Facebook Parenting: One pissed off dad!
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=kl1ujzRidmU

This is going viral. I watched it yesterday, and it only had 1,300 views. Over 1.4 million now.

I say hell to the yes!

I can certainly understand this dad's frustration! Most (not all!) of the teenagers I run across are incredibly self centered and inconsiderate. On the other hand, this method of discipline is not going to do anything to resolve the problems with this family. It is just going to escalate the hostility.

I bet it felt good to shoot that laptop, though!!!:D

"Go outside and grab a switch" is easier.

Yeah, but the little shits call CPS on their parents for doing that nowadays!

*shuts off cell phone*
*removes all electronics from room*

*kid borrows friend's phone to do it or tells a school counselor a few woeful lies to get her to make the call*

(very, very common)

This is dumb and ironic. He is that which he despises.

While I can certainly understand the dad's frustration, I can't understand why so many believe this is a smart solution. Destruction of property that others could put to good use, use of a firearm in an unprotected area, and obvious vitriol show this family does NOT communicate.

With these attitudes, things will only get worse.

Co-sign on both.

I really wish I could see the daughter's reaction to this.

I do hate that the Dad has a cigarette in the beginning though. Then again I am pretty anti-smoking.

I think the point was that he threatened previously to put a bullet thru her laptop & with this - that threat became a promise!!! :eek: I give him credit for not making a hallow threat.

But I agree..... He should have driven it to a school & donated it. (still could have charged her for the upgrades..LOL)

Pretty sure neither the threat nor the follow-through were particularly hallowed :p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zXDo...eature=related

Ugh. He's a real winner, isn't he? Too bad his frustration lies in her immaturity and childish behavior - with a role model like him, she's not likely to overcome those flaws any time soon. The apple doesn't fall far, ya know.

Granted, I haven't yet had the privilege of raising teenagers, but I would think that having the computer around and not allowing her to use it would be more of a punishment than having a bullet-riddled carcass of a machine. Plus, it's just plain wasteful to shoot the thing. I'm glad I don't understand his logic.

I totally agree. I had a co-worker who was having trouble with her daughter and things she was doing on the Internet. She simply brought the power cable to the router to work with her every day and locked up the kid's laptop (and took her to therapy). Things worked out and she didn't destroy a device worth several hundred dollars.

In our house, we're allowed to be angry with each other, but we have to express it respectfully. I have a feeling that's not the case in this household. And, I would never tell my kids it is ok to destroy something out of anger. I'd be afraid to live with someone who would shoot a laptop.

And here is what is going on in Dad's world now... HILARIOUS!! Being hounded by the media, the public and social services. Looks like Tommy is a mobile veterinarian in North Carolina with lots of local community support!

Tommy Jordan

Well, I agree that shooting the laptop was wasteful, and personally, I'd just give it away (if there are any other parents out there tempted to shoot out their child's expensive toys - pm me. I'll give you my address. I still have a flip phone, no lap top and no ipod. It's a pathetic existence).

Still, after reading the link thetalady provided (particularly his response to the questions some media outlet had sent him) and watching the video - I like the guy. Wouldn't have made the same choice, but he didn't sound like a nut case, dysfunctional dad either IMO.

Maybe between teaching and parenting I've spent entirely too much time around teenagers. :rolleyes:

I agree.

I can understand why some people are turned off by how the guy handled the situation (posting a Youtube video to address a family issue), but I'm not sure why everyone is so upset about him shooting the laptop. He destroyed property that he purchased. So what? I didn't finish my lunch this afternoon, but no one yelled at me because some starving kids in Africa could have used the scraps of my tuna fish sandwich that I ended up throwing away. I say he can do what he wants with his own property.

At least shooting it was quick and to the point...

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_u...?v=dN3v0drnTdQ

iAgree. After reading his responses, including how his daughter reacted, I think he's probably an okay if not slightly....er...temperamental father. And I really respect his posts to the media that he's refusing to go on talk shows because he's not interested in capitalizing off of this.

That is complete bullcrap. I am sick and tired of people putting their lives on the Internet and then claiming that they do not want the media and potential capital (either public praise, public humiliation, or money) that comes with it. If he did not want this to be all over the public domain and to be invited on talk shows and so forth, he would have punished his daughter in private. Creating a video and a facebook page makes him the same Internet-crazed idiot that he depicted his daughter as. She talked about her family on the Internet and he...talked about his family on the Internet. Same thing.

He should be hounded by the media and public and social services. You get what you pay for.

