Daughter posts disrespectful rant on Facebook, father shoots laptop

[Hugo Drax]

That was great. Her post displayed all of the petty bitchiness of someone who gets too much of what they want without working for it. It was a bad sign that deserved quick and decisive action. There's a parent who actually gives a shit about who their child grows up to be.

The only issue is hopefully he sees it finally and takes hard corrective action. If his daughter ended up the Cuntlet she is at 15, its gonna be a difficult road. You really do not want to wait till they are that age to then wake up and smell the coffee.

 

[Howard]

You gotta keep it in context. I don't mean in general. But using a gun to shoot a laptop because your daughter is mouthy, I can't see how anyone can see something positive out of that action.

So if he used an axe, you'd expect him to be in the news some time later having been accused of axe-murdering his daughter?

 

[caddlad]

While the nerd in me hates to see a perfectly good laptop wasted, Dad made a critical error.

He should have shot it in a vertical position or opened into a "V". Must more entertaing when you have pass through.

 

[Skel]

When I first heard about this, I thought it was worse than it turned out to be. I was expecting him to have shot it while she was sitting next to it or something. As it is, it didn’t seem that interesting. It was excessive, but he also comes across like that’s in line with his style. Shooting something like the old west movies. He followed thru on what he said he’d do if something like that happened again. From the other Facebook posts of his I read in this thread, it also sounds like things are just fine between the kid and him. If they are, or if the kid hates him that’s really none of anyone’s business but theirs, and to be honest I could really care less. I don’t think it’s child abuse, and I’m greatly amused by all the talk that it is. People seem to want to look at this drama like some movie, twisting the what ifs and stuff no one outside of them knows to fit their ideas on what it is. At the end of the day, this is like the Star Wars prequels. No matter how much you try to debate them, it doesn’t make them any more interesting.

 

[IronWing]

That was great. Her post displayed all of the petty bitchiness of someone who gets too much of what they want without working for it. It was a bad sign that deserved quick and decisive action. There's a parent who actually gives a shit about who their child grows up to be.

Her post was exactly what one would expect of an adolescent and his response was exactly what one would expect of an adolescent. Eventually she will grow up and possibly be a decent human being. Him, not so likely.

 

[destrekor]

I have a 23 year old daughter and a 13 year old. I have never had either be suspended, involved with drugs, smoking, or alcohol. Never been to a police station either. And while I wouldn't bet my life on it, I seriously doubt a year from now they will be sitting down anywhere together laughing about this.

Verbal abuse and acts to instill fear are way worse than physical contact. You know very little about child rearing.

Nor do you apparently.

At least, not in the general sense of things. Yes, how you've raised your children, at face value, has worked out just fine.

Not all kids react to the same parenting styles in the same way. Especially important is the fact that your children, if biological, share some of you and thus you at times can get in their head and make decisions based on an intuition of sorts. Yet, sometimes the kid, because of the genetic combinations, has a personality vastly unlike either parent.

Most important to consider, however, is how the specific nuclear family actually interacts with each other, and likewise, how they behave according to personality and whatever values and lifestyle the family has set as standard.

Additionally, there are local/regional cultures at play. What is acceptable, appropriate, and effective (without breaking family bonds) in one culture, flies in the face of all that is morally/ethically right for another culture.


AND.... the father posted on his facebook page that all is right on the homefront, and that father and daughter have already had a heart-to-heart about this and yes, have already begun to laugh about it all after following all the responses.

As far as a firearm being the worst thing to use in this case, uh... k.
Something tells me she already has a very healthy respect for firearms and safe handling. The father seems quite old-school in that Christian Cowboy sense, and that's the vision for the family. If that is indeed the case, it's quite likely firearms are simply a fact of life, just another tool, albeit one with awesome power and a very specific function.

Of course, he could be a gun-wielding psycho, but his actions and words don't line up with such a picture imho.
Actually, he's kind of a hero now.

We've grown so goddamned soft, so afraid to offend or shock, all with a strong penchant to coddle... this situation shows not everyone is fond of such an approach to family life. It seems to be his approach that if you come across an issue that violates a cherished value, you lay down the law but with a chance to correct oneself - cross the same line again, shit gets real.

Verbal abuse? Instilling Fear?
It's called not raising a pussified child that will crack when over their head in the real world.

In reality, not everyone can make a resounding success of life. Give tough love (and tender love - each when appropriate) throughout their youth. Sure, when they leave home, they might do so resenting you and drop communications with you. But that's the way life is supposed to be. Raise your children, sometimes they'll stick near you and remain in the tribe at large - sometimes, they'll leave (sometimes peacefully, sometimes with a hell of a storm) to go and make a life for themselves, possibly on the other side of the world.
Depending on precisely how the child-rearing took place, they'll mature in time and realize how much the family actually cared and supported them.
It doesn't always work out for one party or the other, or even both parties succumb to problems because of the rift... but life isn't all tender love and peace. It's ugly, it's brutal, and unless you want success or failure to simply be a matter of luck - as opposed to the abilities of the child or lack thereof - sometimes the parent/child relationship won't always be the prettiest thing to witness.

 

[destrekor]

Her post was exactly what one would expect of an adolescent and his response was exactly what one would expect of an adolescent. Eventually she will grow up and possibly be a decent human being. Him, not so likely.

Or it was the response of a father that holds promises and doesn't want to coddle a child every step of the way.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

So if he used an axe, you'd expect him to be in the news some time later having been accused of axe-murdering his daughter?

Thank goodness that he didn't sell it on Craigslist.

 

[13Gigatons]

For those of you who are drawn to this issue, go look the dad's facebook page as well. There are some more elaboration there (daughter's reaction afterwards, etc).

