Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen.

[Mech]

fear and a weapon as well as threats to educate a fifteen year old girl is a good thing.

Anything could be used as a weapon. He could have thrown a brick at the laptop and you could argue it was a "weapon". The fact of the matter is that he was not wielding it in a manner to inflict bodily harm on anyone and was using it to destroy a piece of property he had acquired.

It probably did not need to become a public matter, but he taught his daughter the affect publishing defamatory statements can have on her own life, too. Personally, I currently do not want kids and I am quite fond of the idea of shooting a clip of explosive bullets into a laptop so I agree with this whole fiasco.

My kids step out of line I'll condition them to fear candy.

I'm that much of a hardass.

Naming him Albert? 

[Camo]

Nah was going to call him Pavlov.

[oliverk94]

This guy's actions were uncalled for, I honestly don't see what the girl did wrong she simply stated her opinion and this guy got all butthurt.. she was probably just trying to impress her friends with her rebellion anyway and probably didn't mean half the stuff even if she did I don't see what's wrong with it.. but what's more stupid: voicing your opinion about your own parents on your own facebook.. or making a video exposing what you're daughter said to 18 million + people and THEN being a dumbass and shooting her laptop with a .45!! LOL.. I really doubt this guy is an I.T expert though because an I.T expert would have other ways of dealing with the situation.. possibly sell the laptop? take away her internet?

[paulsterio]

the way he talks shows that he's not an IT worker, he probably uses IT to manage his farm

[lexitu]

Hmm, agree a lot with what Paul has said on this thread.

A few things:
- I don't think they're equivalent acts; one only on Facebook and the other on Facebook (illegal posting under her account) and on YouTube (truly public).
- I think the Govt. Dept. or whoever takes care of these things should take some serious action against the parent; psychological impact is potentially huge.
- The daughter's Facebook post is an important aspect of free speech (and I know this word is the latest euphemism for doing whatever you want, but still). Computer-mediated communication should not be taken as something best left to superficial stuff. Obviously, she'd do well to also discuss this stuff with her parents.
- We saw one person narrate this; the father. Any judgements should be made in this light; it's a slanted story which may well have been exaggerated in both ways.

[Truck]

Look, regardless of what the girl did, he crossed the line when he put up a video on youtube about it for millions of other people to see. It's one thing for him to ground her, take away the laptop (or shoot it), whatever. But think about the repercussions of this video; for the rest of high school she's going to be known as "that girl" who's dad flipped out on the internet, it'll probably follow her to college and it may even affect her when she's looking for a job. Discipline your kids, sure, but this is the kind of stuff that sticks with you for life and can't be erased, so is it good parenting? Absolutely not.

[Mao]

1. He did not anticipate that the video would go viral. Really, how many vlogs are there that go unnoticed? He simply wanted a medium to share this video to the girl's friends on facebook. What happened afterwards is not within his control nor expectations. Do not say he lacked foresight, because you are discussing this video in hindsight. If this video did not go viral, you probably would have a different opinion.

2. Never be disrespectful to the parent. Doesn't matter how harshly they discipline you, they give you food and a place to live. In this case, they bought you a laptop and probably a lot of luxuries so the child can compete with their peers. Children do not understand what it is to be a parent, I have only recently come to the realisation (through watching a very young sibling growing up) that parenting is very fucking difficult, and the tiniest bit of disrespect is the biggest slap on the face.

3. The father is not intimidating. He doesn't look like someone who will ever hurt his daughter in a physical way. If he truly didn't care about her, she would be kicked out. If he seriously wanted his gun to be a threat, he would not do an internet video about it (which the intended user is not her because she does not have a laptop). If he truly did not love his daughter, he would not have gone through the trouble of putting software on her laptop.

4. Noticed how his daughter remained anonymous. Except for the embarrassment she will receive at school, this video will not affect her opportunities later on in life. She can take it two ways, to be mature from now on, or to rebel in more subtle ways (or more directly by moving out). If she chooses the latter and not learn her lesson, heck, she didn't really have a future from the start, and if she realises her mistakes in the future, she has none to blame except herself.

In my opinion it is good parenting. I wouldn't go to this extreme personally, because I do not believe in weapons, but I would go so far as destroying the laptop via some other means. I admire this guy.

