by him? Its not like it said in the header. "Everyone but my parents can read this. they are forbidden by some mysterious authority that i claim."

2) Not even remotely close. Nothing was stolen, a post left on an open board was read. She fell victim to the indisputable fact of the internet. Nothing is as secure as you like to think. He didnt even do anything to try and locate it, he just stumbled across it. Its no more snooping than say, my significant other using my computer, only to see that as she types in some letters to a website she wants to visit, the auto complete is pulling up lists of crazy porn sites. She wasnt snooping, she discovered it by accident, and yeah, its understandable that she might be ticked off at me.

3) Its not theft. Kids lose items to their parents constantly. Thats one of the perks of being a parent, you can take things away from them and thats perfectly legal. Otherwise there would be an insanely long backlog of parents waiting for their day in court because they took away Jr's playstation and he cried theft.

[Knaight]

Ok. Seriously. What part of

The internet is NOT a private place. Anything you put there is open to ANYONE who sees it. Anyone with enough interest in seeing it CAN see it. Public facebook post is NOT the equivalent of a private piece of mail
Are you not getting? Your argument is invalid (my hair is a bird).

It's something you take as an axiom, that I disagree with. Moreover, it's based on the assumption that the capability to get at information means that it isn't private, which applies every bit as much to physical mail. With next to no work, I could go open a random mailbox and take the mail out - that doesn't mean that the mail isn't private correspondence. Any information given to a group of people other than everyone is private correspondence, as private correspondence is defined by it's exclusionary nature. Moreover, the accessing of private correspondence by anyone in the excluded group is a breach of privacy. How well the private correspondence was actively protected doesn't enter into whether it is private or not, and the only people in a position to complain about the breach of privacy due to insufficient security are those in the included group.

[Whiffet]

Wow. It's amazing to see the different responses and attitudes people have toward this.

My thoughts:
-snip-

Well then, the rest of us may as well just leave; we can never hope to be more right than Fiery Diamond. I bow to your wise words, good sir.

[Reverent-One]

It's something you take as an axiom, that I disagree with. Moreover, it's based on the assumption that the capability to get at information means that it isn't private, which applies every bit as much to physical mail. With next to no work, I could go open a random mailbox and take the mail out - that doesn't mean that the mail isn't private correspondence. Any information given to a group of people other than everyone is private correspondence, as private correspondence is defined by it's exclusionary nature. Moreover, the accessing of private correspondence by anyone in the excluded group is a breach of privacy. How well the private correspondence was actively protected doesn't enter into whether it is private or not, and the only people in a position to complain about the breach of privacy due to insufficient security are those in the included group.

The key difference you are missing is that breaking in and stealing someone's mail is illegal, while there is no such restriction on stuff posted to facebook. Facebook's privacy page says:


Always think before you post. Just like anything else you post on the web or send in an email, information you share on Facebook can be copied or re-shared by anyone who can see it.

By making a post on facebook, you're saying it's ok for anyone you allow to see to see it, or share it with all their friends, who can share it with all their friends, any one of whom might unintentionally or intentionally share it with someone you didn't want to share it with, or put it up on various websites (http://failbook.failblog.org/) for the whole internet to see without even needing a facebook account. Because sharing data is the whole point of facebook.

[KnightDisciple]

Two things:

1.)All the people freaking out about legal ramifications, psychological scarring, etc.?
It's been explicitly stated that the police and Social Services visited the family. Guess what?
The daughter's still there, no one got arrested or fined.
So maybe back off on that bit, hm? You're not there, you're not professionals (most likely).

2.)The whole "reading a Facebook post is like reading her private snail mail"?
a.)No, it's not. As others have said, Facebook is, by design and statement, a non-private forum.
b.)Guess what? In the professional world, 99% of workplaces read your email. Well, whatever emails are sent over the service they provide you, anyways. They watch that. They often also watch/restrict your internet usage via blocking software and such (a tool probably under-utilized by parents who actually give a care about such things). So you often can't just log into Gmail or whatever.
And guess what? If you use your work email to send a coworker an email that takes a couple paragraphs to cuss out and disrespect your manager, you can bet somebody'll be talking to you about it.
So, hey. Welcome to the real freaking world, kids. You made a public post that was only blocked from people who'd get you into trouble (like that's not incriminating by itself), but didn't totally cover your butt. Then dad saw. Well, too bad so sad. Should have used the brain you were given, hm?

[Julian84]

Hm. Quite the hullaballoo.

I don't really see anything really wrong here, and I've apparently been retroactively vetted in my view by the police and social services, so yeah. Girl was being a brat with a verbal peashooter, Dad gave her a full internet broadside. I just think he wasted his money by putting 8 slugs through the laptop. Could have sold it, made a little profit.

[PrinceAquilaDei]

I CANNOT understand those who don't see what was so bad about what she did, and I find OFFENSIVE the stance someone mentioned above about him caring about "nawty words" being a negative trait. Caring about foul language is not a bad thing; I think the reverse is true, to the point of those who see no problem with it as contributing to the lack of respect in our society.

Hey, as a materialist and an anti-consumerist, I find the meditated and deliberate destruction of expensive equipment OFFENSIVE. The fantastic thing is that not you nor anyone else thought sane has to care the least bit about that. But nonetheless, allow me to take this opportunity to apologize for being so OFFENSIVE to you and contributing to the lack of respect in the United States.

As I see it, making a habit of not using swearwords is a great thing, and absolutely a sign of maturity. This man seems to do so, even when upset, and I persume you do too. On the other hand, I also think not caring when others chose to use them is a sign of maturity. I do that.

Our lady's little letter here was repungent. Going above and beyond the baseline of whiny, lazy teenage angst, she greatly disrespected a family friend, and spat her father's efforts back into his face. The sprinkling of swearwords means less than nothing next to that.




Aquila, I am approaching this from a position of familiarity. I was raised in similar conditions. This does not mean that I am not applying critical thinking to it, but it does mean that my assessment is based off of more than conjecture, and more than just extending the catenary based off of some formula. An I biased? Certainly. But I endeavor to account for that.
If you would like to continue discussion, I believe it could be arranged in a better format for personal reflection, rather than public discussion.


Thanks for expanding on this, I'll try to keep your view on the matter in mind. And while the offer is generous, I think I'll decline.

[grolim]

It's something you take as an axiom, that I disagree with. Moreover, it's based on the assumption that the capability to get at information means that it isn't private, which applies every bit as much to physical mail. With next to no work, I could go open a random mailbox and take the mail out - that doesn't mean that the mail isn't private correspondence. Any information given to a group of people other than everyone is private correspondence, as private correspondence is defined by it's exclusionary nature. Moreover, the accessing of private correspondence by anyone in the excluded group is a breach of privacy. How well the private correspondence was actively protected doesn't enter into whether it is private or not, and the only people in a position to complain about the breach of privacy due to insufficient security are those in the included group.

Maybe, but the dog's account WAS within the group of people. That means that anyone with legitimate access to that account was a recipient of it. The daughter would have excluded that account from the post had she remembered her parents had access to it. If said account was accessable by everyone in the family to post pictures of said dog the the father DID receive it. If a person legitimately logged onto the account to upload a picture and saw a notice that a friended account had a status update and then they looked at it there is nothing wrong with that. ESPECIALLY if said account was a close family member. Or are you saying that he before he checked that update he should have logged off that account, logged into his to make sure it was officially sent to just him in particular and he should have assumed it was meant for everyone that had access to the dog's account BUT him?
Since he has legitimate access to an account the "private correspondence" was sent to he has the absolute authority to access it.

[Cespenar]

Understood. Sorry if I came off wrong. No hard feelings, mate?

Of course not. Admittedly, I might have been a little too indirect with my remark there.

[Tiki Snakes]

The "Public Noticeboard" comparison mostly works, but falls slightly short of the nuances of the situation I feel.

Hmm. Instead, I'd say it's more like putting a note up say, on the staff noticeboard at work, but forgetting that the person you don't want to see the note works for your parent company and so might see the note during a visit/meeting, perhaps. Or putting it up on a noticeboard in a private-club from which they are prohibited membership, but into which they have been accidentally allowed entrance due to a loophole (They had a valid membership-card already under another name, or some such).

But that hardly adds clarity to the situation. Seriously though, Facebook is neither a public place nor a safe and private place. It is a ludicrously leaky, unsafe kind-of-private-but-not place and far from cut and dry.

I find it interesting actually that the Father apparently phoned up his wife on the off-chance she could talk him out of it. Not sure what, if anything, to make of it but if you are looking for someone to talk you out of something surely that suggests that you know you shouldn't actually be doing it? Hard to say.
Also, nice catch on the nuance that the video, regretted genuinely or otherwise, still hasn't been taken down. That does also surely say something, but for the life of me I don't know what.

Perhaps, as he's reputedly involved in some kind of charity drive, he's just happy to use the exposure for a good cause? On the other hand, if he's someone who regularly uploads youtube videos, there must be an element of his personality that is seeking attention, wanting people to look at the videos. Decomissioning the Laptop in such a holywood fashion certainly meshes with that idea, if nothing else.

[Reverent-One]

Perhaps, as he's reputedly involved in some kind of charity drive, he's just happy to use the exposure for a good cause? On the other hand, if he's someone who regularly uploads youtube videos, there must be an element of his personality that is seeking attention, wanting people to look at the videos. Decomissioning the Laptop in such a holywood fashion certainly meshes with that idea, if nothing else.

