Babbling

[Schizo]

 Did you not listen to the man? He tried that already. The girl apparently didn't listen, because she did it again. The definition of crazy is repeating the same thing over and over while expecting the same result, right? Well if it didn't work the first time, what makes you think it'll work a second  time?

 THIS WAS NOT ABUSE. Not anymore than your parents or my parents explaining why we can't go out with our friends after school to our school friends. You're still alive and kicking, aren't you? And so am I. Must not be as bad as you think it is.

 If the kid doesn't want to feel like a POS, then maybe they shouldn't act like one. Maybe now she'll learn, won't she?

[DoseOfLaughter]

One, he never sat down and talked to her. He said he had grounded her before for something similar to this, then goes on to say he doesn't even remember what it was for exactly.

Two, that is Einstein's definition to insanity, and is an incorrect one. Sometimes you can do something the same way and obtain a different result.

Three, my father, to punish me, would beat the hell out of me and make me stand on a spot for 2 hours. I had to stand at complete attention the entire time. If I fumbled, he'd get up, punch me in the stomach, and if I fell to my knee, he'd hit me again. If I fell, after he hit me, I'd have to stand up again and remain at attention.

Kindly fu­ck off. You have no clue what abuse is. I know the effects of a parent talking to his child in that way and providing that kind of humiliation. I know these effects first hand.

[Schizo]

 You don't know what he said to her before he grounded her, so don't pretend you do.

 Second, I find it hard that someone of your background seems to think that this is abuse. Like I said before, you must have forgotten what it was like. What would you have traded for a punishment that wasn't corporeal? Think it over real hard, and I'm sure you'll find that you'd have rather gotten her punishment than any of yours anyday. I didn't get it near as bad as you and even I would have traded any of my punishments for hers.

 I do know what abuse is. It didn't have to happen to me directly for me to get a good understanding of it. Sitting on a pot for hours? Try a stool all day. From the moment you get home from school to the minute you got to bed - until every muscle in your body is screaming at you for relief. Punched in the stomach? Try a whipping at the age of 3 because you were sick and you couldn't stop crying from your misery. Try being locked outside at night alone at the age of 2 for the same reason. If that's the worst you have, then my family history would turn your hair white, so don't you dare try to guess at my understanding of abuse. Like I said, what I experienced as a kid some would call abuse. I call it living easy.

 I'm not here to trade abusive horror stories with you - I just know there's far worse things out there than a destroyed computer and a public explanation of your wrong doings. If you can't see just how wrong you are on the matter than you clearly have far worse issues to deal with at the moment. I suggest you start there before you throw stones.

[DoseOfLaughter]

So, I cannot by sympathetic towards someone else because "They didn't get it nearly as bad as me"?

I wouldn't trade abuse for abuse, even if it is lesser abuse. I wanted to trade it for a loving father who, instead of reacting to each and everything I did as if it were a war zone, instead reacted as a father who would sit down and talked too me. A father who I could respect, not because he demanded it, but because he in turn respected me as a human being.

This father has done nothing for his daughter except cause misery. It might not of been "as bad as me", but it's still there. A father, who instead of simply grounding her and taking the laptop away, instead publicly humiliates his daughter and puts 20 bucks worth of bullets into a laptop and tell her that she has to repay him the bullets. This father has done what my father, just in a lesser degree. He reacts to his daughter as if everything is a battle. He's a child and quite honestly, if I ever met him, I'd beat the pi­ss out of him.

[The_Pirate-King]

---

Schizo wrote:

 Like I've told so many other teens I've met - you're daddy could have starved or beat you on a whim. He could have told you that you were trash from the get go. He could have raped you because you were convenient.

---

You've said that to kids?

[DoseOfLaughter]

Yeah. When he typed that up, I couldn't even address it because it made me want to hit sh­it

[The_Pirate-King]

I bet he'd say that to his kids, too.

[Schizo]

 The father is in a battle. He's battling a legal minor who think she's an adult, expects the same treatment as a child, but doesn't expect the same treatement as a child. In other words, a teenager. I don't know if you realize this, but punishments aren't one size fits all and sometimes you have to a shock your kid into reality. Like I said before, if grounding didn't work the first time, what makes you think it'll work this time? How often does that actually work?

 I think your last line makes a lot of sense. It sounds like you haven't forgiven your father at all for your past, so now any parental authority figure is the enemy. Again, you have issues to deal with. There's no reason an emotionally stable adult should think this is abuse. Have you tried therapy, yet?

[Schizo]

---

The_Pirate-King wrote:

---

Schizo wrote:

 Like I've told so many other teens I've met - you're daddy could have starved or beat you on a whim. He could have told you that you were trash from the get go. He could have raped you because you were convenient.

