Dad shoots laptop because of FB post

I haven't read all of the posts but this is my two scents to the video.

Dad...wait a few days until your not so angry, and choose your words carefully. 15 and a girl are pia. You are asking her to control and discipline herself while you are barely holding your temper verbally and showing violence as the answer. You could have donated the laptop to any charitable organization and set a better example then your hollow point bullets..that she has to pay you back for.

Teenage girls will break your heart coming and going, and they are not adults and do not see the world as an adult. Teen boys have their own flavor or bad decisions and self actions..it's a part of you you signed on for. As my son told me many times "I am not you" and he was right so stop comparing her life to yours.. You might have gotten further without the bullets, if while you chose your words you remembered the past, and held your breath for the future. This stage too will not last forever but your words and way of dealing with things will set a pattern. I thought the video was the kind of thing he should have done to have gotten it off his chest, and then he should have deleted it. After that he should have removed the laptop, and made whatever home changes necessary. He was embarrassed by her actions, and he fought back by trying to embarrass her. What he did, was embarrass them both. That is not good parenting.

To each his own, but IMO that is not parenting, it is retaliation. Who is the adult here?

Clearly the child needs to learn a lesson about responsibility and privileges, but do the dad’s actions teach that? Our kids learn from our actions much more than our words. This dad’s actions are saying that if you’re angry its okay to retaliate, use violence (a deadly weapon no less), and get even. That’s no lesson I want any child of mine learning.

Instead I would like to see this child learn that with increased responsibility come increased freedoms, and privileges. That there are rewards for sensible behavior and that there is joy and satisfaction in a job well done.

And before anyone tells me I haven’t met any “awful†teenagers, let me clarify that I have been teaching teens since 1993, spent 6 years teaching at a home for wards of the state who had suffered unspeakable abuse and neglect and abandonment, and currently teach at a public high school with over 75% of our population living in poverty.

Not gonna lie, parenting is no cake walk and no parent is perfect or hasn’t made mistakes. I think its clear that this dad loves his daughter and cares deeply about what kind of adult she becomes.
You can’t judge an entire father/daughter relationship on one 5 minute youtube clip, for sure. But just speaking to this one incident, I don’t agree with how this dad handled it.

I don't necessarily agree. My older brother (middle child) was a drug addict, addicted to cocaine for years. My oldest brother & I were raised exactly the same as he was, and never touched drugs (I don't even drink!).

Didn't really have anything to do with what my parents "put in", had to do with that my brother was a rebellious teenager (and into his 20's as well) who became addicted to a drug and didn't want to stop til he was good and ready. We were most certainly not badly brought up, had a great, stable home life and all that jazz.

I do and don't understand the "well he could have given it to charity" sentiment. It's a nice thought, but it's hardly an obligation and I don't think it would teach any more of a lesson than destroying it. Either way, the girl doesn't have her laptop anymore.

I mean, he could have given the money to charity instead of buying a laptop at all. Or I could have given the money I spent on the movies last weekend to charity. Or people could quit smoking and give their cigarette money to charity. Nobody's pointing fingers around here saying "oh you could have given that collar money to charity", why care what one guy you don't even know does with his own property?

Himiliating her parents to that many people and then who knows who it was passed on to is not ok. Since other disaplines did not work a taste of her own medicine was definately needed.

it's all so easy from the outside looking in

I mean, that’s essentially what this whole thing boils down to. Rightly or wrongly the child feels wronged by her parents, rightly or wrongly the dad feels wronged by his daughter. When one acts on it its disrespectful, when the other acts on it he’s a hero parent. I don’t get it.

yes and that all goes back to PARENTING DOESN'T COME WITH A MANUAL.

It's so easy to sit here and say what the parents should have done when you aren't the one parenting.

Sometimes you do what you think is right and it turns out it wasn't and by then you've lost all control. It doesn't make you a bad person and it certainly doesn't mean you should then be subjected to abuse at the hands of your child (not saying that's what this father is enduring)

I remember my neice being three years old and going after her brother with a real golf club and it was not the typical brother/sister fight. she would have beaten him with that club. i know it, I'd seen her go after her brother before (older brother). She did see a child psychologist for a while but that didnt' help. The whole "let her know how loved she is, sit down and talk with her, explain why what she is doing is not ok"... that didn't do anything other than teach her how to manipulate her parents and everyone else. Manipulation is one of her strengths.

by the time she was 10 she was calling childrens aid on her parents whenever they tried to punish her (no they did not hit her or anything like that) but she knew if she called the childrens aid hotline or the police... they would always come out and investigate. (that's actually snowballed to a point now that the last time she called the police they arrested her for wasting their time basically lol... she is over 18 now so at least her actions only affect her now)

and now... she has a baby of her own :O She needs help but she doesn't want it. she's gotten it, they gave her meds, she won't take them.

So I just wonder how as a parent, doing this on the fly... how are you supposed to handle that and know you are doing just right? especially when some of what they tried came from "professionals".

There isn't a manual. parenting isn't clear cut and dry. Kids are very smart and many of them know how to work their parents just right. They are smart... but they aren't always reasonable. Teens aren't always up for a parent trying to "reason" with them.

I h ope I am doing the best I can with Hannah but I won't really know until down the road. They don't really hand out parenting progress reports. you kind of just gotta go with your heart. I will always try to be the best parent I can... even when it's hard but the truth of the matter is... I'm going to make mistakes. We all do. Our parents made mistakes but yet most of us turned out OK lol. I'm sure this girl (from the video) will too

Thats another point. This might stop the behaviour but it isn't going to teach respect. It might teach fear, and inspire the child to learn to be more devious as she obviously can't trust her father to have deal with her in a reasonable way. I was a difficult (though not greatly so) teen. If this happened to me I would likely stop all dialogue with my father and ensure there was no way for him to over hear me talking to my friends, read my diary etc. It wouldn't teach me to go to him when I was feeling upset, or teach me how to deal with how I was feeling... just that he was NOT the one to talk too.