And yet he's declining all attempts for interviews, talk show appearences, ect.

[Seerow]

And yet he's declining all attempts for interviews, talk show appearences, ect.

Not to mention declining CBS offering his own mini series.

[Reverent-One]

Not to mention declining CBS offering his own mini series.

...a miniseries about what? Or did they not have any concrete ideas at the moment?

[Tiki Snakes]

Right. I just can't help but feel those are conflicting messages really.
The situation is quite complex.

[Seerow]

...a miniseries about what? Or did they not have any concrete ideas at the moment?

Doesn't seem they're sure. But here's the relevant post


PS: CBS just called and offered us our own show. The ceiling of absurdity has just been reached.




Oh and a new post that I just saw:

To answer the "why don't you just take the video down" comments we've receivied: Because our attorney's told us not to. The license granted to YouTube when it was posted protects us as long as it's hosted there. Once it gets removed, that particular copyright protection and intellectual property right ceases to exist on the YouTube medium. Additionally, my own thought on the matter was "Well, it's out there now and I can' take it back. If I take it down, it'll only get replaced with some pieced-together edited version or portrayed some other way. Taking it down would only imply that we are hiding from it and trying to make it go away.

We do want it all to go away, but we're not hiding from it. I said it and everyone knows it... there's nothing else to do but leave it.


edit: One more


I'm NOT running for President, have no intention of running for President, and would probably make a crappy president because.. nevermind why. That'd just open another can of worms! lol

But hey... that Ron Paul dude.. he's got my vote. I like his politics and I think he's got the best head on his shoulders I've seen in a politician in my lifetime. Agree/disagree.. doesn't matter. I just thought I'd put my vote behind him.

(Now I'll be accused of political campaigning too. lol.)

[Brother Oni]

I find it interesting actually that the Father apparently phoned up his wife on the off-chance she could talk him out of it. Not sure what, if anything, to make of it but if you are looking for someone to talk you out of something surely that suggests that you know you shouldn't actually be doing it? Hard to say.

Surely getting a second opinion on a difficult decision is something everybody does? Especially since the decision would also affect the person who you're getting the opinion of?



Also, nice catch on the nuance that the video, regretted genuinely or otherwise, still hasn't been taken down. That does also surely say something, but for the life of me I don't know what.

I believe that the father considered it, but decided that it would be dishonest to do so. In any case, taking down the original video would be pointless since it went viral.



Perhaps, as he's reputedly involved in some kind of charity drive, he's just happy to use the exposure for a good cause?

I believe he's taken advantage of the exposure to promote a Muscular Dystrophy charity that he was trying to fund raise for and he's also advertised an internet service that he and a group of friends were trying to start up (some form of Craigslist as I understand it).

Now while you may call the second cause somewhat dishonest, he's plugging it on his own facebook page only (and to be honest, provided it doesn't break Facebook's ToS/EULA, you should be able to do whatever you like on your own facebook page) and he's declared that he owns a percentage of the service in the interests of full disclosure.

[pendell]

Some thoughts:

1) Parenting is all about teaching lessons, and I think this lesson will stick in the consciousness of many people, and not just his daughter. If it's on the internet, it's public. Yes, even if you're using facebook privacy controls. So don't say anything publicly that you're not willing to account for.

So it's a darn good idea not to badmouth your boss, or your parent, or your co-worker, or your best friend. It has a way of getting back to them.

2) That said, I think shooting the laptop was a ridiculously over-the-top way of getting this message across. It reeks of desperation.

So the kid was punished repeatedly .. well, why aren't those punishments working? It has been observed in thread that dad seems to have massive entitlement issues -- and isn't that what the daughter is being punished for, 'massive entitlement'?

If I were dad, I'd be thinking less about punishing the daughter and more about the example that I'm setting. It may be having more of an influence on her than all the draconian punishments being levied.

I don't know about their home life, but to my mind ever stricter punishments that are ignored are a sign that the discipline program is failing somehow. Why isn't the daughter taking the rules seriously? Somehow the message is being sent that the rules can be ignored -- or perhaps the daughter knows she's going to every once in awhile be punished in harsh ways and there's no way to avoid it, so she does what she wants and flips out in rebellion. Overly harsh parenting can trigger rebellion in a strong-willed child and can be just as bad as negligent parenting.

3) My problem with "grounding for a month" or "permanently taking away the laptop" is that there's no climbdown. If the parent's bluff is called, he's got no choice but to either look stupid or carry out his threat. It's possible this is why the rule was ignored -- because it was so ridiculously over the top that the daughter assumed Dad was joking, a la threats to "kill" the boyfriend who doesn't bring her back by 11.

If *I* were the parent, this is how I would approach it.
1) Having accidentally seen the post on the dog's account, I would call in mom and we would discuss it together and agree on a course of action.
2) Having done so, I would get the child for a family conference that evening, just the three of us. I would be calm and not raise my voice. I would point to the post and ask "You know what the rules are, why did I do this?"
3) After listening to her, I would (most likely, depending on what she said), tell her that I had trusted her to keep the rules and that she had violated my trust. Consequently, her laptop privileges are forfeit until she can earn them back. We would then set a program together by which she would show herself worthy of my trust , at which point her laptop privileges would be restored.

The trick is , to make it a process that the daughter has buy in to, get us on the same team meeting a common goal -- of getting her a laptop that I can trust her with -- rather than adversaries. Of dealing with her like an adult and expecting her to respond in the same way. If she doesn't respond as an adult, no laptop. But the dynamic of "authoritarian parent and rebellious child" needs to be broken. We need to get off the script.

A possible problem is that there's no real communication. Instead, the parent issues over-the-top threats, and the problem with over-the-top threats is that they almost become a game of truth or dare, where the child is given the opportunity to dare dad to carry out his threat. It's almost become a game. Except instead of kids daring each other to do stupid stuff, now you've got the kid daring the DAD to do stupid stuff, and Dad falling for it.

That's why I'm not a fan of over-harsh parenting. Consistent punishment and communication, I suspect , go a lot further than draconian threats and punishments. Any draconian system HAS to be applied inconsistently, because if you did apply it consistently the kid would be sure to revolt, or you could even lose the kid to CPS!

But then, I'm only a parent in the technical sense. My only child went to Heaven before I could practice my parenting skillz :(.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Brother Oni]

Why isn't the daughter taking the rules seriously? Somehow the message is being sent that the rules can be ignored -- or perhaps the daughter knows she's going to every once in awhile be punished in harsh ways and there's no way to avoid it, so she does what she wants and flips out in rebellion.


Because she's a child and is not yet capable of fully formed adult decisions. There's a reason why there's an age limit for certain activities like driving a motor vehicle, voting, etc.

The rule as I understand it, was not to badmouth or insult friends or family on Facebook, which is quite a reasonable one in my opinion.
A number of other options to vent frustrations in a constructive, or at least in a permissable, way have been mentioned earlier.



If *I* were the parent, this is how I would approach it.


Parenting, and especially discipline, isn't a one size fits all. Children are individuals and what works for one child may not work for their sibling, let alone somebody else's child.



A possible problem is that there's no real communication. Instead, the parent issues over-the-top threats, and the problem with over-the-top threats is that they almost become a game of truth or dare, where the child is given the opportunity to dare dad to carry out his threat. It's almost become a game. Except instead of kids daring each other to do stupid stuff, now you've got the kid daring the DAD to do stupid stuff, and Dad falling for it.


The father mentioned that after his daughter got home and presented her with her shotup laptop, they talked for a long while, so I believe that communication is still there.

The problem is that without escalation for repeat offences, the child doesn't learn his lesson. I believe Dogmantra mentioned the scenario of slaps on the wrists for petty shoplifting - while suitable for a 5 year old, it would not be suitable for a teenager, so the punishment must be appropriate as well.

If the teenager's excesses aren't curbed then they may escalate until they end up in trouble with the law, something that any responsible parent should try to avoid, if not for their own good then for the good of their child.

Too many times in the media I've seen parents of teenaged tearaways hopeless wringing their hands, complaining of their 'uncontrollable' offspring, while all I can think is "you should have taken their behaviour into hand sooner then".



That's why I'm not a fan of over-harsh parenting. Consistent punishment and communication, I suspect , go a lot further than draconian threats and punishments. Any draconian system HAS to be applied inconsistently, because if you did apply it consistently the kid would be sure to revolt, or you could even lose the kid to CPS!

The definition of draconian is significantly cultural in my opinion. Many SE asian (gah, I really hate that phrase :smallsigh:) cultures are notoriously strict on their children, to the extent that it would be an offence in western countries.

As an example, in the Chinese culture, children are physically disciplined and all their achievements belittled or barely acknowledged.
The latter is due to the hard work ethos which results in constant over-achieving, so in order to prevent hubris and 'resting on your laurels', parents remind their children against it. Of course any failures are constantly reminded of.

Does that mean all traditionally raised Chinese people are emotionally damaged bags of neuroses? Patently not.
From a personal perspective, I do not agree with the psychological discipline having been on the receiving end, thus I will not be using it in the raising of my own children.

