If your child ranted about you on their facebook wall, as the parent, would you destroy their electronic device they posted it from?

http://www.fluther.com/139747/what-are-your-thoughts-on-tommy-jordans-parenting-methods/

It might be appropriate to post the actual rant as well.
I support him.

I would have brought the comments up on my PC, called my daughter over and without saying a word I would have shown her what she had written. She would have died of embarrassment.

No!! Oh my god I absolutely disagree with this lol. Children are entitled to free speech too and this girl shouldn’t have to live in fear.

I wouldn’t destroy it but I would confiscate it until she proved she was mature enough to use it responsibly.

Of course not, that would be stupid, and frankly, a sign of mental illness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfPjxUU0g9o
“Who’s that riding in the sun?
Who’s the man with the itchy gun?
Who’s the man who kills for fun?
Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad.

He sleeps with a gun
but he loves his son
Killed his wife ‘cos she weighed a ton.
Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad.

A little touched or so we’re told
Killed his wife ‘cos she had a cold
Might as well she was gettin’ old
Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad.

He’s quick with a gun
And his job ain’t done.
Killed his wife by twenty-one,
Psycho Dad!

Who’s that riding in the sleigh?
Who’s that firing along the way?
Who’s roughing up bums on Christmas day?
Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad

Who’s the tall, dark stranger there.
The one with the gun and the icy stare.
The one with the scalp of his ex-wife’s hair!
Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad!

Who’s that riding across the plain?
Who’s lost count of the wives he’s slain?
Who’s the man who’s plumb insane?
Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad, Psycho Dad

He’s a durn good pa, but he hates the law.
He’s likes to eat it raw, He’s Psycho Dad!”

@JilltheTooth Read her post. Does not warrant anything like psycho dad’s reaction.

Considering this wasn’t the first time she had done something like this (from what the dad said in the video), it sounds like he needed to try something. He stated in the video that she had just been grounded for doing something similar and during that time they had taken away some of her stuff. Since that didn’t work, they needed to try something else. I don’t agree with using a guy to destroy it as that’s not what guns are for, but I don’t have a problem with him destroying it in general. I don’t think he should have made a video of it or put it on YouTube though. Family matters like this should be handled privately. I understand that she made her statement public (though blocked at least her parents from seeing it, so who knows who else she had blocked from it), but that doesn’t mean her father needed to retaliate in a public manner either.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to know what’s really going on in that family based on this one guys video. We really don’t know which one was telling the truth (the daughter in the rant or the dad in his response). Either way, I hope that family gets some help because there are clearly some issues going on.

I would have thought that talking to each other would have been a better pattern all around for that family. Seems like the exhibitionist daughter didn’t fall far from the tree.

I’m more concerned that this family has firearms. What a bunch of wackos.

No, I wouldn’t destroy it, but she would never see it again.
I would not have made the issue public.
I would not have wasted the laptop or the ammunition to destroy it.
I would have confiscated it, wiped it clean and sold it. I would also have taken her other electronic devices and she would not get them back until she had earned them back by showing me she could be respectful to me, and knew how to properly use those belongings.

I like @janbb‘s answer. Her outburst was inappropriate – and apparently embarrassing to the father (and why, I can’t imagine – don’t all kids in America say this from time to time?) – and his response was at least as bad. Worse, in fact, because it escalated to violence, even if it was only violence against an inanimate object.

How will she escalate now?

The father was angry and did not think through the public impact of what he was doing, and the public reaction he would get.

While I would not have shot the laptop, and talked in such glowing terms about hollow-point bullets, I think that the basic idea of what he did (embarrass her as she had embarrassed them) was OK.

I think the values they are trying to instill in their child are good. I think the child acted spoiled and ungrateful.

I totally support her losing the laptop and being grounded.

@ragingloli : I support what he did, and why he did it, I wasn’t commenting on how. Your idiotic rhyme has nothing to do with this situation.

@JilltheTooth
It absolutely does. He is a psychopath.

@ragingloli: Are you personally acquainted with him? Or are you (more likely) forming an absolute opinion based on a YouTube video? That says more about your ability to judge people than it does about a guy on a video. Would you be less harsh if he had destroyed the laptop with an eight pound splitting maul? Or run it over with his Ford F150? Or jumped up and down on it while wearing jackboots? Or is your opinion solely based on the fact that he used a firearm (that we have no evidence is illegally owned) to destroy it? And how well do you know the family? Do you have any idea what kind of trouble she’s been in (or not) before? And hooray for you if your teenaged children have all been perfect little angels, in the real world, not all of them are. Your rhyme is idiotic.

