Dad uses Facebook to teach daughter a lesson.
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I'm more afraid, as inflexible and self-convinced as they are, that these are the kind of people that snap the hardest when reality fails to conform to the books they read in Intro Psych. As much misplaced faith as they put into misinterpreted research, when they see reality poking holes, they're more likely to abandon it completely and "throw the baby out with the bathwater."Eri said:
You know, the same way a child would.
I don't see anything wrong here. I'm British, not American so it's not exactly as if I am all for guns etc.
But I feel this is right. People complain that he should have donated the laptop, you're probably right. But he was sending a message to his child. And he did forewarn her about this after he apparent last Facebook attention seeking test.
The lack of a computer/internet etc. is going to be rather harsh punishment for a child, but we need to remember that it is not a requirement of life, but rather it is a luxury. And that is what a lot of people here seem to forget. This was a luxury that she abused to complain that she gets nothing for the 'bad bad life she has'.
I mean come on, every child is asked to do a few things around the house to earn their keep. Sweep the kitchen etc. It's likely something everyone does because of laminated or tile flooring. Just stops a dirt buildup. Making your own bed, everyone is told to do.
A cleaning lady(?) whatever the story is behind that isn't a slave that does everything while you sit your feet up either. You'll never learn to look after yourself if you have a cleaning lady doing everything for you. Then you go into your own house, and expect everyone else to do it for you. That is the point of learning.
As for a bullet in the laptop. Obviously she thought it was an empty threat. Well it probably was, and it was something said in the time of heat. But what she said in her post made her sound out like the poorest, sorriest soul in the entire world and blaming her parents for it, trying to grab attention on the internet. I can see why he chose to go through with it.
As for people complaining about misuse of guns; He did it in his own back yard (I would assume based on the camera angles when moving the camera), where no-one else was around (also assumed since he moved the camera himself rather than have someone hold it) so the only person that would likely to be hurt was himself. Yes a gun is for self defense etc. but it also makes quite a valid point to any human being when used in a situation like this.
But I feel this is right. People complain that he should have donated the laptop, you're probably right. But he was sending a message to his child. And he did forewarn her about this after he apparent last Facebook attention seeking test.
The lack of a computer/internet etc. is going to be rather harsh punishment for a child, but we need to remember that it is not a requirement of life, but rather it is a luxury. And that is what a lot of people here seem to forget. This was a luxury that she abused to complain that she gets nothing for the 'bad bad life she has'.
I mean come on, every child is asked to do a few things around the house to earn their keep. Sweep the kitchen etc. It's likely something everyone does because of laminated or tile flooring. Just stops a dirt buildup. Making your own bed, everyone is told to do.
A cleaning lady(?) whatever the story is behind that isn't a slave that does everything while you sit your feet up either. You'll never learn to look after yourself if you have a cleaning lady doing everything for you. Then you go into your own house, and expect everyone else to do it for you. That is the point of learning.
As for a bullet in the laptop. Obviously she thought it was an empty threat. Well it probably was, and it was something said in the time of heat. But what she said in her post made her sound out like the poorest, sorriest soul in the entire world and blaming her parents for it, trying to grab attention on the internet. I can see why he chose to go through with it.
As for people complaining about misuse of guns; He did it in his own back yard (I would assume based on the camera angles when moving the camera), where no-one else was around (also assumed since he moved the camera himself rather than have someone hold it) so the only person that would likely to be hurt was himself. Yes a gun is for self defense etc. but it also makes quite a valid point to any human being when used in a situation like this.
You don't see how destroying a laptop as opposed to giving it away or throwing it away would have much more of an impact on the girl? I find THAT hard to believe.hubert said:
I see no difference between this video and a father, say, snapping the laptop over his knee, other than this father clearly being in a more rural area or wishing to make a statement that the girl would understand.
I'm not saying that the girl isn't justified in feeling overwhelmed with work, but making a passive-aggressive statement on facebook sure as hell wasn't the correct response.
Wouldn't this cause exactly the same vicious circle? She would then know the line her father will not cross, and will continue doing the exact same thing as she knows her father wouldnt increase the punishment. Punishment is meant to be a deterrent; by keeping the punishment in regulated doses, it doesnt work. Alternatively, he could try to discuss things with his daughter, but judging by her attitude, I'd say that would be extremely difficult. I feel he did this out of exasperation after the first punishment clearly didnt work on his daughter.Mortai Gravesend said:
true, that. But what are you, as a parent, supposed to do, if your child is actively making sure you know they dont respect you, nor will they ever do so? He's in a stalemate with his daughter as far as his relationship with her is concerned; perhaps this will sufficiently change their perspectives to make them get along better? The father may feel guilt/shame for what he did publicly in a day or so. Seeing his daughter's reaction to his actions may also make him regret all this. If he were to apologise, their relationship with each other could drastically change; one thing that isn't helping, however, are the several million people egging him on for his actions.