As far as I am concerned, the issue here is not the wasted laptop. It is just a laptop. The issue is that the father is a hypocrite who would use a gun in this context and who does not know how to discipline his child. I think he is a loony. He needs to contact those parents who played the kissing game with their children at the Minnesota pep rally and form a Loony Parents Bookclub.

They are discussing this on the morning news and showing public opinions. The responses are mixed which includes people like myself who think he is an idiot.

His response? LOL. He says he would do it all again and his wife, daughter, and family are fine with it. He says THEIR opinion is all that matters. :rolleyes: Then why in the hell didn't you just do this in front of their watchful eyes? Why did you do this for the public to see? You wanted to make a public statement and now you are pretending that the private is all that matters? Shut up.

In the original video, there is a large building in the background that looks like a school, dorm, something ... There is also vehicular traffic on the roads behind him. Discharging a firearm in an unprotected place, with no protection against ricochet, no safe area in case of a rogue shot, etc. and no life-or-death situation (the only time, IMHO, shooting without safety gear is reasonable) is irresponsible.

What he does with his own property is his business, I agree, though I think there were much better choices that would also teach lessons.

Well, then, Sydney, you've got a real treat in store for you! I used to joke that kids lose their brains when they hit 13 and don't get them back until they're 20 (or much later, for some).
You haven't lived until you've had the pleasure of living with and disciplining a teenager, one of God's most self-centered, illogical, and antagonistic creations. Yeah, we were ALL that way once. Ask your parents, if they're still on earth, if you don't believe it! (And then give them an extra hug for letting you live!:p)

I think Dad may have needed to cool off 24 hours before posting the video...but maybe he already had. I think maybe he should have picked up an older laptop to shoot...but maybe he did. I don't know if the area he's in has laws against discharging firearms, but maybe he's not in such a location.

In short, I really don't know enough about the situation and the reasonings behind the video to judge. So I'm not going to judge.

A few months ago, National Geographic published an article about how teenagers' brains are different from adults' brains. Turns out they pretty much DO lose their brains for a few years!

actually, the time frame of "brain losing" is quite a bit longer than that. I just attended an all day intensive workshop at Barrow Neurological Institute on Neuroscience and Cognitive Development. Turns out that the female frontal lobes don't fully mature until the 20s, and the males, even later. There's actually a plateau in development that kicks in around 15-16 and persists into the early 20s. Evolutionary explanation: raging hormones = procreate, procreate, procreate!

Simplifying, of course, but it sure helped me understand the "idiocy" that is exhibited by freshmen (both male and female) and why it's so much easier to interact with juniors and seniors.

True...some males, not until their 50s!:D

I am going to dust off my "holier than thou" hat and say that instead of destroying such a nice computer, or any for that matter, perhaps the best solution would be to take his daughter down to a local homeless shelter or youth club where kids don't have the luxury of a laptop, and donate it to them.
Then he could proceed to make her pay for it back and go on with the video and other disciplinary actions.
This way she not only learns her lesson but someone more deserving gets the computer.

I agree 100%


Yes, they are all that, some days, rarely, in my experience. But using a gun in a disciplinary action is just beyond what I consider reasonable.

Agreed...it seems pretty ridiculous. He just wanted attention (and got it).

Let's see . . . indicators of abuse . . .

-Displaying weapons
-Destruction of (victim’s) property
-Humiliation (of victim)
-Monitoring and controlling the victim

No... You monitor & control your children's behavior. That is not abuse.

Controlling a person and controlling behavior are two different things. That said, at age 15, if you haven't taught them right by now, you're not going to be able to control their behavior either.

Even when I heard the content of her letter, I didn't think it was that bad. Don't most teenagers think this stuff, write in a diary, etc. at some point? Doesn't everybody have those days when they hate their parents, as teens? My mom and I had a great relationship but she destroyed my world with rules sometimes and I would be royally ticked off. This kid put a rant about her parents on Facebook and excluded her family and church people from seeing it. She didn't do drugs. She didn't come home pregnant. She didn't kill someone or steal. She ranted about her parents.. something teens do every single day. And we know where she learned the swear words too, don't we?

This! OMG...if this is the worst she is doing, he should thank his lucky stars. There are much worse kids out there. It's so funny how many parents think their kids are one step out of juvie when they are straight A students but they are rebelling at home by listening to rock music or talking back to their parents. It's actually normal development to test boundaries.

This is in response to several previous posts so it is long. I apologize for that. As much as I detest conflict- even mild internet conflict- I feel compelled to defend this dad for some reason, so even though this might get many tarred and feathered by several posters simultaneously, here it goes.