[Helanna]

Some thoughts:
The trick is , to make it a process that the daughter has buy in to, get us on the same team meeting a common goal -- of getting her a laptop that I can trust her with -- rather than adversaries. Of dealing with her like an adult and expecting her to respond in the same way. If she doesn't respond as an adult, no laptop. But the dynamic of "authoritarian parent and rebellious child" needs to be broken. We need to get off the script.

In addition to everything Brother Oni said, isn't this essentially what he did? She disobeyed the rules, quite drastically, and she got her laptop taken away. She can have a new laptop when she proves to her parents that she's mature and responsible enough to get a job and save up to buy it herself, with the added benefit of teaching her much her stuff is actually worth.


That's why I'm not a fan of over-harsh parenting. Consistent punishment and communication, I suspect , go a lot further than draconian threats and punishments. Any draconian system HAS to be applied inconsistently, because if you did apply it consistently the kid would be sure to revolt, or you could even lose the kid to CPS!


Don't forget that every child is different. How do you know he didn't try consistent punishment and communication first? It's perfectly possible she just didn't respond to it - my youngest sister never did.

[Tyndmyr]

Important things to remember:

1) She's had this problem before. The last time, they grounded her for a few months, and told her if it happened again he'd put a bullet through the laptop. At that point, after she did it again, his choices were to either show his threats had no meaning and she could walk all over him, or put a bullet through the laptop.

2) The guy didn't expect the video to go viral. He put it on youtube because it's the easiest place to upload to, then posted it to his daughter's facebook wall. The fact that it went ballistic past that isn't something he really could have anticipated. From what I read of the dad's facebook wall, and his reactions since, he has some regrets about the exact nature of how he handled it, but stands by the action as a whole regardless. The guy seems like a pretty okay dude, and in the last couple days since the video went viral, CPS and the police have both shown up at his house and came to the same conclusion. Anyone else trying to judge him or how he handles his daughter can butt out.

3) The girl really was being a whiny ****. Seriously. She complains about having to pour coffee for her dad at least 3 times in that post, like it is the most miserable thing in the world. And her chores which boil down to "pick up after yourself, sweep the floor, and do the dishes". Forcing her to do some real work to earn her laptop back might just make her realize how easy she had it, and make her appreciate it that much more. It's not like he's doing this and then telling her she can't ever leave the house again or do anything at all. He's encouraging her to find a job and buy the things she wants for herself. This is something a lot of kids could stand to learn at a much earlier age than they tend to.

While I agree that this does appear to be the case, the whole "shooting the laptop" threat is not one I'd have made.

I would have likely merely said "you'll lose your laptop". Why turn to destruction when you could ebay it or the like? I don't see why shooting was necessary for the punishment.

It's not really the lesson I have a problem with, but the way in which it was delivered.

[pendell]

From a personal perspective, I do not agree with the psychological discipline having been on the receiving end, thus I will not be using it in the raising of my own children.


As a child, my parents spanked me over anything and everything. I became very frustrated about this, and made the observation when I was about 8 that I wouldn't always be smaller than them.

...

Shortly thereafter, changes were made. Instead of being spanked, I was put in timeout for 2 minutes. Instead of punishment for not doing chores, we drew up a 'contract' in which I could earn rewards/allowance for completing them.

I chose to encourage this, because I knew that if this didn't work, they might go back to hitting me.

It worked out. Just as they taught me how to listen, so I taught them how to parent. This can happen when your child has an IQ > 135. We learned to observe each other's boundaries and today have a relationship of mutual respect.

That's also why I feel the way I do about escalated punishments -- my experience has been that every escalated punishment results in a new line that gets crossed, which means that it has to be dealt, and so there's a vicious spiral from ever more rule breaking to ever more harsh punishment. At some point, you've got to climbdown and say "this isn't working", then try something else.

So in my experience consistent mild punishment is better for correction than a constant escalation.

Of course, that's based on one datum point. Possibly if I had more and different kids, I might see the value of escalation. But psychological upbringing *can* work and can work well, depending on the child you're raising. I know it worked better than the traditional methods in *my* case.

I suggest, however, that psychological upbringing is harder to do correctly than the traditional method. So possibly they might be more effective in general, since it requires less training and specialized knowledge to produce well-adjusted offspring.

At the end of the day, these are all tools in the toolbox, and we'll mix-and-match depending on our own parenting styles and on the needs of our particular offspring. So there is no one "right" way, so long as the kid grows up independent, self-disciplined, and ready to take on the world :).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[ric0]

Shortly thereafter, changes were made. Instead of being spanked, I was put in timeout for 2 minutes. Instead of punishment for not doing chores, we drew up a 'contract' in which I could earn rewards/allowance for completing them.

I chose to encourage this, because I knew that if this didn't work, they might go back to hitting me.


While i do not know you, this smacks of a child manipulating his parents, being rewarded for doing something you have a requierment to do is not a good way to teach children, now thats not saying that they should never be rewarded, but coming to expect it for basic acts is in my opinion ridiculous.

It will not teach most children respect for there parents or bosses in the future, and might even hold them back while they come to terms with the "real world".

Now from what you said it worked for you, i just dont see that it will work for "most" children, though as someone said, everyone is diffrent, and what doesnt work for some will work for others, i would not personaly use this method though.

P.S. I also do not agree with hiting kids for every thing they do wrong, but i do belive that controled smacks do have a place in parenting, this will be up to the parent to control, and we all know that some people just can not controll themselves.

[pendell]

While i do not know you, this smacks of a child manipulating his parents, being rewarded for doing something you have a requierment to do is not a good way to teach children, now thats not saying that they should never be rewarded, but coming to expect it for basic acts is in my opinion ridiculous.


Actually, it taught me that work is not done out of compulsion but for reward -- if you work at a job, you do so not because you'll be punished if you don't but because you'll be paid for it. If you work to clean your house, you do it not because it's the done thing, or because you'll be punished if you don't, but because there is a benefit to it -- the benefit of having a clean house.

And I thought it a valuable lesson. I've been working for pay since I was 16 and have never voluntarily stopped for any length of time. Work is done precisely because it brings benefit to someone. Work without corresponding benefit is slavery. Work you do for yourself that brings no profit to you is meaningless, and it's not like our hours are short enough to waste on such things.

Observe the time management matrix (http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/nerdy-productivity-coveys-time-management-matrix-illustrated-with-xkcd-comics). All life actions are filed according to their corresponding need for action -- the benefit of them -- and done accordingly. Failure to recognize this means spending a lot of time on useless trivia.


Because of this, I continue to do these things well into adulthood even though there's no one around to punish me for it except me, myself. No one can force me to do anything any more, so I do what needs doing because it benefits *me*.

The problem with expecting people to do things to avoid punishment is that you aren't able to punish them forever. The trick is to teach the person that there is benefit to self-discipline so they can continue to do the things that need doing even when no one else is around to look over their shoulder.

Ya think about it: Offering a reward and offering a punishment really are the same thing. They both try to change behavior through offering incentives. The difference is that one is a positive incentive and the other one is a negative incentive. And my early life is a poster child for what happens when the only positive incentive to offer is lack of punishment. So my parents shifted from nearly all negative incentives to a pattern of positive and negative incentives. They also quit hitting me, which worked in the short term but filled me with rage and a determination to take revenge on them, come adulthood.



ETA: As towards "manipulation", I contend that all relationships are two-way streets. Of course the parents have the dominant role in the relationship. But a relationship where the child has no influence on the parent's decisions is one where the child has no influence on the parents *at all*. If the child makes his needs known and the parent accommodates them reasonably -- and I mean real needs, not simply catering to every whim -- then there's the basis for a long-term relationship. A relationship where the parent utterly dominates the child and refuses to listen to them doesn't set up for a good relationship in the future when that child is an employee or a parent or a boss. In the modern world, it's the kiss of death for an employer to not listen to employees in IT who typically know more than they do, and an employee who has been schooled to "sit down and shut up" is going to have trouble in a flexible environment where the company must adapt quickly to changing circumstances or go out of business. See: Borders.

In modern IT, at least, the world does not reward constant, patient repetition of the same mindless tasks day after day, nor does it reward unquestioned obedience. In a world where our education is obsolete two years into college, children must be taught to be flexible and adaptive. Which means thinking for themselves, challenging assumptions, both listening to others and being listened to themselves. The top-down style of both management and parenting is a relic best left to the 1950s. IMO.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Traab]

That's also why I feel the way I do about escalated punishments -- my experience has been that every escalated punishment results in a new line that gets crossed, which means that it has to be dealt, and so there's a vicious spiral from ever more rule breaking to ever more harsh punishment. At some point, you've got to climbdown and say "this isn't working", then try something else.


The problem is, when it comes to escalating punishments, its obvious the lesser punishments arent working, and its only natural to try making it more severe just to be certain it isnt that you are making the punishment too light. For example, grounding a person for the weekend didnt work, try for a whole week. or a couple weeks. That doesnt mean that if this method hadnt worked for the dad, he would have moved on to beating her senseless with whatever computer she managed to get ahold of then locking her away till she turns 18.

Now, you are right, you do have to find what sort of treatment works best on your kid, and this is where all this backseat parenting falls apart. Every kid is different. Some respond well to verbal cues. Some respond well to separation like grounding, others respond well to losing possessions. And yes, some respond well to physical punishment. Apparently spanking didnt work on you. It worked on me, but it was used sparingly for when i really screwed up. I got all these methods and more used on me to reign me in, some worked better than others.

