A parent deals with a loud mouth kid!

[bcdon***]

I love this guy! A well deserved boot up the a--!

[Spudman***]

I wonder how that turned out.

[Katastrophe]

Just watched the vid. I guess she won't be doing THAT again. Ever.

[Tig***]

Who is the lesser, the brat daughter or the dip-sh*t dad? Both are drama queens.

Social networking has become a social failure.

[bcdon***]

Who is the lesser, the brat daughter or the dip-sh*t dad? Both are drama queens.

Social networking has become a social failure.

I disagree, Tig. I don't think the dad is a dip-shi*t. I think he was making a point that even Generation Stupid could understand. But I do agree with you, 'social networking' is an excuse to be anti-social. That said, I can't count the number of times I wanted to shoot my computer and now I know what it would look like.

[deeaa*]

I dunno. I think he kinda did the right thing, but then again, it's obvious he could not handle it without getting so mad about it. I've been raised up to think whoever gets mad, already lost the fight. You get your face punched, you just say thank you sir and then later take him to the cleaners.

Here he responds to teenage troubles and mistakes with armed violence - talk about overdoing it! Why not sell it away, give it to someone...that was just payback and revenge. Not the kind of thing I'd like to teach kids to do. Besides, teenagers are - it's a scientific fact - so messed up with their hormones their brains literally do not have the capability of thinking straight all the time. In many ways they can't be held responsible for quite everything, or treated like adults.

Brings me back memories when my sister was a teenager and kicked and bit my dad so that blood flowed and all the while he just smiled and explained calmly how much it hurt and how he will have to think twice about her weekly allowance now etc...

Then again, shooting the thing does make a great point and for that it has to be commended...a good show that should sink into even teenage brains :-)

[Tig***]

Publicly berating his daughter puts him down on her level, instead of leading by positive example. I'd say some of the problems his daughter is causing have much to do with his failure as a parent. As parents, we are constantly teaching, even when we think the kids aren't watching. I'd go much deeper, but no one really wants to read the details.

They are both people with bad attitudes that I wouldn't want to associate with. Two zeroes, no heroes.

[R_of_G]

Gotta agree with Tig on this one.

Are we to believe this guy is legitimately surprised that a teenage child has rebellious thoughts about the chores she's required to do around the house and no understanding of the value of a dollar? Has he ever watched The Cosby Show? Was he ever a teenager himself?

Guess what big daddy, be damn glad your kid expresses her rebellion through words on a computer instead of running away from home, or developing a substance abuse problem. I'd take a kid who writes bad words about me on Facebook over one with a drug habit any day.

His reaction in and of itself is over the top even without the gun-play. He's trying to teach the kid not to disrespect her parents by publicly humiliating her, and teach her to value a dollar by destroying something expensive.

It may be funny on YouTube, or in a crappy CBS three-camera sitcom, but this is terrible parenting.

Oh, and one more thing, if you're gonna play the villain, you're supposed to wear the black cowboy hat.

[deeaa*]

Exactly.

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[piebaldpython***]

The father must have rocks in his head!!! So now all of his daughter's friends will see HIS vid and and their general commentary will be......."geez, what a douche-bag for a father you have".

[Hampus]

What if there were no rebellious kids in each generation? We would still be living in a medieval society. What if the sixties never happened? It's the same thing every generation, kids are rebellious and the older generation just doesn't get it. I'm not saying that the kid didn't behave like a spoilt brat, but come on. When parents can no longer have a constructive talk to their children, something is wrong. And it's rarely the child's fault.

Besides, I would feel very uncomfortable being around someone who, for any reason, chooses to use a gun to blow off steam.

We have talked about taking a note book and write everything down that we won't say out do to our kid, thing that we think our parents should have done differently. If we do, we'll probably have to look it away and make sure he never gets his hands on it!

Sent from my cobra phone

[syo***]

I must say I found this rather disturbing. I've been through the "rebellious daughter" thing and remember some very high frustration and sometimes not dealing well with it, but this one is scary to me. Extremely twisted using an instrument of death to publicly (or privately for that matter) make his point like this. There are so many things wrong with this from the girl being grounded for 3 months for "something similar" (c'mon 3 months?!) to capping a laptop. I think, R_of_G, you said it well.