I want to state again that as a parent I would not have handled this in the same way this dad does. I would make different decisions, but that being said I still disagree with the assertion his actions make him a nutcase. I just don’t see the evidence for that.


While I don’t think putting it on facebook was a great judgment call, I don’t think it makes him a hypocrite in the strict sense of the word. If with no reason he had told her not to use facebook in that manner, but she had discovered he was using it in that matter, I would agree, but if she chose to do it despite his warnings not to - well, she opened the door and he has a right to defend himself in the same forum she used to slander him, his wife, and her mom. Personally, I would just take the computer and know that kids say stupid things about their parents all the time (which doesn’t excuse it), but I do understand his logic which was, “I’ve warned you that this isn’t an appropriate place to air your beefs with us, but if that’s what you want to do, then we’ll handle our issues your way and see how that works out.” He also stated he wanted her friends who thought her behavior was funny to realize why it might not be all that funny if their parents chose this same course of action.


He states that he believes if children misbehave in public places, they should be prepared to face the consequences in public places. Interestingly, we recently had a speaker come to our school who worked for the regional educational district. She discussed bullying and harassment issues. She was talking about bullying but wasn’t necessarily limiting it to this when she told us that if children commit certain behaviors in public they need to be called out on them in public. She pointed out that sometimes dealing with a discipline issue privately is not always the best course of action.
*****
To be specific there is a difference between saying you don’t want all this media attention and you didn’t expect all this media attention. Everything I’ve read on his facebook page indicates the latter not the former. Granted, that may also be BS or stupidity, but he isn’t (at least that I see) crying about being hounded by the media, the public, or social services. He indicates that once this went viral he understands why that followed. He also stated that he thinks that fact is one of the best things his daughter learned from this – what you put on a public forum has long term-consequences. If he wants to capitalize on it, he hasn’t done so to date, but I realize that could change in a moment.
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He did create the video and put it on Youtube because he said it was easier to link to her facebook which he stated was the only place he ever intended it to be seen (not because he wasn’t aware it could be seen on YouTube - he indicated it didn’t occur to him anyone else would be interested and yes, again, that could be BS or stupidity on his part). His own facebook looks like it goes back to 2007, so he didn’t create a facebook page for this that I can tell unless there is another one that hasn’t been linked on here.
*****
Whether or not he knows how to discipline her I don't think anyone could say with much validity. I haven’t seen anything yet from teachers, friends, or relatives that mentions what this girl's behavior is like on a daily basis. He has an ex-wife who hasn’t stepped up to describe him as abusive, ineffective, uncommunicative, controlling or difficult. No one from their community has commented on his parenting skills one way or another so far.


The only thing the video states is that she had done something similar in the past, he had grounded her for 3 months, and warned her if it happened again the next consequence would be worse. On his facebook he states that after he put it up and all of this happened they talked for a while about it and made their peace. Don’t know whether that’s the case or his spin. It doesn’t sound like they had unreasonable expectations of her or there was anything to indicate it was a violent or abusive household. He simply took her computer away. That in and of itself doesn’t sound like a parent who doesn’t know how to discipline. So far those sound like reasonable disciplinary decisions a lot of parents would make.


The disagreement begins with how he got rid of the computer and his decision to post his issues with her on facebook. Those seem less about discipline than judgment. The latter might be seen as a discipline issue, but I don’t know that one poor decision on his part qualifies as evidence of an inability to discipline your child over the long haul.
*****
As to the concern about safety- he’s in an open field shooting into the ground with a 45 and the only cars and buildings are quite a ways off. The only one at risk is him.


Other than the safety issue which seems fairly unlikely and the reality that the computer could be better used, I don’t see why the fact that he shot the computer in and of itself is an issue. Is shooting an inanimate object worse than slamming it to the ground or smashing it with a hammer? If the intention is to destroy it is one method of doing that preferable to another? Why is it any worse or more a sign of instability than shooting a deer?


I could understand if he stormed into his daughter’s room, ripped the computer out of the wall, threw it into the backyard and started shooting because then we’ve got an impulsive guy with a gun who has some anger management issues, but this guy waited a full day after he found that entry, talked to his wife and ex-wife about it, thought about his response, set up the video, recorded his response, and calmly shot the computer which seems silly but not dangerous. He wasn’t raging or out of control.
******
As far as the indicators of abuse go - having spent a lot of time working in a juvenile correctional facility with real victims of abuse – truly horrifying abuse - let me just say I’m really bothered by any attempt to equate this with what the kids I worked with went through.