[Special At Specialist]

She's NOT a spoiled little brat. Hell, she does about 10 times more housework than I do. She cleans the house and then he walks in there with dirty shoes and he makes her clean it again. Also, he is so lazy that he even gets her to make coffee for him.

I feel so sorry for this girl. She does not deserve this kind of public humiliation. How can she ever recover?

Put yourself in her shoes for a moment. Actually picture yourself. You come home from school and you are tired and sore from all the work you've been doing. You're 15 years old. All your friends are going to nightclubs and parties and stuff, but you live on a farm in harsher conditions. You have enough homework as it is to worry about, and you're doing well in school, but you have a lot of housework on top of that.
So you get really frustrated one day and decide to tell your friends about it. Your parents are being unreasonable and won't listen, so they seem to be the only ones you can turn to. You want it to be just between you and them, but then your sly father hacks into your facebook and looks at the post.
First, he grounds you. You feel kind of upset, but you suppose that maybe you deserve it and you're willing to suck it up.
Then, he breaks your $2000 laptop. This REALLY upsets you, since you don't have a job and that is a lot of money for you to lose. Living as a teenager without internet access is not an easy thing to do, so this alone is a pretty harsh punishment, but then...
He makes a rant himself, posts it on youtube for EVERYONE to see. Not just your friends, not just your teachers, literally everyone in your town. Everyone in your country. Everyone in the world.
Imagine trying to live after that. Everytime you leave the house, people point at you and stare. You try to find a job, but no-one wants to hire you. No-one wants to be friends with you. Even if you never do something like that again, you'll still be psychologically scarred for the rest of your life. Infact, scarred isn't a strong enough word. Disabled. You will be psychologically disabled.
What will you resort to? Drugs? Suicide?

What kind of a loving parent would do this to her child, after all of the good things she has done. She cleans his mess for him, makes him coffee and then gets frustrated from all the effort she's doing and makes one measly facebook post. It wasn't even that bad of a post. I've seen heaps of people post MUCH worse stuff and get completely away with it.

I don't care if you're a parent bitching about how hard it is to take care of your children. This is just unnacceptable and I find it disgusting. So many commenters have such warped views on this video. "My children are bad and deserve punishment, therefore so does this child" or "Since I am a parent, I deserve respect and so do other parents." You don't know this girl. She is not the typical 15 year old brat you think she is.

I wish parents would be forced to live the life of a teenager again, because they have obviously forgotten how it feels. To expect her to deal with that kind of humility is just not on.

I'm telling you guys it's wrong. It's so wrong.

[Truck]

1. He did not anticipate that the video would go viral. Really, how many vlogs are there that go unnoticed? He simply wanted a medium to share this video to the girl's friends on facebook. What happened afterwards is not within his control nor expectations. Do not say he lacked foresight, because you are discussing this video in hindsight. If this video did not go viral, you probably would have a different opinion.

I'm sure he didn't anticipate it going viral, but it did. Just like the daughter didn't anticipate that he would be able to read that Facebook post she made. Ignorance isn't an excuse and he is still fully responsible for uploading the video and the consequences of that action.

2. Never be disrespectful to the parent. Doesn't matter how harshly they discipline you, they give you food and a place to live. In this case, they bought you a laptop and probably a lot of luxuries so the child can compete with their peers. Children do not understand what it is to be a parent, I have only recently come to the realisation (through watching a very young sibling growing up) that parenting is very fucking difficult, and the tiniest bit of disrespect is the biggest slap on the face.

Being a parent is hard, agreed. Being a teenager can also be hard. It's not as black and white as what you're making it out to be, parents aren't perfect and they will also make mistakes... also, I think this was mentioned earlier, but do you think that in the case of Judge Adams beating his daughter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFVHmpPwDUY), the girl should have just let him beat her and not "disrespected" her parents because they provide her with food/housing? There is a point where discipline crosses the line and becomes abuse, imo.

3. The father is not intimidating. He doesn't look like someone who will ever hurt his daughter in a physical way. If he truly didn't care about her, she would be kicked out. If he seriously wanted his gun to be a threat, he would not do an internet video about it (which the intended user is not her because she does not have a laptop). If he truly did not love his daughter, he would not have gone through the trouble of putting software on her laptop.