---

You've said that to kids?

---

Children, no. Teens, yes. When you try to talk to kids, all they do it bleat at you, if you're lucky. They're cute, but not very good confidants. They just don't care about anything other than milk.

[Invida]

Raising pussies is abusive to society.

Just saying.

[Master-Debater131]

---

DoseOfLaughter wrote:


This father has done nothing for his daughter except cause misery.

---

Clearly a father that spends that kind of time and money on a laptop for his daughter and cares enough to monitor her online activity  causes nothing but misery for her.

 This is just pathetic.

He did nothing wrong at all. If every bit of "yelling" at a kid was considered abuse I don't think a single parent would still have custody of their children. Hell this wasn't even face to face. 

She deserved what she got.  She was being a stupid little #### who thought the entire world revolved around her and her dad showed her that no, it doesn't.  Kids don't respond to logic. How hard is that to understand?  She is a 15 year old girl driven by hormones.  No amount of logic or reasoning is going to get into her head.  He could talk until his face turned blue and she would just go onto facebook and post this exact type of message again and then follow that u with 50 texts to her friends about how much her dad ####.

You can tell by how he was acting that he was at the end of his wits with her.   If he got to this point then the previous groundings, which he did do and you seem to favor, didnt work.  What else should he do?  Ground her again?  Those clearly were effective.

[Master-Debater131]

And just some more.


If you are really, seriously, that concerned for his daughter then go look at his facebook page.


After this happened she freaked out but then the two of them had a chat. A chat where she said she didnt remember ANY of the other talks they had and how she thought the typically teenage thing. when she got grounded "Wait it out and things will just go back to how they were". So clearly groundings were effective.
The local cops and CPS have come and talked to the family and guess what, nothing happened. There was no abuse so you can take your fantasy's and go somewhere else with them.

The dad says that she has calmed way down and is actually acting like a human being instead of a spoiled princess.

So guess what


IT #### WORKED

And another thing: He has used this to raise thousands of dollars for charity.
Clearly this man is a danger to society and his daughter and needs to be controlled.

[lunarnoodle]

Well in your case specifically it kinda seems like you're projecting anger over your own trauma at this guy.
This guy's not your Dad. And I don't think there in info sufficient in the video for you to make the call that he abuses his child. If anything, you can probably say the opposite. The first time, she was simply grounded.

Accusations that the buy would shoot his kid or that he shouldn't have the kid seem wholly hyperbolic and really just unfounded.
I don't see it. And I also have some experience with abuse.

[KnightStar]

He should have smashed it with a hammer instead and saved the bullet, then chewed his daughter out after and ground her for an entire year.

Then finally tell her the next computer she will get, will be on her own.

I would like to shake that guys hand and say, "Damned good job!" though.

[Gaius_Sextus]

---

terminaldave wrote:

 yep...

 overreaction and unable to realize long term consiquences...  nice lesson plan

 he seems as immature and dramatic as his teenage daughter...

 except she's not brandishing firearms...

---

Yeah, one wonders where she got her attitude from . . . . .

[KnightStar]

I don't think the daughters attitude came from the father at all or I would be going around trying to solve all my issues with a bullet sandwich too.

My father in early 2000 right after a five bypass heart surgery pulled my old K98 Mauser out of the closet and tried to shoot the engine in my Ford Ranger.
I blame his PTSD and the narcotics that was still in his system for trying that, my dad was prone to brash behavior and temper tantrums because of his PTSD over the Korean War.

That dad did exactly what he needed to do, to send his 16 year old daughter the message that he and his wife were the boss of the house and she did not rule the house.

I can right here and now say for a fact I would have done the same thing as the man in that video, but with a sledgehammer, then I would have taken the pieces of the laptop, put em in a bag and handed them too her that very afternoon and set in on chewing her ass out till she bleed for such an asinine statement on Facebook.

Hell my child I can guarantee will be raised like me and only have access to the internet after he/she is 18.

There is no excuse for what that girl did, teenage angst deserves a boot to the ass.

Or like my old man liked to say, "I helped create you and I can damned well take you out of this world if you defy me."

[Diabolical_Jazz]

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:
One dimensional.

Your response fails to consider that not all family structures are created equal, aiding in the effect of creating problem children. By focusing on the symbolic violence which is actually (excuse the oxymoron) more milqutoste than shouting a child into submission. The kid embarrassed and humiliated her family in a very public way, and he showed her what It Is like like to be embarrassed and humiliated in a very public way.

---

Retaliation is not an acceptable method of parenting.