First off, in the context of abuse displaying a weapon means using it or showing it to threaten the victim in some way or suggest that they should feel threatened. Owning a gun and using it on inanimate objects doesn’t mean you're displaying a weapon or threatening family members with it. I lived in an area (several actually) where people lived on large pieces of property and shot weapons at inanimate things all the time for the heck of it. It wouldn’t float my boat, but as long as they were obeying safety laws and sticking to inanimate objects, I didn’t assume they were abusive people solely because they did this. If we follow that logic then most hunters must also be serial killers because serial killers usually start off killing and torturing animals.


If anything, the fact that his daughter wrote this diatribe on facebook would indicate the opposite. None of the abused kids I knew would do that. They had bigger issues than chores and they weren’t that stupid. Writing that would have gotten them beaten or killed.


This wasn’t her property – it was his. He paid for it.


Maybe it’s just my skewed perspective but I would rate this low on the humiliation scale. When your dad holds a gun to your head, stands you outside on a porch, and asks passing migrant farm workers if they want to buy you for $25 (happened to one of my students) THAT’S humiliation. This is just embarrassing. That happens and kids live through it. I'm sure what she said about him and her mother and step-mother was pretty embarrasing for them to - would that make her the abuser and them the victims?


I’m not sure a parent looking at his 15 year old daughter’s facebook page qualifies as controlling or monitoring, but for the record, he saw it only because he was installing some pretty expensive equipment on it that she asked for. In addition, he’s in IT, so you would think it would occur to her that it was at least possible (parents being parents) they would see this.
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As to the two last posts – I’ll refer back to our recent school seminar on bullying – another “normal” teenage behavior as old as the hills that has now similarly moved into social media. Sometimes the bulliers are also A students who aren’t doing drugs or getting in any other type of obvious trouble. I have one of those right now. Does it follow that if we confront a parent with this child’s behavior, they can respond by saying, “Hey everyone does this at some point. It isn’t like she’s doing drugs and besides, she’s 15, there’s nothing I can do about it now. She is what she is and I don’t want to be too controlling.”?


Yes, there are worse things kids can do than say disrespectful things about their parents. My children could have done much worse things than the things they did do and I’m grateful they didn’t, but this doesn’t mean I didn’t give them consequences for the bad decisions they made using the logic it could have been much worse. Normal teenage behavior isn’t always necessarily equivalent to acceptable teenage behavior.


I don’t know that I agree that if you haven’t taught them right by now (age 15) you won’t be able to control their behavior. I’ve seen kids put into placements where the environment was structured and the rules and consequences were clear, consistent, and fair who did change after age 15 and change significantly. I would agree that it is a much tougher and harder row to hoe.


As was pointed out - she isn't pregnant, doing drugs, or committing crimes, so dad must have been raising her right for the most part, but it doesn't follow that a child who is raised right will make perfect decisions after age 15 or should never expect a parent to enact consequences for the poor ones they probably will make. It also doesn't follow (at least to me) that a parent who does enact consequence for those decisions is trying to control their child.

Well, I was going to say a few things but it looks like you covered them all. So as not to be redundant, I'll just co-sign and sit down. Well-said.

ETA: Okay, I'll add this because I think it's really unfair to call this man an abuser because of something as petty as this.

My favorite line (which seems to have been taken down now) was his posting of his daughter's reaction to the comments he's getting. Her response was something to the effect of "It's just a laptop, I'll get over it." Most people said she's going to be a stripper now that he's traumatized her so badly she can't be a functioning member of society. She asked him to post back if there is another profession that victims of laptop homocide tend to go into (he obliged and posted that for her).

That list is not of my making - it is from a clinical definition of abuse.

Once you are using a firearm in your parenting, you've crossed a line.

The more I think about this, the more I think he shot an empty laptop case. The capacitors, the CMOS battery, the chemicals in an LCD screen... I'm pretty sure the laptop would have exploded if shot with the kind of bullets he said he used. He definitely would have had to take the laptop battery, the CMOS battery and the display off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No5Hz...feature=relmfu

Regardless, I have read some of the dad's posts on Facebook since the incident and he seems less crazy than the original incident, admits maybe it wasn't the best way to handle it, etc. But he did that, out of anger, within an hour of finding her post, which does show poor judgment when angry. If he was my dad, I'd be afraid of him. He doesn't parent the way I would and I wouldn't date someone who would discipline his kid this way.

My current facebook status:

A promise to my children: No matter what you do, no matter what you say about me on Facebook, discipline will NEVER involve a gun. Maybe that's why you're such great kids??