[Manga Shoggoth]

By the way it wasn't on any of their face book pages, and instead was only on the dog's.

One wonders how the dog updates its page...



... Because sharing data is the whole point of facebook.

While this is true, in actual fact sharing data is the whole point of the internet.

[pendell]

The problem is, when it comes to escalating punishments, its obvious the lesser punishments arent working, and its only natural to try making it more
severe just to be certain it isnt that you are making the punishment too light.


Sounds like your parents were a bit more measured than mine. They gave the lighter punishment a chance to work before moving on to something heavier. What *I've* seen is a strict doubling progression -- screw up once, get punished for a day. Screw up a second time, get punished for two days, then four, then eight ...

Ya see how this could end badly? I think your parents have it right ... before escalating, give the lighter punishment a chance to *work*.




Apparently spanking didnt work on you. It worked on me, but it was used sparingly for when i really screwed up. I got all these methods and more used on me to reign me in, some worked better than others.


Again, different implementation. Your parents sound like they did it right. In my case as a toddler it was literally a daily thing, and often times I didn't understand why my mother would suddenly go from being sweet and smiling to turning me over and swinging a wooden switch at me. Some of my earliest memories are of her standing over me as the rod came down. And I didn't understand why.

What *I* learned from that was that even the sweetest, kindest people could suddenly turn on you for no reason, and that the way to solve any problem, no matter how small or insignificant, was to hit people. And if they didn't straighten up, do it again, immediately. Every time.

Add this to the fact that I was considerably smarter than my parents, and is anyone really surprised that things underwent a considerable ... adjustment ... once I had the language skills needed to make my needs and feelings known? Eight years later?

I was at last able to communicate just what it was they were doing to me. And it was at that point my mother made the very difficult decision to forsake her "spare the rod and spoil the child" upbringing, go to the psychologists, and learn a different way. And it worked. I was able to be less angry and learned to do things not because I'd be punished if I didn't, but because I'd be rewarded if I did. And she learned to have more tools in the parenting box.

And so we both escaped from my childhood with a great sigh of relief :).

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tyndmyr]

So in my experience consistent mild punishment is better for correction than a constant escalation.

Absolutely. Same goes for animals...beating your dog is unlikely to produce much of anything except a confused, scared animal. Consider my roommate's cat. They basically punish it whenever it annoys them, regardless of what the infraction was. While it's not the smartest of cats, it knows when they're angry, and it runs and hides. It has no idea if the anger is related to what it did, or why. No net behavior change that's desirable.

On the other hand, every single time he walked into my room, I made absolutely no fuss about it, but tossed him in the shower. Nothing in the world can make him go into my room now. The anger adds nothing, and escalation is unnecessary.

Kids are very similar...if I had a dollar for every time I saw a parent say "stop this in 3...2...1..."...and nothing happened differently, I'd be rich. They talk, they get angry, they have battles of wills and tempers...that whole approach is not beneficial.

[Brother Oni]

Shortly thereafter, changes were made. Instead of being spanked, I was put in timeout for 2 minutes. Instead of punishment for not doing chores, we drew up a 'contract' in which I could earn rewards/allowance for completing them.


I no longer need to physically discipline my children as often as they're well aware of what happens if they don't behave, however that's not what I'm disagreeing with.
Psychological discipline lasts for a lot longer - it wasn't until I was in university that I heard someone praise me for work I had done and I had worth as an individual.


It worked out. Just as they taught me how to listen, so I taught them how to parent. This can happen when your child has an IQ > 135. We learned to observe each other's boundaries and today have a relationship of mutual respect.


Pardon me if I overstep the bounds, but this smacks of hubris to me, putting it very politely.
I also have an IQ in excess of 130 and am significantly better educated than my parents because of their sacrifices for me - they were first generation immigrants. I remember helping them write formal and letters in technical English for various purposes from a relatively young age.

Despite all this, I wouldn't presume to teach them anything about parenting (technology and computers on the other hand...).



So in my experience consistent mild punishment is better for correction than a constant escalation.

There's nothing stopping the punishment 'resetting' in the case of minor infractions.

If an offence is serious enough however, then the punishment shouldn't be 'reset'. Suppose a young child managed to get hold of a firearm (let's assume they managed to brute force the combination on a gun safe) - any repeat offences would justifiably harsh.



I suggest, however, that psychological upbringing is harder to do correctly than the traditional method.


However I'm not talking about psychological upbringing, I'm talking about psychological discipline, something entirely different.


Work you do for yourself that brings no profit to you is meaningless, and it's not like our hours are short enough to waste on such things.

I apologise if I'm mis-understanding you and if I'm trying to put words into your mouth, I apologise, but are you saying that you would not do charity/volunteer work as it's meaningless and would not benefit you directly?



I was at last able to communicate just what it was they were doing to me. And it was at that point my mother made the very difficult decision to forsake her "spare the rod and spoil the child" upbringing, go to the psychologists, and learn a different way. And it worked. I was able to be less angry and learned to do things not because I'd be punished if I didn't, but because I'd be rewarded if I did. And she learned to have more tools in the parenting box.

I think it's easier to say that we're going to disagree completely on our approaches to parenting. Your method and particularly the lessons you've learnt, run very nearly completely counter to the cultural values that I was raised with.

However that's perfectly fine - your experiences and mine are completely different and what worked for you, wouldn't work for me.


Absolutely. Same goes for animals...beating your dog is unlikely to produce much of anything except a confused, scared animal. Consider my roommate's cat. They basically punish it whenever it annoys them, regardless of what the infraction was. While it's not the smartest of cats, it knows when they're angry, and it runs and hides. It has no idea if the anger is related to what it did, or why. No net behavior change that's desirable.

I think you're running into issues of cognitive understanding here. A small child without the ability to communicate, wouldn't understand that running about with scissors is dangerous, thus a stern word, with appropriate escalation for repeat offences would be suitable in my opinion.

Once they get old enough to communicate, that's when you can reason with them about why they shouldn't do this or do that.

[pendell]

I apologise if I'm mis-understanding you and if I'm trying to put words into your mouth, I apologise, but are you saying that you would not do charity/volunteer work as it's meaningless and would not benefit you directly?


I do charity/volunteer work because scrubbed, who sees what is done in secret, rewards those who do good to those who can't pay it back. Further discussion is against forum policy, so see me in PM if you want further details.



Pardon me if I overstep the bounds, but this smacks of hubris to me, putting it very politely.

Despite all this, I wouldn't presume to teach them anything about parenting (technology and computers on the other hand...).


Not at all. I was a first child. My parents didn't know the first thing about parenting. We just discussed that every kid is different and requires specific parenting , yes? Who else is the parent going to learn the kids specific needs and requirements from, if not the kid?

I don't consider it as hubris on my part. I consider it humility on the part of my parents, a willingness to learn from whomever, regardless of the source. No one's ever so smart they can't stand to learn from someone else, especially when the "someone else" in the equation is the person who benefits from -- or suffers from -- your adventures in parenting :).

Way I see it, training works both ways. If your dog doesn't respond to kicks but does respond to treats, in a sense it's training you to give it treats if you want a response -- even as you are training it to, say, pick up a ball or roll over. The teacher learns from the student as the student learns from the teacher.

Possibly we're on different wavelengths because we're from different cultures. I was born and raised in North America. What's your background?


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tyndmyr]

I think you're running into issues of cognitive understanding here. A small child without the ability to communicate, wouldn't understand that running about with scissors is dangerous, thus a stern word, with appropriate escalation for repeat offences would be suitable in my opinion.

Once they get old enough to communicate, that's when you can reason with them about why they shouldn't do this or do that.

A young child without the ability to communicate is most similar mentally to pets. And escalation does not work with pets. Consistency does.

For a very young child, the best method is simply not giving them access to scissors, but as they get older, they get to learn the meaning of rules. Rules should be kept simple, but they should be enforced reliably. Otherwise, you're teaching them a rather different lesson than you intend. And reliably means a reliable punishment for the crime. If running with scissors sometimes earns a spoken reprimand and sometimes earns physical punishment, the correlation is not nearly so strong.

However, the correlation with your anger and or frustration IS strong. You're teaching them the relationship of anger and punishment to power before they learn how to follow rules. There's a problem there.


Also, I see nothing particularly wrong about an adult learning from a child. I admit it's less common than the reverse, but teaching happens because you understand something they do not, not merely by virtue of an age difference.

[Whiffet]

Hmm, I'm on friendly terms with a lot of elementary school teachers, with experience levels from my first-year-with-her-own-class cousin to a couple about-to-retire friends of my mom. They don't raise the same kids from infancy to adulthood, but they do see a lot of different kids. I bet they have some good perspectives on this topic. I should find a chance to talk to them. Obviously they're limited on what they can personally do to punish students, but they often get a good idea of what kids' home lives are like. Besides, I'm sure the teachers know better than anyone that what works for one kid won't always work on another. :smallamused:

[Othesemo]

What's the issue here again? The daughter's being a whiny *****, and the dad's being an irresponsible **** with anger issues. Is it so hard to just accept that some people are idiots? All this will amount to is the dad making a nice check from youtube, and there being just one more girl with daddy issues. In a year, we'll all have forgotten about this video and we'll have moved on to the video of a killer whale killing somebody.

