100% agree...
The daughter was a brat, but it's not hard to see where she got it from. Publicly humiliating your child is not the answer when they act out. From the sounds of it, she was blowing off steam, which is pretty typical of a teenager in the annoying rebellious phase. Instead of sitting her down and explaining how that made him feel, taking away her privileges (including computer), and giving her abused belongings to charity until she grew up, he damaged what little relationship was there in the first place. He had the opportunity to basically say "Look, you acted very selfishly and childishly. Now I am going to address this as an adult and show you how mature, adults handle problems between one another".
So I guess I will join the minority and say that I think his response to her being a typical jerk teenager was atrocious.
The daughter was a brat, but it's not hard to see where she got it from. Publicly humiliating your child is not the answer when they act out. From the sounds of it, she was blowing off steam, which is pretty typical of a teenager in the annoying rebellious phase. Instead of sitting her down and explaining how that made him feel, taking away her privileges (including computer), and giving her abused belongings to charity until she grew up, he damaged what little relationship was there in the first place. He had the opportunity to basically say "Look, you acted very selfishly and childishly. Now I am going to address this as an adult and show you how mature, adults handle problems between one another".
So I guess I will join the minority and say that I think his response to her being a typical jerk teenager was atrocious.
Just out of curiosity, how do you know that the relationship was "what little of a relationship there was"? Because she was ungrateful? Because she was annoyed with her parents? I guess I ask this because I was very much like that as a teenager and I did not have a bad relationship with my mom. We got along most of the time but had our rough patches. Also, we don't really know what they have gone through as a family. It's easy to say "Well *I* would have sat down and had a mature, heart to heart with *my* kid and just explained why those kinds of comments hurt my feelings. Who knows, maybe the parents did that--472749592847 times, and it was not working. Maybe they were at the end of their rope and decided that this might wake her up more effectively.
Also, I don't understand the idea of associating donating to charity with punishment. How does "you've been bad, now you have to give your stuff to poor people" teach the child the value of giving to those less fortunate? It automatically links something that us supposed to be a positive thing with all kinds if negative feelings.
I wonder if it is the act if shooting the laptop that bugs people. I wonder if hr threw it in a dumpster or dropped it in a pond if it would get that reaction.
Then again, I also believe that parents have to do something pretty freaking horrible to not deserve the respect of their kids, so perhaps I am just old fashioned--lol.