Yes, sometimes your children might embarass you. That's a natural part of being a parent. But you are an adult, and you should be capable of dealing with a small hit to your pride. Humliating your child publically because of this is childish, it is immature, and it is on the cusp of being verbal abuse. Certainly, I think this parent should be investigated. Humiliation is a common tool of abusive people.

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:

Maybe this is exactly the push she needs to motivate herself to seek out the options her family tried to teach her in realizing her eventual independence and self sufficiency.

Please try to understand that I'm not dismissing your, or anyone elses argument by insisting one can't know what Its like to be a parent until one is a parent. I'll let anyone else do that. I'm dismissing them because of the inherent prejudice in the presumption that because some children don't need extreme measures, that some children were subjected to them without sufficient cause, that no child therefore is justified in reciving such treatments.

---

Look, when I was a kid, I was once at the grocery store, and I decided I was going to cry until I got a candy bar.

My dad knelt down and very quietly told me, "Son, if you continue this, I will take you to the bathroom and spank you until you can't sit down."

I decided I didn't want a candy bar anymore, and I never tried that again.

Yes, sometimes parents need to have a stern reaction, but there is an important distinction between actions which are taken in order to teach the child, and actions which are taken because the parent's pride is pricked.

Every time my parents ever spanked me as a child, they later sat down with me and explained that they were sorry that they had to do that (and I could see that they meant it) and then they explained why they had done it.

Frustration is a normal part of being a parent. Humiliating your children is not. It is disgusting to take someone who is vulnerable and betray their trust like that.

[Diabolical_Jazz]

---

lunarnoodle wrote:
Well in your case specifically it kinda seems like you're projecting anger over your own trauma at this guy.
This guy's not your Dad. And I don't think there in info sufficient in the video for you to make the call that he abuses his child. If anything, you can probably say the opposite. The first time, she was simply grounded.

---

I'm just... missing the part where something needs to be done about this at all? The girl made a complain-y post on facebook. That doesn't really seem like something that warrants any reaction stronger than, "I see you have a list of complaints, here. That's real unfortunate, because it's my house and I run it how I want."

Punishing your child for expressing an opinion, even if it's a selfish, immature one, is a bit beyond reasonable. I wouldn't blame someone for grounding, but public humiliation? No, that's not okay.

[anDaibhalsHusair]

Retaliation is the action taken following a previous action that inspired it. I'm confused about how you distinguish this instance of retaliatory punishment from anything your parents may have judged fit. You don't spank a child above the age of ten or twelve because more often than not, at that age they are mature enough to comprehend representative consequences, and appreciate them as being effective nonviolent alternatives, which prepare them better for being interactive members of society later on. It's a level of comprehension of cause and effect that most young children can't grasp. Rhetorical question, at what age did you realize that your parents wanted you to think before you acted, and how many times were you punished for the exact same thing before you realized you may want to avoid such consequences?

If he still hit his daughter at the age of 15, that would show an utter lack in parenting skill and would teach her that violence is an acceptable consequence to near anything. But grounding previously didn't work so he decided a more drastic action was warranted to get the message across, that mom and dad really mean business.

Now, its obvious that he and she didn't have a great relationship before this, probably his fault. It's not a matter of pride that lead him to take this action, it was realizing his failure as a parent to maintaine a relationship with his teenage daughter.

She wanted to be treated in a way that she felt an adult should be treated, and he showed her she was behaving nothing like an adult, and wasn't ready to be granted those privileges if she couldn't control her outbursts.

As I said before, not all children have the same aptitudes for realizing their place or consequences, and rebel with the growing pains in unacceptable ways. She obviously didn't understand why at 15 she needed to get a job when they lived so comfortabley. Now I'm betting that she has a better idea of what assertions of independence are appropriate given the nature of her situation.

[Gaius_Sextus]

---

Schizo wrote:

   It's probably because he looks and speaks like a redneck. The gun, I suppose, doesn't help much. He must be a child abusing, bible thumping, uneducated, shoot-first-ask-questions- later hick, even though he's an IT professional with a hardworking background. Bigotry at it's finest.

 All I know is the horror stories of my own father's abuse, and how lucky we were as kids that he didn't turn out like our grandfather. Comparing this #### to abuse or even implying that it's close is flat out inconsiderate and offensive, and it pisses me the fuuuuuudge off to no extent. An angry father destroying a kids toy for inconsiderate behavior is no where close to abuse nor does it threaten the kids well being. 

 So, yeah - way to go, Dad! Way to teach that spoiled teen a lesson.

---

I notice no one has taken the Dad to task for being the one who caused the problem in the first place.

[Gaius_Sextus]

---

Schizo wrote:

---

The_Pirate-King wrote:

---

Schizo wrote:

 Like I've told so many other teens I've met - you're daddy could have starved or beat you on a whim. He could have told you that you were trash from the get go. He could have raped you because you were convenient.

