mellemhund said:
She's acting like a perfectly normal teenager.
And just because it's expected doesn't mean it's excused.
An issue we have today is that 18-year-olds are not
adults. Maturity and responsibility come with
experience, not age. Kids used to have more responsibilities and more experiences, so they were building toward adulthood just a shade earlier.
Today, we have so many conveniences that kids usually don't have as much responsibility. And I don't
blame parents for that -- they want their kids to have better than they did -- but we need to watch for the unfortunate side effects. It means sometimes parents have to find new ways to wake up responsibility in their near-adults.
It's normal for teens to think they've got it all figured out. It's normal for them to feel they are victims of the world. Hurricanes are also normal, but does that mean we don't do anything to prevent the potential damage?
Harsh punishments handed out long time after a warning does little to nothing to prevent actions.
This isn't about "preventing actions." This is about "communicating a truth to someone who is just a couple short years from the real world." And this punishment, while delivered in a very theatrical manner, is
not all that harsh. He took back HIS laptop, because she was using it to spew trash about the people that provided it to her. And he destroyed it, so that she could understand:
1. The gravity of this lesson. He was willing to part with hundreds of dollars of equipment and software in order to prove this point.
2. That some losses aren't temporary. Being grounded is temporary. Having the laptop taken away is temporary.
The dad in this case have pent up anger that he let loose instead of actually doing a job of raising a kid.
I see a very calm man executing a very calculated plan in a very safe manner. It's okay to disagree with his methods without falsely painting him as some "loose cannon" just because there happened to be a gun. Not all people and families grow up a way that makes them
absolutely terrified of anything gun-shaped.
"hitting kids will teach them not to be violent" If you can't see the problem there, then you are beyond help. Raising kids should be done not with threats, but with firm boundaries, which make them feel safe. Letting them do something some of the time and then suddenly punishing them hard will make them anxious and violent, diminishing their ability to interact properly with others.
Or so said a textbook somewhere once.
1. Spanking isn't about "teaching them not to be violent." When used with young pre-verbal kids, or even verbal children who don't grasp higher concents yet, it's just used to stop a behavior. And, in a lot of cases, it works. My mom could have just let me touch the iron and learn my lesson. Or she could have moved every unsafe object to somewhere out of my reach... thus teaching me that anything I can reach is, in fact, fair game. Or, as she did, she could pop me on the hand and say, "No!," and I would learn that when she said not to touch it, she
meant it.
Does it work in every situation? Of course not. I can't use a hammer to drive screws, I can't use a screwdriver to cut wood. It's
one tool in the box. Does it get improperly used? Sure. So does "time out."
2. Firm boundaries
require "threats." Because all a "threat" does is provide the consequences in advance. "If you do not follow this rule, these things happen." Rules without consequences have no weight or meaning, so they do not provide any boundary on their own. Kids will naturally test rules, and the consequences are what cement the boundary... but since we shouldn't use "threats," what do we do? Just let the kids break every rule, and
then punish them so they know the consequence?
3. It's either alarmist or just plain ridiculous to claim it's somehow going to "diminish their ability to interact with others." Consistency is obviously a
better way to parent, but Jesus Christ, staying from the path for a moment doesn't instantly doom a child to sociopathy.
But in this case, the father was very consistent. She didn't "get away with it" the last time, and he told her
exactly what would happen the next time. Rather than stop, she tried to hide it. She was
testing the boundary. So, the responsible and
consistent thing for the father to do was follow through on his promise.
This man
is parenting. There's not just one way to do it. And by God, at least this man is DOING IT. That's a lot better than the "benign neglect" that characterizes most parents. They coast by for 18 years, believing everything is fine because their kids haven't killed anyone, and then those kids hit the real world and have no sense of perspective or responsibility -- two things that aren't just issued at age 18, but are learned through experience. Those kids are then "parented" as adults, by the real (and unforgiving) world.
The difference? The real world doesn't give a dirty damn if this girl succeeds or fails, and neither do her "friends." This father? He very, very obviously cares whether or not she learns what she needs to, and he's willing to go very far to make sure she does. There is no better definition for parenting (expect, you know, from books written by childless researchers).