My conclusion is based on the fact that she released her frustration in a way that his father would not be able to read it. That shows that she felt she could not talk about about her problems with him, and his reaction to this clearly demonstrates precisely why she felt that way.
I condemn him and is actions and I think he should lose custody of his daughter.

I think that the apple of disrespect didn’t fall far from the tree. I know what it’s like to deal with a bratty disrespectful teenager, but public humiliation is no answer to this crazy mixed up time in a young girls life.
Someone needs to be the adult!

My children’s feelings about me are just that… their feelings about me. I have never discouraged them from expressing their feelings at home. Not only does it allow for a degree of catharsis, but it promotes honesty and an understanding of parents as only human themselves.

@ragingloli Lose custody? Are you nuts? His daughter was disrespectful, selfish, and had a strong sense of entitlement. He had every right to deprive her of her laptop.

I agree with @CaptainHarley

There is a saying ” what others think of us is none of our business.”
The man acted immaturely and foolishly and hardly sets an example of a father in control of his over reactive emotions. The whole thing is stupid and doesn’t deserve another minute of attention.

@marinelife
The girl’s textual outburst was perfectly natural and normal.
The so called “father” snapped, behaved like a deranged psycho and I am convinced that the girl was lucky to not have ended up in place of the laptop.
Frankly, the girl is in mortal danger staying with this despicable creature.

Hm, I wonder who paid for that laptop…
As a machinist, I am against computer abuse and human against machinery crime. This sickens me.
As my comrade Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard said here: “She’s an asshole apple that didn’t fall far from the asshole tree.”

@ragingloli Your conclusions are not supported by the father’s video. He obviously loves his daughter. I can see that coming from a non-gun culture, you might be alarmed at the use of the gun, but in the place the man lives gun ownership is common as is outdoor target practice. He just used the laptop as his target.

Just ground her. Haha. Make her take the post down.
Shooting her laptop is ridiculous.

It wasn’t her laptop in that sense that she earned it. I wouldn’t have shot it.. but I probably would have locked it up for a while. But then again.. oh yeah.. we already answered this question like the first response indicates…

@marinelife

The father has a troubled child that posts a letter on facebook that seems inappropriate, or a cry for help, or… whatever…

If my child would be doing that, I would definitely not be happy. I might be angry, but I would also be worried.

What I find more and most worrying about this video, though, is that this father seems to be able to cultivate anger in a very impressive way. He prepared the video etc, then had a 7 minute rant and then still he was angry enough to take a handgun and shoot her laptop and put the video on youtube.

Any father (anyone) that would get so upset about something his daughter does, would be better to learn to chill out before making decisions. This guy taking out a handgun and use it in anger is scary. Specially since his child seemed to be the object of his anger.

No way to justify that, in my mind.

edit: how come I ended up on the copy of this thread?

I can’t support the violent destruction of anything done in anger. The computer should have been confiscated, given to charity, or thrown in the trash, but not shot up.

Reactionary parenting=reactionary child

No parent should discipline from anger. Period.

No.

It’s easy to judge this guy from the headline. In fact, my initial reaction was much the same as many of you have.

Watch the video!

There is more to the story than a quick headline gives.

BTW, how many people here have seen/heard/read the daughter’s reaction? For those of you who don’t know because you were too busy going off half-cocked, she isn’t scarred. She was allowed to make her own video response but declined. She’s fine with it.

This was not an impulsive act. It was one calculated to prove a point. It wasn’t done in anger, at least not the way some of you think. He is definitely not a psychopath as some of you claim. It may have been wasteful, but he wasted his money. I fail to see the big problem here.

I can’t get past the use of the gun. I think he’s sick. This is saying, “Daughter, if I don’t like what you’re doing, I can always bring my gun into your room.” Sick man.

Taking photos and then saying he doesn’t want it public? Hypocrite.

People who enjoyed his use of a gun? You’ve got problems, too.

@6rant6 A hammer would’ve been fine? Also, if you don’t know the difference between shooting a laptop and shooting (or even threatening) a person with a gun, you are the sick one!

Lastly, note that the video was originally intended for her wall only; the fact that it went viral is out of his hands. I know hypocrisy and that isn’t it.