Nevermind, apparently we already did that (I forgot). How about a video of, I don't know, somebody blowtorching a patch of sunflowers? That seems like the type of thing that would arbitrarily captivate the general public.

[The Glyphstone]

Making a nice check? When did he start earning money from Youtube views?

[Killer Angel]

Just watched the vid.
Basically, the father said all right things, but how those things were said... well, I cannot imagine a way more wrong than this one.

[Brother Oni]

Making a nice check? When did he start earning money from Youtube views?

Not to mention he's turned down offers of interviews, TV appearances and his own family mini-series. :smallbiggrin:

[Tiki Snakes]

Making a nice check? When did he start earning money from Youtube views?

Unless I'm missing something, I think he'd set up some kind of charity drive (not sure if it's for profit or not, or any other details) that is now obviously doing a lot better from the publicity.
At least that's what I'd assume that is a reference to. I'm not sure it's a major issue.

[Tyndmyr]

Making a nice check? When did he start earning money from Youtube views?

Typically, whenever you start getting enough views for them to allow you to go to partner status or whatever. I'm not sure just what level of popularity that is, but if he's not making money off his current popularity, he certainly could be.


Just watched the vid.
Basically, the father said all right things, but how those things were said... well, I cannot imagine a way more wrong than this one.

Precisely. There is nothing wrong with encouraging getting a job, or discouraging moves like posting hostile stuff on facebook...and taking away a laptop is a reasonable measure. It's all about the how, not the why.

[Maxios]

I think the father did the right thing. My parent's would have done the same thing (except they probably would've thrown the laptop against the wall or used a baseball bat). I would have done the same thing.
And, if he is an egomaniac who did it for the fame as some of you suggest, why would he turn down TV and radio appearences?

[Karoht]

My two cents:
-Her actual comments. Calling a family friend who sounds like she's a bit down on her luck "the cleaning lady" is pretty darned repugnant.
-Hacking her computer. Odds are he didn't need to. A concerned parent who looked over any of the other kids shoulder, or a teacher at school, could have seen that and brought it up. At some point it was likely to get back to him. [edit]turns out he didn't hack it.
-Public Humiliation. Yeah, he's making a spectacle out of his daughter. Her post, no matter how private, is publically repugnant, never mind a humiliation, and an insult.
-Facebook-How much other defamatory posting has she done that even the father doesn't know about?
-Shooting her laptop. Okay, a gun was unnecessary. There were other ways he could have dealt with that. He could have just confiscated it. He could have donated it to someone in need (my prefered suggestion). He could have let a cow in the fields take a dump on it, he could have let a car run it over, he could have taken a hammer to it. I think perminantly removing her laptop as a privilage was definately in the cards, I only slightly disagree with using the gun. The gun did make him look like a trigger happy stereotype, sadly. His message would have been far clearer had he not used a gun, and clearer still without an act of violence to support it.

Is the entire act extreme? Yes. We live in extreme times. The father was (IMO) trying to send a message to a broader audience than his daughter. He was trying to send it to every other parent in the same situation. He was trying to send that message to her friends, who probably commented on her original post and the post referenced in the video, with snide comments as well.
If you think about it as his attempt to reach a broader audience and not simply discipline his kid, it really doesn't come across as quite so extreme at that point.

@He tried to make it private
It doesn't feel that way to me, but the facts support this as well as raising other questions. It doesn't feel like he tried to keep it private, because it feels to me like he's addressing a larger audience than just his daughter, but that is just my interpretation of it.

@Free Speech of the Child
Yes, she has the right to vent her emotions. She has to understand though that there are consequences to go along with those actions if she does it in a public enough place. Yes, she did it somewhere private, but obviously not private enough.

@Privacy
Lets say it was a spouse bragging 'friends only' about commiting adultery, and the other spouse finds out?

@Chores and Abuse
I was physically and verbally abused as a kid. On top of which I had to pretty much run the entire house until I left home. When I say I did everything, I mean I did everything. Yes, that includes my parents laundry. For 2 years (and the 4 years prior to that weren't much better) I didn't leave the house except for school, my part time job (which went to groceries and rent, not fun stuff for me), going grocery shopping, or the family vacation. I had zero time to hang out with friends as a kid because I was actually kept that busy. Inside the house, I had approximately 2 hours to myself per day, which was usually spent watching TV with my younger brother. This was all in addition to basically taking care of my younger brother, from feeding to diapers to cleaning up after his messes. When I left for two weeks for a fishing trip with my grandparents, I came back to a filthy house and my mother yelling at me for letting it pile up, despite being over 2000 kilometers away from the house for two weeks. This was from age 8 to age 14 when I got fed up and left home.
And I'm sure even with all that, there are others on this forum who probably had it worse than me, +/- the abuse.When I heard she was complaining about chores, and I saw the rural setting, I had a bit of a softspot. Until the father listed off her workload. Then I laughed my butt off at how easy she had it.

[Tyndmyr]

@Chores and Abuse
I was physically and verbally abused as a kid. On top of which I had to pretty much run the entire house until I left home. When I say I did everything, I mean I did everything. Yes, that includes my parents laundry. For 2 years (and the 4 years prior to that weren't much better) I didn't leave the house except for school, my part time job (which went to groceries and rent, not fun stuff for me), going grocery shopping, or the family vacation. I had zero time to hang out with friends as a kid because I was actually kept that busy. Inside the house, I had approximately 2 hours to myself per day, which was usually spent watching TV with my younger brother. This was all in addition to basically taking care of my younger brother, from feeding to diapers to cleaning up after his messes. When I left for two weeks for a fishing trip with my grandparents, I came back to a filthy house and my mother yelling at me for letting it pile up, despite being over 2000 kilometers away from the house for two weeks. This was from age 8 to age 14 when I got fed up and left home.
And I'm sure even with all that, there are others on this forum who probably had it worse than me, +/- the abuse.When I heard she was complaining about chores, and I saw the rural setting, I had a bit of a softspot. Until the father listed off her workload. Then I laughed my butt off at how easy she had it.

Heh, similar here. Five younger siblings, for instance. I fully agree that there is such a thing as asking too much of kids for chores...but her workload is laughably easy. Griping about pouring a cup of coffee? Really? The chore probably took less time than the gripe.

[Arminius]

It seems to me that the father is arrogant, and the daughter hasn't the slightest clue about how to function in the real world.

He doesn't have to worry about his daughter disrespecting him anymore. I suspect he lost her respect a long time ago. All he has to be angry about is that she is not a good enough liar to hide it from him. Respect is what you think about someone. If she respected him, she wouldn't have even wanted to post that. "Be nice to me or I will destroy your stuff." will only gain him the respect afforded tyrants, people will be nice to his face and despise him behind his back. If you treat someone nicely because you are afraid of him, he is not your friend, but an enemy, and should be treated as such.

He is overly concerned about being "respected" by her, is worried about her being "rebellious", and how she needs "tough love". This leads me to think he is an authoritarian who is more concerned with his daughter obeying him for no reason other than that he is her father. This is the part that really rubs me the wrong way. My father had this same mentality. His way was always right(even when it wasn't), and the child has no business doing anything other than what it is told. If there was any response other than imediate unquestioning obedience, I'd be yelled at at best, spanked at worst. There is a decent chance there is a very detailed list of innocuous things that she is proscribed from doing, and that they try to censor what she reads and watches.

The trouble is, this authoritarian way of raising children doesn't make independant people. It makes slaves who's only reason for doing anything is that they are afraid of you. They aren't disciplined, because all the discipline they have is false. It is externally imposed, and once they are free, they either flounder because they never did anything other than what they are told and don't understand how to function, or they will just run wild and possibly destroy themselves. I fell into the first category. It took me four years after leaving home to realize that I was free to think what I wanted, say what I wanted, and do what I wanted. Those four years were among the most miserable of my life, and I wasted a host of opportunities, simply because I didn't know it was okay to reach out and take them. In the end it was sheer dumb luck that I was able to sort myself out and have any chance at a future. This is why my emotional reaction to this video is that he should be where the laptop is. He is setting his daughter up for ruin when she hits the real world.

The worst part is, he probably isn't an evil person. There is also a good chance that the person hurt most by this aside from his daughter will be him. He probably genuinely wants the best for his daughter. But because he is so big on "respect" and over-reacting at the slightest suspicion of trouble, they probably don't understand each other very well. My father did, and still does want the best for me. The only trouble is I stopped trusting him at a young age, resented him for years, and saw no escape. I am generally very good at hiding my emotions, but I snapped last summer and hit him. He was genuinely surprised at this, which in turn surprised me. We both had to revise our estimations of each other. Things are better now, he treats me like an actual human being with a mind of my own, and I am starting to see that he is human too, not some enemy to be hated. But we shouldn't have had to go through that. This is the kind of crap that happens when the relationship between a parent and child is so poisoned, and my case is very mild one, there people who have it thousands of times worse. That said, all I have to work on is my own experience, a sample size of one. Maybe this isn't what is going on here. I hope that both of them become more mature, and that this doesn't destroy their relationship.

[Lord Seth]

Doesn't seem they're sure. But here's the relevant post
PS: CBS just called and offered us our own show. The ceiling of absurdity has just been reached.That seems odd. This sort of show is pretty far from the kind of reality series CBS usually airs, and if there's one thing CBS is known for, it's for not straying far from their established formulas.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

As a parent, I can say sometimes you just have to wait them out.