---

You've said that to kids?

---

Children, no. Teens, yes. When you try to talk to kids, all they do it bleat at you, if you're lucky. They're cute, but not very good confidants. They just don't care about anything other than milk.

---

You are a POS.

[sohadow_swordsman]

---

DoseOfLaughter wrote:
The father responded to the child as a child.

---

Well, he couldn't respond to her as an adult, so why shouldn't he respond to her as a child? If you stoop to a kid's level, it gets the point across of how much of an ass your kid's been acting. At least that worked for me. I know every child's different, but we all know that they constantly get into trouble all the time, and a stern lesson or beating never completely solves the problem. Teens think they're invincible like nothing's going to happen to them. 'Even though I'm grounded, I'll still get my laptop back, eventually, then I can do whatever I want with it again.' Taking things away temporarily doesn't solve a problem like this, but taking things away for good will definitely teach your child a lesson. I will admit, shooting your daughter's laptop is a tad bit extreme, but at least he showed his daughter just how pissed he was with her actions and showed just how serious he was about it. 

I really think he should have just taken her laptop away, lock away somewhere, and tell his daughter: 'You'll get this back when you have EARNED the right to use it, and I mean EARN the right to use it.' 

[the_shotgun_rhetoric]

---

the_shotgun_rhetoric wrote:

---

DoseOfLaughter wrote:
Sadly, his stupidity has had no consequences.

---

Save the endless concern trolling and handwringing courtesy of people isolated from reality.

---

Yep...

[Icarus27k]

Another thought: Destroying a laptop isn't that much of a punishment. I've been through several in my lifetime. They're getting closer to being a dime a dozen.

[Diabolical_Jazz]

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:
Retaliation is the action taken following a previous action that inspired it.

---

Weak, weak semantic argument.

If I need to explain the difference between retaliation and punishment to you, then this argument will definitely go nowhere in a hurry. And also you should never have kids.

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:

If he still hit his daughter at the age of 15, that would show an utter lack in parenting skill and would teach her that violence is an acceptable consequence to near anything. But grounding previously didn't work so he decided a more drastic action was warranted to get the message across, that mom and dad really mean business.

---

I was not attempting to suggest that he spank his fifteen-year-old daughter. I am trying to explain that there is a clear distinction between a punishment which is motivated by concern for the child, and a punishment which is motivated entirely by vindictivness. I was citing an example of a time that my parents used a harsh method of punishment in order to modify my behavior, and showing how this punishment was clearly motivated by good intentions. I did this so that it could be more clear that the parent in the video is not at all doing this out of concern for his daughter's well-being.

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:
Now, its obvious that he and she didn't have a great relationship before this, probably his fault. It's not a matter of pride that lead him to take this action, it was realizing his failure as a parent to maintaine a relationship with his teenage daughter.

---

What in the hell makes you think that? If he was motivated by concern rather than pride, then why post it on youtube? Why make such a dramatic gesture as *shooting* the laptop and charging the girl for the cost of the bullets?
No, this man is clearly doing this to be domineering. Otherwise, why charge her for the cost of the bullets? SHE certainly didn't decide on that wasteful, dramatic method of disposing of her laptop. He could have simply thrown it in the trash.

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:

She wanted to be treated in a way that she felt an adult should be treated, and he showed her she was behaving nothing like an adult, and wasn't ready to be granted those privileges if she couldn't control her outbursts.

---

That's not at all what that video demonstrated. Not even slightly. It demonstrated that adults throw hissie fits and destroy other people's belongings.

Holy god, do you know what would happen if some guy shot MY laptop? There would be HELL to pay. Adults don't do that to other adults, because adults treat each other as peers. He was clearly demonstrating that he has complete control over her life. It was a bully move.

---

anDaibhalsHusair wrote:
As I said before, not all children have the same aptitudes for realizing their place or consequences, and rebel with the growing pains in unacceptable ways. She obviously didn't understand why at 15 she needed to get a job when they lived so comfortabley. Now I'm betting that she has a better idea of what assertions of independence are appropriate given the nature of her situation.

---

She is fifteen goddamn years old. This is completely normal for a fifteen year old to not understand how working life works.

Shooting her laptop is completely extraneous to the point of teaching fiscal responsibility. Posting a video on the internet which humiliates your daughter is completely extraneous to the point of teaching fiscal responsibility.

No, this is inexcusable. I'm not necessarily saying that he should have his daughter taken away, but I *am* saying that what he did was #### parenting. And that it's good that he was investigated by CPS, because there were a few red flags in there.