@AshlynM In the future, please don’t front-load opinion questions like you did. It’s one thing to say, “I think this is appalling; what do you think?”, but quite another to say, (and I quote) ”...it is appalling…”. Are you asking for opinions, or mere agreement?
Also, “How would you have handled it?” is less biased. You seem to almost answer your own question jsut by the way you ask it.

@6rant6

Can you say “hoplophobia,” boys and girls? : )

If I had a child who ranted against me on their facebook wall and if I read that drivel, I would reply “You dun goofed. That’s double chores for you mate”. I would then get 1000 likes from his/her friends. Then Al Gore would show up at my door with a check for a million internets and a copy of Diablo III. And then world hunger, childhood obesity and other trivial issues would finally stop.

Are we having fun yet?

I would have the child removed from the care of such a psychotic parent. She would be in the Child Protective Service in a heartbeat.

@YARNLADY How is that psychotic? That word does not mean what you seem to think it means.

Psychosis (sī-kō‘sĭs) Pronunciation Key
Plural psychoses (sī-kō‘sēz)
A mental state caused by psychiatric or organic illness, characterized by a loss of contact with reality and an inability to think rationally.

Seems to me that he is in contact with reality and able to think rationally even though that means that he doesn’t use the same reasoning you would. And if thinking differently is psychotic then everybody is psychotic!

@jerv Shooting a bullet into an appliance because you are angry with your child is does not sound like someone in touch with reality nor thinking rationally.

Thinking differently than I do does not enter into it. Violence directed at appliances in not rational, especially when there is a child involved.

Using your criteria, child molestors and rapists are just a rational as you and I.

Destroy, no but I’d confiscate it, mosty definitely and then consider whether or not to restore privileges.

@YARNLADY Where was the daughter? Maybe i have a different definition of “involved” as well, but I saw no violence directed at her. I will agree that shooting the laptop is not something I would do, but I know he is not the only one who destroys inanimate objects to vent frustration/anger sometimes. It is far better than venting on people. An irrational person would not even be able to redirect their feelings. Yes, that implies anger issues, but they are handled as rationally as they can be. Then again, you always struck me as too nice a person to really understand how much effort it takes to redirect anger; I cannot imagine you ever getting truly angry.

You also seem to confuse “irrational” and “immoral”. There is also the matter of whose laptop it actually was in the first place, but that is a whole other topic. Suffice it to say, destroying your own property is not necessarily immoral. As for rational, it puts enough of a restriction on her Facebook access and serves as enough of a deterrent to prevent a repeat occurrence, which was the goal. Seems rational to me, and drastic enough to actually stick.

Hmm. Since we’ve ventured into the territory of “psychosis”, it may be a good time to say that there’s nothing particularly psychotic about rapists and child molesters, per se. A rapist or pedophile may certainly be psychotic, but being a rapist or pedophile does not define one as psychotic. Sociopathic, maybe – in fact, more likely – but not necessarily psychotic.

The father did a thing that I don’t approve of in a way that I don’t approve, and he apparently humiliated his daughter, to boot (way to go, dad!). But that doesn’t mean that he’s psychotic, just different. Maybe a bit dangerous, too. Stupid, narcissistic and conceited, too. But not psychotic.

@CWOTUS Thank you!

I don’t think the parent was psychotic, but I am appalled by his actions. He should have respect for his daughter’s privacy, and shouldn’t try to force her to comply with his standards by humilating her in front of her peers. Probably the reverse occurred – they will doubtless be sympathetic to her situation.

What is she supposed to do about any schoolwork that was left on that computer? Egads.

And then there’s the violence of it… Not cool, man. Not cool at all.

@dappled_leaves Privacy as it pertains to a Facebook post that was available for how many people to see? I mean, there are certain places where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, but your wall on Facebook is not one of those places. It would be a different matter if the father actually tried hacking her account, or if it were, say, a text message on her phone, but when something is posted to your News Feed (or your dog’s, as the case may be) then it’s a pretty safe bet that any/all concerns about privacy are off the table.

As for the humiliation, are you claiming that she did not try to humiliate/demean her parents? Is there a double standard where kids are allowed to humiliate adults in front of kids but adults are not? Sure, her peers may be sympathetic to her, but I think it safe to say that a lot of teens have a little antipathy towards authority figures of any sort. Besides, peers sympathize with peers regardless; that is human nature.