My daughter caused no end of headaches and heartaches for us during her teen years (which she still has the remains of one more to go). We were wrong, her friends were right. We knew nothing, her friends knew everything.

"Why can't I drink? All my friends are!" "Why can't I smoke weed? It's legal in other places." But I love him! Why can't he move into my room?"

Then she graduated high school and moved out, then all of a sudden her friends weren't there any more. They were too busy doing all that boring stuff that she now has to do, that we used to do for her... Laundry, cooking, dishes, grocery shopping, and earning that paycheck.

Don't shoot the computer. The better "revenge" is in not paying her bills. Not paying her rent. Letting her figure out that mom and dad were the ones who REALLY had her back, and that her friends just talked a good game.

And then when she really needs something, being the ones who are there for her. Not something she WANTS, something she NEEDS.

[McStabbington]

^^I have to say, as someone who was parented both in your way, and in the way this child was, that your way was much more effective. My father was one of the calmest men I've ever met. I can't actually recall him ever spanking me, and it couldn't have been more than once a year. And yet he was the most capable punisher I've ever met.

The example that most readily comes to mind was the time I broke the bedsprings by jumping on the bed. My father had asked me probably about twenty times not to jump on the bed, but I was an inveterate jumper. So when the inevitable happened and the bed finally broke, at first all he did was lament quietly that he had told me this would happen. Then I made the mistake of defending myself by saying it was only a bed, and could be easily replaced. So he calmly, rationally, patiently explained that this bed was not simply an investment of money. Money takes time to earn, and this bed represented what was effectively a day of his life that he would never get back. A day that he could have spent earning money for my college savings, or something nice for mom, or a present for my little brother. Or he could have taken that day off, taken us fishing, gone camping, or otherwise shared time together. But now he didn't have a choice, and all because I wouldn't listen. By the end he had me in tears. So then for his piece de resistance, when I offered to help him buy a new bed with my allowance money, he turned down the money.

Needless to say, I learned a valuable lesson about money, personal responsibility and the fact that there are some things you can't undo at a stroke. From then on, I treated his stuff like it was made out Fabrege eggs. Not to mention how he made my $20 (about 10 weeks worth of savings) feel worthless. To his credit, when I offered the money again three days later, he accepted it. And he didn't have to even raise his voice to do it, much less do anything violent.

[Sunken Valley]

Facebook is evil. Don't post stupid on there or you burn. Dad was right.

That is, if he wasn't a liar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9chNh_baJe0

The following video claims to expose him as a hoax.

He does not work in IT. He works at a vet clinic. For his wife. And his website is poorly designed.

He said his daughter has no responsibillities. Hannah works at the clinic too.

He said he would not be making money. He is through adverts.

He attacked the video in a jeff lafferty manner with no evidence.

What do you think?

[Julian84]

Hm, curious. I'm interested in his connection to Jordan, I don't recall seeing him mention it. But if Mr. Solomon speaks truthfully...

At any rate, hardly surprising, and the "shoot-the-laptop" thing becomes... understandable. Sensationalism does attract attention, after all.

A shame that he let his greed and stupidity consume him.

[hobbitkniver]

Well thats why he didn't want to have his own show. He'd have to show people it was a lie...

[KnightDisciple]

:smallsigh:

So because folks disagree with how this guy went about things they eagerly jump on any and all resources to discredit him.

Can't we just let this whole topic die off? Different people have different opinions about what happened. We're not at a point we can change that fact...

[hobbitkniver]

:smallsigh:

So because folks disagree with how this guy went about things they eagerly jump on any and all resources to discredit him.

Can't we just let this whole topic die off? Different people have different opinions about what happened. We're not at a point we can change that fact...

There's nothing wrong with disagreement and it really hasn't gotten out of hand. I posted this thread so I and whoever else wanted to could have an interesting duscussion not because I was trying to convince anyone of anything. Also, incase you haven't noticed:

Most people believe information that support their own beliefs.

I've found very few exceptions to this and it's not all that terrible that it's happening here. If you make yourself public, you'll just have to deal with people talking about you.

[Tiki Snakes]

I for one find Greg Solomon both essentially convincing and weirdly hypnotic.

[Knaight]

:smallsigh:

So because folks disagree with how this guy went about things they eagerly jump on any and all resources to discredit him.

Can't we just let this whole topic die off? Different people have different opinions about what happened. We're not at a point we can change that fact...

As opposed to people agreeing with this guy, and as such assuming that everything he said was 100% true at all times, even when he was providing information on what other people said while preventing them from saying it directly? Yeah, the response seems almost measured.

[Karoht]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9chNh_baJe0Without seeing the video (at work, no youtube access) I have questions for the following replies.

"He does not work in IT. He works at a vet clinic. For his wife. And his website is poorly designed."
Just because it's private, and his work is poor, doesn't mean he does not work in IT. A man who cuts grass next to a mine still works at a mine. We also do not know what he does on the side. I don't see how this discredits anything.

"He said his daughter has no responsibillities. Hannah works at the clinic too."
I have a friend who 'works' for his father. It's more like he keeps his dad company, gets credit for his apprenticeship hours, and gets his allowance in the form of an actual paycheck. Would you call 'working' for his father an actual responsibility?
Great, she works at the clinic. Does she work there, or does she 'work' there? Because I highly doubt that at the age of 17 she's a certified vet assistant or a certified medical billing and records professional. So that only begs further questions regarding the nature of her employment at this clinic, her duties, and if she's being paid under the table, or even working there legally.
Also, didn't someone just say that she recently posted on her facebook about taking a job at a coffee shop after the incident?

"He said he would not be making money. He is through adverts."
Which supposedly is going to a charity. Does anyone have proof that it is not being forwarded to said charity?


@Dad = Tyrant
I fully empathize with several posts made regarding this. There are many (poor) parents who demand 'respect' from their children simple due to the parent-child relationship, and do very little to earn it. The bad news is, this kind of demand of respect can and does cross the line between discipline and abuse. To make matters worse, some parents do not understand the the respect they are seeking is a two-way street, not a one-way street. They also do not understand the kind of child they are raising in an authoritarian environment.

[hobbitkniver]

Without seeing the video (at work, no youtube access) I have questions for the following replies.

"He does not work in IT. He works at a vet clinic. For his wife. And his website is poorly designed."
Just because it's private, and his work is poor, doesn't mean he does not work in IT. A man who cuts grass next to a mine still works at a mine. We also do not know what he does on the side. I don't see how this discredits anything.

"He said his daughter has no responsibillities. Hannah works at the clinic too."
I have a friend who 'works' for his father. It's more like he keeps his dad company, gets credit for his apprenticeship hours, and gets his allowance in the form of an actual paycheck. Would you call 'working' for his father an actual responsibility?
Great, she works at the clinic. Does she work there, or does she 'work' there? Because I highly doubt that at the age of 17 she's a certified vet assistant or a certified medical billing and records professional. So that only begs further questions regarding the nature of her employment at this clinic, her duties, and if she's being paid under the table, or even working there legally.
Also, didn't someone just say that she recently posted on her facebook about taking a job at a coffee shop after the incident?

"He said he would not be making money. He is through adverts."
Which supposedly is going to a charity. Does anyone have proof that it is not being forwarded to said charity?


@Dad = Tyrant
I fully empathize with several posts made regarding this. There are many (poor) parents who demand 'respect' from their children simple due to the parent-child relationship, and do very little to earn it. The bad news is, this kind of demand of respect can and does cross the line between discipline and abuse. To make matters worse, some parents do not understand the the respect they are seeking is a two-way street, not a one-way street. They also do not understand the kind of child they are raising in an authoritarian environment.

Look, if you can't watch the video right now, don't reply right now. Don't substitute his post for actually seeing it.

[Karoht]

Look, if you can't watch the video right now, don't reply right now. Don't substitute his post for actually seeing it.
First two minutes of video? Wow, can you possibly talk any slower? Get to the point already. Seriously, this guy is worse to listen to than William Shattner. I could cut this entire video down to 3 minutes just by speaking at a normal speed.

@2:33-"Mr Jordan's wife is the primary breadwinner."
Qualification of this statement? None.
@3:47-"He claims to be a published author. He's self published."
Wow, remind me to call every self-published author not a real published author some time. Lets see how far that takes me.
"If you send him a certain amount of money he will send you this book."
Thank you for re-iterating how I may buy books from this or any author. Is this guy going out of his way to waste my time now?
@4:15-"I'll post some links below"
He states that Mr Jordan is accepting money from the adverts. Mr Jordan has stated that he's donating it all to charity. No proof given that Mr Jordan is lying. Unqualified statement is unqualified.
@4:45-"This video is a fake"
Oh, that why I'm here to watch your video? Nooo. I would never have guessed. By all means, continue.
@7:00-He's still on about how it's a fake, providing no proof thus far. He's claimed that Mr Jordan is not an IT guy, but has yet to provide any evidence that this is fake, he keeps referring to links below but none actually provide anything resembling proof.
@8:40-Still no proof, still on about how Mr Jordan has too much time on his hands and how he's not a real IT person.
@9:11-"So consider yourself exposed Mr Jordan"
3
2
1
*cue me laughing my ass off*
You've exposed what exactly? That a man who works with computers and self publishes and has a woodshop and a junk yard and works at a mobile vet clinic has many projects on the go? At no point does he address anything to do with the video, at no point has he even hinted at some kind of proof that Mr Jordan is in any way profiting from this. You call the laptop some old laptop. Do you even know what make and model it is? Do you know what year it is? Or what he paid for it when it was brand new?