On a related point, the whole "reality TV" thing kind of started in the States after I moved to Japan. It seems (from what little I've been exposed to) that going public with one's "life" has become something to aspire to for many. Whether on TV or Youtube people are airing all kinds of things that they would best keep to themselves. Certainly the globally deseminated disciplining of one's child is one of them. The girl should not be writing such things in any place but her personal diary but I have found that for girls her age, social networking has in a way become that diary. This leads me to something Dee said about kids' mixed up brains. It is true that the ability to appreciate the consequences of our actions does not properly develop for many until well into their 20's. This is not a blanket excuse for the girl, but it is a comment on the father who should absolutely be more mature that this. I mean the message here is?! As Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi once said, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". I agree with Ben...

[R_of_G]

The girl should not be writing such things in any place but her personal diary but I have found that for girls her age, social networking has in a way become that diary.

Exactly. Let's take the situation out of modernity and take it back a century. Essentially, this guy called a town meeting to shoot his teenage daughter's diary because he didn't like what she wrote in it.

My wife brought up an interesting point, and I'd be interested to hear from some of the attorneys we have at this forum on this. Had this man done this same exact thing, only about his wife instead of his daughter, it could be considered (from a legal standpoint) abusive behavior, particularly the violent and public destruction of her property.

If the only thing that prevents it from being abuse when done to his daughter instead is that he, not she, owned the computer, that suggests we assign more value to property than we do a child's psyche.

[guitartango]

Really easy solution here and it works for me, just unplugg the Internet router and wait for .... Sorry Dad can i have the internet back please? Of course there are other ways to do this, one being remove her MAC address from the router so I |can ground my daughter for weeks and weeks.

Or just just ban facebook.com ........

[syo***]

Really easy solution here and it works for me, just unplugg the Internet router and wait for .... Sorry Dad can i have the internet back please?

Well, that would take care of teaching a lesson nicely but it doesn't address dad's apparent need for retribution. "And here's one from your mother"...POW! Chilling...

[bcdon***]

What I think is great is that we each see this so completely different yet agree to disagree. The way I grew up, the threat of a boot up the a-- was always there and it kept me in line most of the time. That is why I see his point. Everyone else has valid points as well. I don't mind being the odd-man out about this as I'm that way on just about everything else in my life as well. :-)

[deeaa*]

I agree with everything in this thread.

Wow that must be a rare sentence on a forum anywhere

What I mean, I would not do anything like that and don't think it is totally sane in any way, but at the same time I'm glad he did it because it raises good discussion. And, much like, say, it can be good to watch like a war documentary and learn from that how bad it can be instead of experiencing it self, it at least may make some teenagers reflect on either their own behavior or maybe feel relief he isn't their dad...you know?

I just hope more people learn something positive from it than follow the example.

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[Tig***]

Like most things, we can use social networking for positive results, or we can turn it into a problem. The daughter and the father both failed to do the former in this case. Social networking, like many modern tools and appliances can be quite positive in effect, or it can be abused. For some it is actually an addiction.

Families that are separated by distance can keep abreast of what's going on in each other's lives through posts, pictures, and videos that are limited to just their audience, for example. Old lost friends can be reunited (or old flames, which is a big problem for married people, but that is yet another topic).

What we also see is how telling the world too much about our lives can be a serious detriment, like stalkers and burglaries ("I'm in Hawaii all week!"). How many people have not gotten the job they are interviewing for because of what is revealed on their "myface" account? Then there is cyber bullying that results in suicides. However, my favorite is when criminals post video of their crimes or brag online, only for it to become crucial evidence against them!

[syo***]

That is why I see his point. Everyone else has valid points as well. I don't mind being the odd-man out about this as I'm that way on just about everything else in my life as well. :-)

I don't think you are really the odd man out Don. On youtube (where this piece has over 22 million hits!), the "likes" outpace the "dislikes" over 10 to 1.

This guy has become famous, will probably be on the Today Show and/or get his own reality show. A few dozen other "copycat" fathers will try to one up this by destroying something different of their own child's (Iphones/pads are a natch). They will then post their "discipline" for the benefit (entertainment?) of all. When the film "Network" came out, I enjoyed it but thought it was merely going to extremes to prove a point. Now it seems tame in comparison to our current "reality". Turns out Chayefsky was a prophet and not a satirist.

I agree Don that it's great that we can agree to disagree. It's nice to hang out in a civilized place, my friend!