Regarding the schoolwork, bear in mind how fragile computers are even without being shot. If this sets her back academically then there is something wrong with the way her classes are run anyways, but I won’t go into a rant about how we should just have kids leave their laptops in the classroom to learn for them. Before computers, I lost quite a bit of schoolwork. She can do the same thing everybody else here over the age of 35 did.

Violence… I somewhat agree, but I have to ask you this; has there ever been a situation where something happened over and over and over and over and over despite trying to be gentle about it, but then got resolved when you finally did something a bit more drastic? Maybe you had a little brother tap you on the shoulder despite you saying “Quit it!” and he didn’t stop until you did something other than telling him to stop.

@jerv I just mean that the father should have kept the matter private, not aired the family laundry on Facebook. Whether or not she chooses to talk about her parents on Facebook (and he made some reference to her having posted something for them not to see, which indicates that he was Facestalking her somehow, but that’s another conversation), he should have acted in a more adult (and honourable) way. He is supposed to be setting an example.

Same goes with the humiliation… this is parenting, not a tit-for-tat slap fight. He should be behaving like a grownup. No, there shouldn’t be a double standard. But he should have a higher standard than that.

Here’s my post from my question regarding this yesterday:

I had a talk with my 16 year old son last night about this. I told him that when he’s been super frustrating to parent the most I’ve put on Facebook has been “teenagers are giving me a headache”. He said that he’s done the same on his page…although he’s blocked me from reading his updates which is something I didn’t know because I don’t “creep his Facebook” (his words).

I understand his need for privacy and the fact that we live in the 21st Century where kids communicate over the Internet probably more often than they do face to face.

I understand my children’s need to vent about me. Just as I need to vent about them. I would never ever take my vents public.

As to his use of a gun: what does that teach his daughter? If you’re mad enough at someone you can take their property and destroy it with a gun? This is similar to hauling off and hitting a child whilst shouting “You don’t hit other people”.

I find it extremely ironic that the father in question “works in IT” and failed to understand that his post could go viral.

@tranquilsea I totally respect the way that you would handle this.

I don’t think it’s fair to imply that the father would physically mistreat his daughter because he shot the laptop (and I get that that’s not what you’re saying, but it has been said above), but I do think that the violence of that act was completely inappropriate.

@dappled_leaves Thanks. I use the spanking example to show how I believe what the parent says and does are incongruent while recognizing that you saw my point :P

@dappled_leaves It showed up on the dog’s page, right where he could see it. It was no more “stalking” than leaving it laying on the kitchen table. Now, is it stalking simply because she didn’t want him to see it but left it in plain sight somewhere where he had access to like that? She made a mistake on her privacy settings that pretty much pushed it right into his face. That isn’t his fault, nor any wrongdoing on his part.
From what I gather, setting an example had been tried to no avail. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time this happened. Think about it; to some, do unto others is just words until someone does unto them. Granted, “tit for tat” should be a last resort, but sometimes its the only way to make a point.
Also, how honorable would it have been for him to back down after giving his word that next time the punishment would be severe and all the other things he said?

@tranquilsea There really is no telling what will and what won’t be the next viral video. In this age of smartphones, it’s a calculated risk that pretty much anything that happens to anyone may make it’s way to YouTube and get 10,637,319 views. I don’t think it was a lack of understanding so much as figuring the odds were so unlikely.
As for not taking the vents public, I am fairly certain that the only reason he did was to reach the same audience she did.

@jerv That’s my point: Don’t put anything up on the Internet that you wouldn’t mind having broadcast to the four corners of the earth.

@jerv Again – what I was saying about privacy is the reverse of what you are inferring. I am saying that the father should not have taken his rant public.

When my son rants about me I don’t feel it is necessary to pull him and his friends to one side to issue a rebuttal. I am the adult and wish to lead by example.

@dappled_leaves I don’t think he wanted to.

No. He wanted to take it to his daughter’s friends. That is public. That’s what I mean.

No, I wouldn’t do what he’s done. Period. Dad’s lost it, methinks.

Well I’m sure he bought her the lap top, so if he wants to shoot a few holes in it, it’s his decision to make. I don’t have kids, but if I did, and they complained about minor chores publicly on Facebook, that not only would speak many words about their personality and general demeanor but it would also annoy me as a parent. Who cares. He did what he did. Do it again. Kids are spoiled, and in her case, also generally lazy and ungrateful.

@dappled_leaves Well, that opens a whole other discussion about, “What is the definition of ‘public’?”, but I don’t fell like getting into that here/now. But I think we know where each other stands and won’t change our minds.