So, back to the obvious questions.
Does the daughter work there or 'work' there for a glorified allowance?
Can anyone prove that the advertising money is NOT going to a charity as Mr Jordan has stated?
Anyone? Because I just wasted 10 minutes waiting for an old man to show me his wisdom and got 10 minutes tripe. Anyone?

[Tiki Snakes]

To paraphrase, the suggestions are:
He is not the primary breadwinner of the family, that being his wife who owns a successful vetinary practice.
This leaves him with a lot of time to do all manner of other things, such as help out at the Vets, run several basic websites and write a (apparently thin) book. This doesn't quite mesh with the way he is apparently describing himself as an IT professional and a published author. (Self Published is very clearly different from Published, though both are acheivements).

I believe that the gentlemen suggests that the Laptop is, infact, merely an old one that he has on account of one of his other sideline businesses/websites, and the public shooting of it was specifically designed to be attention-grabbing in an attempt to create a viral video. The gentleman further points out that originally, he claimed that there would be no monetisation of the video because that would be wrong, but that he is now running adverts on it and therefor making money. (What he does with the money afterwards is secondary to the idea there that there is deceit at all)

He goes on to suggest that the fact that he has denied all interviews and media contact is that, knowing that he faked the video, he didn't want to invite any further scrutiny. This is hard to prove either way, but is a fairly believable theory in and of itself.

At least, those are the salient points as I remember them, strewn as they were across ten pipe chomping and rambling minutes. What weight you attribute to them is of course another matter entirely, but personally although it lacks that "Smoking Gun" level of proof, I do find it to be a cohesive argument.

[boer12]

I think the video is very appropriate at these times because it teaches parents how to supervise and guide their children in using Facebook.

[The Glyphstone]

To paraphrase, the suggestions are:
He is not the primary breadwinner of the family, that being his wife who owns a successful vetinary practice.
This leaves him with a lot of time to do all manner of other things, such as help out at the Vets, run several basic websites and write a (apparently thin) book. This doesn't quite mesh with the way he is apparently describing himself as an IT professional and a published author. (Self Published is very clearly different from Published, though both are acheivements).

I believe that the gentlemen suggests that the Laptop is, infact, merely an old one that he has on account of one of his other sideline businesses/websites, and the public shooting of it was specifically designed to be attention-grabbing in an attempt to create a viral video. The gentleman further points out that originally, he claimed that there would be no monetisation of the video because that would be wrong, but that he is now running adverts on it and therefor making money. (What he does with the money afterwards is secondary to the idea there that there is deceit at all)

He goes on to suggest that the fact that he has denied all interviews and media contact is that, knowing that he faked the video, he didn't want to invite any further scrutiny. This is hard to prove either way, but is a fairly believable theory in and of itself.

At least, those are the salient points as I remember them, strewn as they were across ten pipe chomping and rambling minutes. What weight you attribute to them is of course another matter entirely, but personally although it lacks that "Smoking Gun" level of proof, I do find it to be a cohesive argument.

I dunno, I feel like it's probably more deceitful on the part of the hoax-exposing guy, looking to get attention for himself by piggybacking on another viral phenomenon and using 'proof' just vague and unsubstantiated enough to avoid being caught out as a hoax-hoaxer.

[hobbitkniver]

I think the video is very appropriate at these times because it teaches parents how to supervise and guide their children in using Facebook.

I wouldn't ever suggest supervising or guiding your child by using a handgun.

[Tiki Snakes]

I dunno, I feel like it's probably more deceitful on the part of the hoax-exposing guy, looking to get attention for himself by piggybacking on another viral phenomenon and using 'proof' just vague and unsubstantiated enough to avoid being caught out as a hoax-hoaxer.

Uh... Well, he did have enough links to prove that the guy's wife owns the Vetinary Practice and that he works there. Probably the other website related bits too, it's not like I was interested enough to click and verify any of it.

As for being a hoax-hoaxer, he seemed pretty sure of his points to me, regardless of whether the conclusion he was drawing was nonsensical or otherwise.
He hardly strikes me as the average troll. A neighbor with a grudge, perhaps.

Surely the point is that, if he's right, it's hardly deceitful? If he's wrong, then it might be deceitful, but that kind of depends to my mind on whether he knows he's wrong?
Much like the original video. Whether or not it was genuine is a pretty salient point, I think.

[Seraph]

I feel rather inclined to believe that the video is a hoax, mainly because one of the things that bothered me about it was the way the guy was talking himself up.

[VanBuren]

That message is: next time, this could be you. And there will be a next time, whether it is a similar issue or not. What is he going to shoot/destroy then?

What.

I saw where you started, and I saw where you ended. But for the life of me, I can't begin to conceive of a reasonable train of thought that connects the two.

[Brother Oni]

I wouldn't ever suggest supervising or guiding your child by using a handgun.

The original video in question, no.

However the father has done a number of other instructional videos for a friend who's looking to buy her first pistol for home defence and some basic gun care and maintenance.
Speaking as someone with limited knowledge of firearms (shooting in the cadets nearly 20 years ago), I found them quite useful.

[Sunken Valley]

There is proof that's it's not going to a charity. Jordan posted on Facebook that some of it was going to his daughter's college fund. He is also selling bits of the laptop on E-bay.

There is an inconsistency in his video. If the post really was on Facebook (no proof), surely he could have printed it out or read it from the laptop instead of copy-pasting?

Also, he said on facebook that the police came to his house to congratulate him. Police did not.

Solomon's links prove that Jordan is not the breadwinner. Nor is he an author, his book is a pamphlet and not on amazon. Nor is it the store like some other self-published books (Eragon, Bessie the Cow MP and of course OOTS).

Also, he made a comment on Solomon's video which said he was a liar but disproved nothing.

Finally, he said he would be making money out of the video because "facebook is a marketing medium".

Fraud!

[Jan Mattys]

It's called hyperbole, and kids outgrow it. At least, they're supposed to. But now, with this lasting forever, who knows what kind of permanent damage has been done to their familial relationship?

Well, hopefully she grows to be a better human being and will laugh with her parents about "that one time when we got all fussed over a facebook message".

Also: Facebook is not private. Not even close. Anyone posting on Facebook and claiming privacy is either joking, or stupid.

[Psyren]

GMA covered the incident this morning. The internet seems to be pretty divided on the issue.

The father doesn't regret doing it, but he does regret the media attention that the incident has received. He also regrets social services paying them a house call. He also claims his daughter has "gotten over it." I guess there's not much more to say, really.

[Karoht]

*Disclaimer*
I'm mostly ranting about Mr Greg Solomon's "anti-hoax" video at this point. If that is too far off topic just let me know. Spoilered for length

@Sunken


There is an inconsistency in his video. If the post really was on Facebook (no proof), surely he could have printed it out or read it from the laptop instead of copy-pasting? He was reading off from a print out that you can see in the video.



Solomon's links prove that Jordan is not the breadwinner.So what? Why is that even remotely relevant?



Nor is he an author, his book is a pamphlet and not on amazon.Crazy, I was under the impression that as an author I have a right to post my works up for sale where ever I choose. Now I have to post it up on Amazon or I'm not an author. Intersting. Remind me to draw in crayon later this afternoon, and post it for sale on amazon, apparently that makes me an author.

There's a lady who sells her book in a coffee shop. It's not on amazon. Is she now no longer an author?

@Tiki

To paraphrase, the suggestions are:
He is not the primary breadwinner of the family, that being his wife who owns a successful vetinary practice.
This leaves him with a lot of time to do all manner of other things, such as help out at the Vets, run several basic websites and write a (apparently thin) book. This doesn't quite mesh with the way he is apparently describing himself as an IT professional and a published author. (Self Published is very clearly different from Published, though both are acheivements).This are insinuations at best, and have nothing to do with the video.
I wouldn't call a video fake just because someone is a self-published author instead of a published author. This has nothing to do with the video.

"Mr Jordan has many irons in the fire." "Mr Jordan has too much time on his hands." This in conjunction with calling self-published authors as lesser to real authors is pretty derrogatory. I'll just go back to Mr Greg Solomon's antiquitated idea that a person should have one job rather than multiple potential career paths or multiple ambitions in life, and should only go through established publishers to be an author/artist/creator. I'll remember to send a telegram to the indie publishers and creators as well while I'm at it.
Honestly, what century does that guy live in?


@IT
I work security. I do patrols, I monitor alarms. At the same time however, I do quite a bit of computer work and troubleshooting of systems. Yes, my job title is security. However I work with Information Technology all day long. It wouldn't be a lie to say I work in IT. I spend upwards of 20 hours a day on a computer. It also wouldn't be a lie to say that my main expertise is IT, regardless of the fact that I work security. For the anti-hoax video to be that hung up on the word IT is semantics at best.
Just because a website is "poor" doesn't mean that the guy doesn't do IT. I've created websites for companies. If they just want a basic Joomla cut-and-paste website, that's what they get. I've seen people charge as much as $5000 for literally taking a template off the joomla site, type in some details, set up the domain, and upload the template. It doesn't change the fact that yes, these people work in IT. It also doesn't reflect their skill level at all. Again, his rambling for 4 minutes about how someone does not work in IT when in fact they are performing the tasks of an IT professional is semantics at best, and baseless slander at worst.