The real question here is whether or not he earned the disrespect. If the rest of his style is as authoritarian as what we see in the video, I'd say she had every right to post what she did. Even if he didn't, what she did was /not/ anything beyond normal teenage ranting. She vented to her Facebook friends on a private profile; he did it to the entire world with a combination of Youtube and a public Facebook profile. It's not even the same thing he punished her for the last time: he clearly stated that it was some "little thing" that he didn't even remember. Well if it was small enough that you don't remember it, and unrelated to the reason you're punishing her for now, why on earth would you do what you just did?Hyperrhombus said:
I mean really, who's the more immature individual here?
Now that's parenting! He found a situation that needed handling and he handled it which is more than I can say for most of the parents out there these days. I salute this man.
You are routinely abusing and misusing the very-useful ideas presented in the narcissistic parenting article.Owyn_Merrilin said:
1. You're assuming that this man is "withdrawing love." Not a single thing he did anywhere in the video indicates this. In fact, the only thing he was "withdrawn" is the PRIVILEGE of having her own laptop. Why? Because she was misusing it. Love is unconditional, but privileges ARE NOT. And taking things away does not equal taking love away.
2. You're assuming that he is taking issue with the fact that she has an opinion. No. He's taking issue with the manner in which she has expressed it, the inappropriate choice of "hate target," and the falsehoods upon which much of it is based. It's okay for a kid to hate chores. God knows, I hated mowing that goddamned lawn and cleaning that fireplace. However:
It wouldn't have been appropriate to direct my hatred toward my dad. I might get pissed at the work, but I had to learn to separate that from getting pissed at my dad. You know, the way this father is separating "I'm pissed at your treatment of your family and home," from "I hate you and don't love you."
3. You're assuming it's about control. If that were the case, surely he would have forced her to get a job. Or he wouldn't have given her a laptop at all. He did, however, put forth one condition: Don't badmouth your family on Facebook to your friends. She violated that, so there was a consequence -- he took back the laptop that he gave her.
No, buying her a laptop does not entitle him to own HER -- THAT would be narcissistic parenting. It does, however, entitle him to own THE LAPTOP, which is the only thing he took away. He's not saying she has to love the chores, but she does have to respect a specific boundary.
4. You're assuming he took away the laptop because of her opinions, rather than her behavior. He took away the laptop because it was being misused. He destroyed it to cement that point. At the same time, he gave her a lot to think about in terms of how she views her father, mother, and "cleaning lady," because she obviously had a very inaccurate and grossly-immature perception of that arrangement. There's a big difference between informing someone of the flaws in their thinking and trying to "control" their thinking. In short, he took away the laptop to punish her behavior, and he gave her the lecture in hopes of correcting the fundamental misunderstandings behind her opinion.
5. You still have not addressed your wildly inaccurate statement regarding her ability to seek employment. This sheds a lot of doubt on your ability to adequately handle facts, as it demonstrates severe "confirmation bias." You seem to only acknowledge facts (or parts of them) that agree with your already-firm position. This lends more support to the idea that your piecemeal handling of psychological information, and your bold assumptions regarding intent, reflect more self-projection than an actual handling of the facts as they are.
Good point; I'll have to agree with you on this one, given the information we have. As for everything that happened because of this message; one of the reasons why I dont have facebook.Owyn_Merrilin said:
And you continue to ignore my point that if he really is abusive[footnote]and that's not as big of an if as some people around here seem to think[/footnote], We can't trust his word on any of this, yet it's all we have to go on.. That's my issue here: first of all, there's emotional abuse going on whether he has the disorder or not. Second, though, if it's part of an overall pattern, and not just an isolated incident (and these things almost never are), if she told him to his face, the gun probably would not be pointed at the laptop. Of course, he'd probably forgo the gun altogether and just slap her around a bit in that case; he's probably not /that/ big of a monster. But maybe he is: the point is, all of the people defending him by saying "well, have you heard the whole story?" haven't heard it themselves, because we've only heard his side of it. He's already shown his daughter quite effectively what the results are of telling her friends, let alone the world, how she feels about him. Even if he is telling us exactly what she said, it's questionable whether she meant it, or if she was just trying to appease the angry "god" that she relied on for survival.Dastardly said:
Edit: As for the employment thing: Okay, I may have been wrong about the minimum age needed to work. But she lives in the sticks; she still needs a vehicle of some sort to get her to work, and her father /did/ show a certain disdain for her wish to get one. So sure, maybe he'll have her apply for a job, she might even get one, but at that point she'd be completely dependent upon him to get to work. However you cut it, if he's not the all around nice guy that he portrays himself to be, his daughter (her name is Hannah, by the way) is in a /bad/ spot right now.