This I agree with. It's obvious from the video the father cares about his daughter and is just hurt by her actions. Still not the mature way to deal with the problem.

4. Noticed how his daughter remained anonymous. Except for the embarrassment she will receive at school, this video will not affect her opportunities later on in life. She can take it two ways, to be mature from now on, or to rebel in more subtle ways (or more directly by moving out). If she chooses the latter and not learn her lesson, heck, she didn't really have a future from the start, and if she realises her mistakes in the future, she has none to blame except herself.

From the video it looks like she lives in a smallish town. Straight up, everyone in her high school is going to know - which is bad enough as it is. She may be "anonymous" from the video, but 10 seconds on Facebook (going onto the Dad's public FB page with like 50k+ likes) and you can find her FB page. We all know how employers nowadays check all prospective employees on the internet, especially their facebooks, so it would not be very hard to dig up this sort of information. This video is going to have a pretty big effect on her life, it could also exacerbate any bullying that might already be happening to her.

[Mao]

Being a parent is hard, agreed. Being a teenager can also be hard. It's not as black and white as what you're making it out to be, parents aren't perfect and they will also make mistakes... also, I think this was mentioned earlier, but do you think that in the case of Judge Adams beating his daughter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFVHmpPwDUY), the girl should have just let him beat her and not "disrespected" her parents because they provide her with food/housing? There is a point where discipline crosses the line and becomes abuse, imo.

The mentality of every teenager.

Let me tell you something, as someone who once was rebellious, who because of his rebellion ran away from home several times, who because of his rebellion left home at the first possible moment, who now support myself living away from home via working (I'm still studying too), who now contribute to my father's work and sees things from his perspective. Yes, this is anecdotal evidence, you take it however you want.

My teenager life is WAY easier than now. And compare what I have now to my father/mother's work, I appreciate that my life is still easier than theirs. Kids cannot even begin to understand what real responsibility feels like.

Being a teenager is hard? Are you fucking kidding? Come back to me when you have to do all the chores, all the cooking, pay all the bills and then slave away only to have a little brat tell you their life is hard.

I am lucky that my parents gave me a harsh upbringing, without it I would not see things the way I do now.

Judge Adams is a different case. He went so far as to hit his daughter and derived pleasure from it. That is sadistic in nature. The present issue is not sadistic, the child was not harmed.

4. Noticed how his daughter remained anonymous. Except for the embarrassment she will receive at school, this video will not affect her opportunities later on in life. She can take it two ways, to be mature from now on, or to rebel in more subtle ways (or more directly by moving out). If she chooses the latter and not learn her lesson, heck, she didn't really have a future from the start, and if she realises her mistakes in the future, she has none to blame except herself.

From the video it looks like she lives in a smallish town. Straight up, everyone in her high school is going to know - which is bad enough as it is. She may be "anonymous" from the video, but 10 seconds on Facebook (going onto the Dad's public FB page with like 50k+ likes) and you can find her FB page. We all know how employers nowadays check all prospective employees on the internet, especially their facebooks, so it would not be very hard to dig up this sort of information. This video is going to have a pretty big effect on her life, it could also exacerbate any bullying that might already be happening to her.

Re: employers, they are adults, most probably with children. If they're going to have a beef, it'll be with the dad, not her. Everyone knows teenagers make mistakes. In this particular case the discipline was made public, but she does not bear that responsibility.

And if you read the follow up (next post), you'll find that this has more of a positive than negative effect on her.

[Mao]

Update from the father: http://www.litefm.com/pages/news-story.html?feed=421220&article=9744152

[Mao]

There is one controversial thing I would like to say. Some people imagine teenagers (and all children) as people who have very weak mental strength, and must be kept in a cradle of good-will, happiness and such. These people also say that all discipline should be through reason, the child should never be scared of doing anything, the child should be able to challenge the parents/authorities/etc. (something along those lines)

Bullshit.

These people are breeding a generation of kids of weak mental strength. They uphold the banner that kids can get depression/bipolar/etc, when most of these kids are actually fine. I'm not denying these are real conditions, but many kids (myself included) have self-proclaimed these conditions (while subconsciously convincing ourselves) as a mental escape, while the kids in fact are perfectly fine. What is in fact happening is these mental conditions/emotional traumas/etc are being trivialised, and kids are becoming less and less disciplined.