Then there is the mobile vet clinic thing. My fiance works at a vet clinic. They also have a website. I don't work in IT, I work in security. I typically however, fix their computer, their billing software, their web page, and anything else IT related. I don't receive money for it either. Mr Jordan being listed as a Helper is no different than me being listed as a Volunteer at my fiance's clinic.



I believe that the gentlemen suggests that the Laptop is, infact, merely an old one that he has on account of one of his other sideline businesses/websites, and the public shooting of it was specifically designed to be attention-grabbing in an attempt to create a viral video.If the anti-hoax video wants to make a claim about how old a computer is, then the creator of the video could at least be bothered to look it up first before making that claim.
Even if it's old, the father likely paid full price for it at some point. Sure, it might be old (unconfirmed) but it still likely cost a chunk of money. This is before we consider the supposed 6 hours of work and X amount of dollars worth of software recently invested in it.



He goes on to suggest that the fact that he has denied all interviews and media contact is that, knowing that he faked the video, he didn't want to invite any further scrutiny. This is hard to prove either way, but is a fairly believable theory in and of itself.You can make any number of believeable theories about me. It doesn't make any of them true. If you back them up with evidence, well now we are talking.



At least, those are the salient points as I remember them, strewn as they were across ten pipe chomping and rambling minutes. What weight you attribute to them is of course another matter entirely, but personally although it lacks that "Smoking Gun" level of proof, I do find it to be a cohesive argument.The weight I attribute the entire video is grasping at straws with unqualified statements and 10 minutes of time completely wasted with nothing but baseless claims rambled over and over.


@Mr Jordan profiting from this:
He posted on is facebook that the money is not going to charity? Great. Mr Anti-Hoax video could have saved me 10 minutes of my life by saying so. Bravo. Instead he chose to create a 10 minute video with nothing but baseless insinuations when he could have posted some actual facts.
His wife is the chief breadwinner? Why is that relevant?
He has pursuits other than working with computers? Why is that relevant?

IF the video were truth, I still agree with it OTHER than the gun usage. I think telling his daughter that someone else they know would be enjoying the laptop rather than herself would have been much more effective than destroying it. As a work of fiction, I think it serves as an excellent example to parents. What kind of example? Well, that depends on the opinion of the watcher. Is it an example of a parent gone too far? Probably. Is it an example of a parent drawing a line in the sand, one that he and other parents like him probably should have drawn quite a long time ago? Definately. Is he an example of how guns and parenting are not supposed to mix. Totally.

[Killer Angel]

Is he an example of how guns and parenting are not supposed to mix. Totally.

Exceptions exist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Commandoposter.jpg). :smalltongue:

[Parra]

Alot of people seem to be hung up on him using a Gun to destroy the laptop, what difference would it have made if he used an Axe or Hammer to destroy it instead?

[pendell]

Alot of people seem to be hung up on him using a Gun to destroy the laptop, what difference would it have made if he used an Axe or Hammer to destroy it instead?

Well, you've taught your child a lesson that destroying property is an appropriate disciplinary response. Taken to extremes, it means watching your daughter rip off the the head of your granddaughter's doll because she wouldn't put it away.

That's an extreme. Hopefully the children exercise a little bit more common sense. And dad was provoked. But it's still true that children frequently follow the pattern we set. It's possible we'll look at their actions modeled after ours and not like what we see.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tyndmyr]

Alot of people seem to be hung up on him using a Gun to destroy the laptop, what difference would it have made if he used an Axe or Hammer to destroy it instead?

None whatsoever. They all teach that the appropriate fix to being frustrated with the behavior of another is destruction.

Taking the laptop away or donating it to charity or whatever would have accomplished the exact same punishment from the standpoint of taking away the laptop, but would have avoided the inclusion of destruction in the lesson.

[ClaireBear13]

I think everyone is looking too deep into it. It isn't about teaching his daughter that you resolve frustrating situations with destruction at all. I think he was:

a. trying to embarrass her publicly
b. making a point

They are obviously from the country where discipline is handled a little differently. I grew up in a family of hunters, and in families where people hunt or use guns often, it isn't as shocking and violent as you would think.

[Tyndmyr]

Except that he expressly stated the last time it happened that he'd put a bullet in it. And, wanting to make sure his daughter knows he does exactly what he says he does, he did exactly that. :v

He should have made a less violent and ill-considered threat, then.

Edit: Yes, I also grew up in the country, and shot guns since I was a wee lad. This does not mean that this is an acceptable lesson. It's not about the gun...it's about using destruction as a means to an end.

[NinjaStylerobot]

So. Girl does something stupid, father responds by doing something DUMBER and making her the laughingstock for years to come.

Also justifying her.

I guess when she says "I hate you!" he punches her in the face as retribution too.

Seriously, im not sure whos more childish here. The teen or the father.

Long after she becomes an adult and a good person, this video will still be there.

[Killer Angel]

Seriously, im not sure whos more childish here. The teen or the father.


At least, one of them got an excuse to behave childishly.

[Traab]

So. Girl does something stupid, father responds by doing something DUMBER and making her the laughingstock for years to come.

Also justifying her.

I guess when she says "I hate you!" he punches her in the face as retribution too.

Seriously, im not sure whos more childish here. The teen or the father.

Long after she becomes an adult and a good person, this video will still be there.

Oh please, long before she becomes an adult, the internet in general will have forgotten all about this. Just like they have forgotten all about the thousands of other embarrassing videos posted on it over the years. If one person out of a thousand could actually identify the numa numa guy on the street today id be stunned. Same for that clumsy fat kid who filmed himself using a staff and stumbled all over the av room. Thats despite there being a thousand spinoffs of that clip. Yeah the clip "will always be there." But noone will be watching it, and noone will care.

[The Glyphstone]

At least, one of them got an excuse to behave childishly.

Indeed. The legions of people passing summary judgement on the situation towards either side...they have no such excuse.

[NinjaStylerobot]

Same for that clumsy fat kid who filmed himself using a staff and stumbled all over the av room. Thats despite there being a thousand spinoffs of that clip. Yeah the clip "will always be there." But noone will be watching it, and noone will care.

:smalleek:

You don't know what he endured didn't you? You literally picked the WORST example to support your case.

[Surrealistik]

Personally I find Greg Solomon's hypnotic account of the situation the most probable.

Guy with too much time on his hands and a desire to make some cash/publicity in order to get out from under his breadwinner wife fabricates a completely tasteless but sensational set-up as the basis for a viral video. It succeeds wildly. He exploits it as much as he can, riding the video to notoriety and riches, monetizing it for teh Youtube golds while using it as a platform to promote the businesses he's dabbled into. Not much else to see here really.

[Traab]

:smalleek:

You don't know what he endured didn't you? You literally picked the WORST example to support your case.

Yep, read his wiki article and everything. Despite the harassment lawsuit and all that which took place 7 years ago or so, and was later settled out of court, despite the spinoffs and recognition its gotten on tv and such, I bet you would still walk right past him on the street and not recognize him, because old news is old. Im not going to deny that he had some pretty heavy crap land on him after the vid went viral, im just saying that long term, they fade away. He gets a job two towns over, and noone will be there to say, "Hey I know you! You are that nerd with the star wars video thing! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Within a year I doubt many people will even remember her name without doing a google search for it. She is not going to suffer forever over this horrible horrible thing her evil daddy did to her. Worst case she spends a couple months getting ragged on by her classmates, then when the new school year starts it will be dead and buried.

[NinjaStylerobot]

I get your point, but it just comes off as a immature ass dad trying to teach his stupid daughter a lesson. Poorly. By acting like an ass.

Ive said all I needed to say on the issue.

[Traab]

I get your point, but it just comes off as a immature ass dad trying to teach his stupid daughter a lesson. Poorly. By acting like an ass.

Ive said all I needed to say on the issue.

Maybe you are right, I honestly dont know. Its hard to accurately judge something in a vacuum. I was just countering the point a few people besides you have tried to make about how this is going to somehow "ruin that poor girls life" Even the people who did suffer from their internet video were a different case. Most of those tended to be ones where a person made an idiot out of themselves. The person most likely to suffer some long term consequences from this video is actually the dad. After all, its HIS face that is all over the video. Perfect strangers are going to be more likely to recognize him than his daughter walking down the street, (even though its still unlikely in the extreme outside of his home town)

[VanBuren]

:smalleek:

You don't know what he endured didn't you? You literally picked the WORST example to support your case.

And you clearly haven't done all your research. Gary Brolsma went on to make a sequel video long after the fact. I didn't think it was as good, but the production values were higher.

[The Glyphstone]

And you clearly haven't done all your research. Gary Brolsma went on to make a sequel video long after the fact. I didn't think it was as good, but the production values were higher.

He was talking about Star Wars Kid in that instance, not Numa Numa Kid.

[VanBuren]

He was talking about Star Wars Kid in that instance, not Numa Numa Kid.

Irony is a harsh mistress indeed.