I'd say if she knew her father was into IT, trying to hide anything from him online is pretty stupid; I guess she knows that now.Mortai Gravesend said:
agreed. This is the reason I don't have facebook - small rants such as what this was massively blow up into what it is now. Also, although I don't like people talking crap about me, I find it infinitely worse if it is written down anywhere, because curiosity means I will read it, and get pissed from it. I guess the problem is that in the parent's generation, people couldnt rant like this in text, and display it in public; it would be spoken about as a group, or even over the phone. Now, people routinely rant online, and anyone not used to such a difference in communication will do stuff like this if they get angry, methinks.
Hate to break it to you, but kids being little assholes isn't a new, modern phenomenon.RAKtheUndead said:
Off-topic, but I hate the term 'self-entitled'. Whatever happened to just calling someone 'selfish'? Is it antiquated to just say 'selfish'? Self-entitled seems like the sort of a thing a Republican would call a man starving on the street asking for a loaf of bread.
Omg are you KIDDING ME? Let me guess, you live in a nice studio apartment somewhere in a big city and have never even touched a gun before right? a) firing a gun into a stationary object is sooo dangerous as opposed to what? A living tHing? b) Did you even watch the video? he's in the country, the nearest road in the background is like a mile away there's absolutely no danger of hurting anyone, this is not a stupid man. c) I've seen people do things out of anger and the don't sit calmly, smoke a cigarette, read something aloud for 3 minutes, and set up a camera first. This guy was in full control of himself and punished his daughter in a way where he never even touched her but was able to teach her a lesson I garuntee she'll never forget. Just because someone uses a gun doesn't mean they are being dangerous, get a life.
The punishment (destroying the laptop) was because she went exactly against previous instructions not to use the laptop to badmouth the guy who was providing her with it. That one, specific behavior is what was being punished.Mortai Gravesend said:
The accompanying lecture was directed at the severely-flawed thinking behind the rant. That was not punishment, but instruction. And it's the job of a parent to instruct a child who is incorrect -- and yes, there's such a thing as an "incorrect opinion," if that opinion is based on inaccurate information.
1. Overstating her responsibilities.
2. Neglecting all of the luxuries she is provided.
3. Grossly misrepresenting the role of the "cleaning lady."
All of this reflects a very ego-centric world view. Not exactly uncommon in teenagers, don't get me wrong. But that's exactly the kind of thing a parent should want to correct before sending a kid out into the real world.
He already had. And, since teenagers don't exist in a lab, this time it happened not to work. She was too caught up in herself to hear reason at the moment. So he took a few extra steps to get her attention. Note: ATTENTION, not her respect just yet. Sometimes, kids aren't going to understand the reason behind things, no matter how you explain it. That comes with maturity, and maturity comes through experience.
So, you can choose to either wait for the world to provide that experience... or you can do so at home, in a safer, controlled environment.
That's what he did. He withdrew his support for many of her luxuries. One of them was the laptop, which (again) he also withdrew to get her attention. Not her respect. That will come with time. She will dislike him for awhile, absolutely -- and, thankfully, he's not afraid of that it seems. Respect doesn't have to mean "agreement" or "liking." She will come to respect that he says what he means.
The difference between this man and you is that he apparently does not want to withdraw his help. He wants to help her and give her nice things. But he also wants to be sure he's not raising a child who is spoiled and entitled. That's the kind of dilemma that faces real parents with real kids, rather than clinical psychologists examining individual behaviors in a complete vacuum, or parents of pre-adolescent children who haven't yet had to deal with true rebellion in their kids.
The people saying this was wrong makes me want to quit this site. I wouldn't be shocked to find that 80% of them are the age of that daughter.
Teenage girls are some of the worst people on the planet, and action like this is absolutely necessary once they go sour. I'm certain that she thinks her dad is a psychopath, but that will change when she finally saves up enough money to replace the laptop. She will gain appreciation for all that he does for her, and a little sweeping and cleaning dirty dishes will seem like a walk to the other side of the house.
Teenage girls are some of the worst people on the planet, and action like this is absolutely necessary once they go sour. I'm certain that she thinks her dad is a psychopath, but that will change when she finally saves up enough money to replace the laptop. She will gain appreciation for all that he does for her, and a little sweeping and cleaning dirty dishes will seem like a walk to the other side of the house.