I've always allowed my kids to be mad at me. I get mad at them. We aren't allowed to express that disrespectfully. The rules are the same for all of us. I have never told my kids to "Shut up". I have never sworn at them and rarely swear in front of them. I have told them "I am too angry with you to discuss it right now" and waited until I calmed down. I have sent them to their rooms to calm down before we could discuss something. I have said "What were you thinking?", I have said "I love you to the core, but I don't like what you did and I need time to process this." I have yelled (although it has been years since I've had to), but I yelled directions, not insults. My son could be pretty aggressive when angry when he was much younger, likely because his parents were so incredibly angry with each other and he was feeling that. What really worked? Us divorcing, so he wasn't surrounded by that tension all the time. When they were angry about being punished or me saying no to something, did they tell me they hated me? Yes. Did I take it personally? No. Did I once pack up all the toys into garbage bags and let them think that I donated them to charity because they weren't picking up their toys? Yes.

My kids do a lot around the house, especially since I started school. Once in a while, one of them will complain that they don't want to and I point out that I don't really want to grocery shop or make dinner either, but it's all part of keeping our family and household running and it takes a group effort to get it done. We talk about it. They know they are allowed to be angry with me, which is why they wouldn't have to post something like that on Facebook. When I ask them to do something out of their normal chores, I generally give them a deadline rather than ask them to do it right this minute. I hated when my parents asked me to immediately stop whatever I was doing and do something they wanted me to do. What I was doing was usually important to me. I respect that. I will say "I really need you to ____ before 2 o'clock today". Sometimes they do it right away, sometimes it gets done at 1:55. It gets done though.

I still maintain I'd be afraid of a guy who would shoot a laptop. Not OK in my book. I hear a lot of parents say "Shut up" to their kids too, but that's not OK in my book either.

^^^ And I agree with all of this. Well, all of it except I wouldn't be afraid of him and it sounds like his family isn't.

You seem like a wise parent and like you I wouldn't date him, but it's because I think he acted foolishly, I don't like smoking and I don't personally want to be around guns...oh yeah, and there's the fact I'm married so that probably wouldn't be good parenting - LOL. I just don't think that using one on a laptop makes him a nutcase or an abuser.

Most parents can look back on things we did and wonder how our children came out of their unbringing well-adjusted, but it doesn't make us abusive nutcases and it was putting him into those boxes with little evidence to support it that I take issue with.

SWTXBelle - Yes those may be the definitions of an abuser, but those are open to a lot of interpretations and that's my issue with what you said. What constitutes controlling or monitoring? If my child claims I'm being controlling because I set a 11 pm curfew (I didn't) then am I abusive? If I allow my 14 year old to have a facebook but only under the conditions that I am added as a friend and can see it - is that monitoring and am I abusive? Monitoring and controlling behavior may be part of the definition, but whether or not this constitutes monitoring and controlling behavior is the question. If this was his wife - certainly, but when it is his child - well, child protective services in my state at least would laugh you out of the room frankly if you tried to pass the fact that the dad saw his child's facebook entry while he was updating her computer and decided she wasn't going to have access to a computer anymore off as monitoring and controlling behavior.

As to the gun issue - That definition assumes that you are displaying a weapon in order to harm or lead the victim to believe that at some point you can or will harm them with that weapon. Merely having a weapon and using it at some point on your property is not what that definition is meant to imply. Using a firearm in your parenting would cross a line if he used it to threaten his child or lead her to believe it might be a threat. I do think it was pointless, but to equate it with what that definition is meant to cover (parents like the one I mentioned who hold a gun to their child's head) just isn't fair and is borderline offensive to those kids who truly live in fear. If social services agreed with your definition - the girl would be setting in foster care as we speak. They intereviewed her and that's been that.

Having said that, something else could always come out of this that would point the other direction and he could turn out to be, in fact, an abusive nut case. I just don't believe that on the evidence that is currently available, that is a conclusion anyone could draw at this point.

I saw the thoughtfulness of your post until you got to this. WHAT?! This wouldn't be humiliation. It would be a crime. Parents don't get to hold guns to their children's heads and call it "humiliation". That's assault and child abuse. I just went back and saw the part where this actually happened to one of your students. I sure hope you reported this. It IS your duty to report this type of incident to the police, CPS or related agencies. This could prevent further abuse of this poor child.

Guns should have no role in disciplining a child. Period. Just because something is meant to "teach a lesson" doesn't make it not abusive.

eta - I also hate the fact that he felt it necessary to destroy the computer. I have had to threaten my boys with losing something they were not taking care of - but instead of blowing it up with firearms, I told them we would give the offending item to our local Goodwill-type store so that it could be used by someone who would appreciate it. I am happy to report that they got the message without my having to donate anything. That computer could have been put to good use by any number of organizations or people in need.