Which would be very sad. So many teens feel the need to talk to someone, all the parenting books and experts say we (as parents) need to have an open dialogue with our kids so they can feel safe coming to us with problems. This daughter is NOT going to be coming to her dad with her problems now is she? He has shown he cannot be trusted to be rational or behave like a responsible adult. He is no longer a good role model either.

I think you missed the point.

To me the take home message was destroying things is a good way to teach people you (are supposed to) love a lesson. Now think if she grows up and marries a somewhat abusive guy who is the main bread winner. So he can destroy stuff that he bought to control her... YAY?

If I buy something for my child its his. Now I do think in extreme circumstances (and to me this isn't it...) I can take it away. But what does me taking it away permanently teach my child, other than I can be a bitch? I think the method of taking it away IS significant.

So you shoot it and show that destroying something valuable is a great way to get your point across.

Or you donate it and send home the message that while you can't be responsible we will give this valuable item to someone who will use it responsibly. It shows the value of looking after things, its not pro 'disposable items (I don't care if you bought it, just ruining things for the sake of ruining them is NOT a responsible thing to do.. reuse, reduce recycle etc), it highlights responsibility to others (which is what he was trying to say) I just think destroying it was a dumb move that will teach a lot of the wrong things to a kid.

He acted IMO every bit as rudely and entitledly as she did. Even though this is just a snap shot of their lives it makes me wonder if she has come by it honestly. I just don't see any respect for her from him.

Did her parents do everything right? absolutely not (NO parent does everything right... parenting doesn't come with a manual despite how everyone sees to think it does). Did they handle her blatant disobedience and abuse correctly? No they definitely didn't... but HOW do you "parent" that? it's nice that as outsiders we can sit here and have time to just think the situation over and hum and haw over the pros and cons but parenting is kind of done on the fly and a lot of times you gotta just fly by the seat of your pants and hope you are doing the right thing.


Was this effective? I have no idea. maybe it was, maybe it wasn't and he's going to have to try something else to get through to her. But I doubt this was just that one comment on facebook. I think this was an ongoing issue and he was just pushed over the edge.

I'm not about to vilify him. WAs it "father of the year" material... no but parents are humans to. They can be pushed over the edge, at the end of their ropes and OMG they even make mistakes. In the end... She'll get over it. I'm sure it's the worst thing that's ever happened in the History of the World to her right now because she's a teenage girl and drama is the name of the game but I doubt she's going to be sitting on the therapists couch one day saying "my dad shot my laptop and now my life is ruined"

There isn't a manual. parenting isn't clear cut and dry. Kids are very smart and many of them know how to work their parents just right. They are smart... but they aren't always reasonable. Teens aren't always up for a parent trying to "reason" with them.
Our parents made mistakes but yet most of us turned out OK lol. I'm sure this girl (from the video) will too

I don't think this is entirely true. Both kids and dogs are born with their own tempements, they are not little blank slates. I have one dog with good work ethic, and one dog who has his own agenda when it comes to what he wants to do and they have both been like this since day one. I can do tons of work with Jack, do tons of motivating exercises, and he will still no have the natural work ethic that Sally does.

Sitting there fag (cigarette to you) in hand no less.
If he wants respect then maybe he should think about the message he portrays.

so pray tell , after he has already done the grounding and talking thing , what should have been done?

seriously for the teens that just dont get it , how do you get through to them?

i had a similar situation with one of mine . i had numerous talks with him about bashing his family on the internet , yet he continued and tried to hide it. of course i google my family names at least once a week and found the post on a tumbler blog.
i was pissed to put it nicely , and wrote a huge long post about it on my tumbler and posted the link to his facebook for all his friends to see.
Took him about 10 minutes to call and beg me to delete all i had wrote. his friends where getting on him and such. i asked if he was done bashing family on the internet . there has never been a problem since then.

No i did not shoot the laptop , but would have stomped it to little pieces if i had had it handy . happily danced on it in fact.

If that make me a horrid parent , thats okay

I think you missed the point.

Would you have sworn and let it go viral on the internet?

We, as parents often do things that we think afterwards... maybe that was a bad idea. He still thinks its great and has left it up. So he obviously stands behind it.

Darien is getting there but at 11 isn't a teenager yet.

I did go to a private girls school, many of the border girls were there because their parents couldn't or didn't want to handle them. I saw all sorts of things parents did. I also taught riding lessons to teens for years (and got close to many of them, I still get invited to wedding and such..) I can tell you the kids that turned out best tended to have supportive parents. Yes they set rules, yes they took things away, but they never stooped lower than the teenage behaviour they were trying to fix.

Some of the kids who have not turned out well have parents that remind me of this one. No dialogue, very heavy handed, not interested in solving the problem, just stopping the problem from bothering/embarrassing them. A good parent should be trying to help their child, not make it more convenient for them. (in a general sense)

What could you have done? Sure take it away. But I would have to say my friends would likely give me MORE support and more sympathy had this fellow been my dad. It would have made me feel vindicated in my feelings of teenage angst that my parents were (insert all sorts of words like unfair, freaks, unfeeling, etc) I don't see how this in any way is going to teach the daughter that doing this is wrong. She will likely be rewarded by her friends for this.....

I feel embarrassed for him and his family. I don't see a hero. I see a frustrated parent who lashed out at his daughter publicly and thinks its a good thing.