I have read recently (may not be in AUS) that a law has been passed that the parent cannot hit a child to discipline them anymore. (Note the difference between discipline and abuse.) Next time, you try reasoning with a 6-year-old that they cannot have what the neighbour's kid has, or a 14-year-old who wants an iPhone or will get depression if they don't get one.

Have a look at China and its single-child generation, a leading example of a generation of spoiled brats who only know to ask for money from their parents.

[lexitu]

1. He did not anticipate that the video would go viral. Really, how many vlogs are there that go unnoticed? He simply wanted a medium to share this video to the girl's friends on facebook. What happened afterwards is not within his control nor expectations. Do not say he lacked foresight, because you are discussing this video in hindsight. If this video did not go viral, you probably would have a different opinion.

But he keeps the video there rather than removing it. So while I agree that he probably wouldn't have expected it to go viral, his actions in leaving the video there show that this wasn't a concern for him.

[Special At Specialist]

I don't want to live in a world where I risk being publicly humiliated in front of ~20 million people just for ranting about how hard my life is or how bad my parents are to my friends.

[Hodgeyhodgey]

She's NOT a spoiled little brat. Hell, she does about 10 times more housework than I do. She cleans the house and then he walks in there with dirty shoes and he makes her clean it again. Also, he is so lazy that he even gets her to make coffee for him.

I feel so sorry for this girl. She does not deserve this kind of public humiliation. How can she ever recover?

Put yourself in her shoes for a moment. Actually picture yourself. You come home from school and you are tired and sore from all the work you've been doing. You're 15 years old. All your friends are going to nightclubs and parties and stuff, but you live on a farm in harsher conditions. You have enough homework as it is to worry about, and you're doing well in school, but you have a lot of housework on top of that.
So you get really frustrated one day and decide to tell your friends about it. Your parents are being unreasonable and won't listen, so they seem to be the only ones you can turn to. You want it to be just between you and them, but then your sly father hacks into your facebook and looks at the post.
First, he grounds you. You feel kind of upset, but you suppose that maybe you deserve it and you're willing to suck it up.
Then, he breaks your $2000 laptop. This REALLY upsets you, since you don't have a job and that is a lot of money for you to lose. Living as a teenager without internet access is not an easy thing to do, so this alone is a pretty harsh punishment, but then...
He makes a rant himself, posts it on youtube for EVERYONE to see. Not just your friends, not just your teachers, literally everyone in your town. Everyone in your country. Everyone in the world.
Imagine trying to live after that. Everytime you leave the house, people point at you and stare. You try to find a job, but no-one wants to hire you. No-one wants to be friends with you. Even if you never do something like that again, you'll still be psychologically scarred for the rest of your life. Infact, scarred isn't a strong enough word. Disabled. You will be psychologically disabled.
What will you resort to? Drugs? Suicide?

What kind of a loving parent would do this to her child, after all of the good things she has done. She cleans his mess for him, makes him coffee and then gets frustrated from all the effort she's doing and makes one measly facebook post. It wasn't even that bad of a post. I've seen heaps of people post MUCH worse stuff and get completely away with it.

I don't care if you're a parent bitching about how hard it is to take care of your children. This is just unnacceptable and I find it disgusting. So many commenters have such warped views on this video. "My children are bad and deserve punishment, therefore so does this child" or "Since I am a parent, I deserve respect and so do other parents." You don't know this girl. She is not the typical 15 year old brat you think she is.

I wish parents would be forced to live the life of a teenager again, because they have obviously forgotten how it feels. To expect her to deal with that kind of humility is just not on.

I'm telling you guys it's wrong. It's so wrong.

Mate, you sound like you're about as spoiled as the girl involved. If you think it's really that difficult to be a 15 year old that has chores to do around the house after a day at school then you need to get your head straight. I imagine you haven't worked a day in your life.

I've grown up with my parents both suffering from disabilities and this leaves me with lots of work to do around the house. Do you think I have a bitch about this to people on facebook? No. I suck it up and do these things because I have to and even if these problems have affected me, then there will still be other people a lot worse off than me.

I don't want to live in a world where I risk being publicly humiliated in front of ~20 million people just for ranting about how hard my life is or how bad my parents are to my friends.

Then don't be stupid enough to post those things on a public website, just learn to deal with it. Simple.