This is posted way up there but just in case: http://www.facebook.com/tommyjordaniii

It's been removed....what happened afterwards?

 

[boomhower]

I approve! If more parents were like this guy we'd be a lot better off in 20 years that the road we are going down with these kids who have either never been disciplined because the parents want to be their friend or parents that just don't care and let the streets raise their kids. This is a lesson she won't ever forget.

 

[shortylickens]

What exactly does he achieve by destroying a computer?

Expressing your anger is more popular and socially acceptable than actually learning how to deal with it.

(For reference I needed help from a shrink so I guess I can understand why so few people are well adjusted, 150 an hour is a lot of money.)

 

[shortylickens]

Or it was the response of a father that holds promises and doesn't want to coddle a child every step of the way.

Maybe, maybe not. Shooting a laptop doesnt lend evidence to your theory. Taking it and locking it up for a week would have helped your argument.

 

[shortylickens]

I approve! If more parents were like this guy we'd be a lot better off in 20 years that the road we are going down with these kids who have either never been disciplined because the parents want to be their friend or parents that just don't care and let the streets raise their kids. This is a lesson she won't ever forget.

No. But it doesnt mean she actually learned anything from it either. No guarantee she will be better off for it. Right now she may just have learned that her dad is a psycho and she needs to be good if she doesnt wanna get hurt. All that does is set her up to be excellent trailer trash.

The lessons you wanna teach and the lessons you actually teach are often two different things.

Maybe I'm biased cuz I had an angry alcoholic father. He always thought he was teaching me good life lessons but mostly I just learned not to trust people, not to socialize well, and its ok to express my anger with violence. It will probably take me the rest of my life to unlearn what he actually taught. When I finally do get it all figured out I'll be too old to have kids. Cuz god knows I aint makin babies right now! No woman wants to breed with me and even if I could make a family, I'd probably screw up the kids.

 

[Krazy4Real]

:thumbsup:

 

[NFS4]

At first I thought he was being excessive, but after hearing his response/explanation, I'm COMPLETELY on his side:

==========================================
HOW HANNAH GOT CAUGHT
HOW SHE GOT CAUGHT: The Dog Did It.. no, really.

I finally came out and told her this today, partly because it was too funny NOT to share.

When my daughter made her post, she used Facebook's privacy settings to block "Family" and "Church" friend's lists. All her other friends could see it. We, of course could not.

One of our dogs is always getting in photos and therefore has her own Facebook pa...ge. It's just a cute dumb thing we did for fun. Well, the dog's profile is rarely used except when funny pictures of her are posted. Since that's not too often, and she has very few friends on Facebook, her wall is kind of bare, with relatively few posts showing up on it.

The other night we gave the dog a bath and there was a funny photo we uploaded to Facebook and tagged her in. I logged in as the dog the next morning to comment on the photo. However when I logged into the dog's profile, my daughter had forgotten to add her to the "family" list.... so our family dog's profile showed her post right there on the front page.

It wasn't any parent-hacking, computer spying, or monitoring of any kind.. the dog actually ratted her out completely by accident. She hasn't petted that dog all day today...
==========================================
HANNAH'S REACTION
For those that wondered, commented, criticized, and just in general wanted to know:
My daughter came through it fine.

Yes, she's in trouble, and yes she's grounded, but that doesn't mean every moment of her life has to be miserable. She's going to come to terms with the changes that will be present for a while; no TV privileges, no Internet, etc.

In the meantime, once the initial anger passed,... she sat with me reviewing some of the comments that have come in via Facebook and YouTube. One person even suggested collecting the shell casings and auctioning them on eBay. I said I’d do it if it would help contribute to her college fund! When I told her about it, she thought a minute, got a funny calculating expression on her face and said, “in that case you should shoot my phone too. We can use more bullets and I’ll go half-sies with ya on it! It’s not like I’m going to need it any time soon. And I can use the money we get to buy a new one.”

While the whole point of this story isn’t funny, what is funny to me is how weak some people out there think kids are. Our kids are as strong as we help them to be. My daughter took a horrible day in her life, had her crying fit, then got over it, accepted her punishment, and hasn’t let it (or people’s comments) destroy her strength. I don’t get any credit for that. She’s strong and able to overcome almost anything life throws at her.

Since this unsuspectingly threw her into the limelight much more strongly than either of us intended, I asked her if she wanted to make her own response video, and told her I’d let her do it if she wanted to. She doesn’t like being in front of the camera, so she declined, but I’ve told her if she wants to write a response or post a video response, I’d be OK with it. It’s only fair considering the viral nature of the whole thing. So far she’s not really interested. Quite frankly it seems she’s gotten bored of it much faster than the general public has. If that changes I’ll post it here.
==========================================
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
Media Response to Anita Li, from the Toronto Star

Since you took the time to email us with your requests like we asked, I’ll take the time to give you an honest follow-up response. You’ll have to forgive me for doing so publicly though; again I want to be sure my words are portrayed the way I actually say them, not cut together to make entirely different points.

Your questions were:
Q: Why did y...ou decide to reprimand your daughter over a public medium like YouTube?

A: Well, I actually just had to load the video file itself on YouTube because it’s a better upload process than Facebook, but the intended audience was her Facebook friends and the parents of those friends who saw her post and would naturally assume we let our children get away with something like that. So, to answer “Why did you reprimand her over a public medium like Facebook” my answer is this: Because that’s how I was raised. If I did something embarrassing to my parents in public (such as a grocery store) I got my tail tore up right there in front of God and everyone, right there in the store. I put the reprisal in exactly the same medium she did, in the exact same manner. Her post went out to about 452 people. Mine went out to about 550 people… originally. I had no idea it would become what it did.

Q: How effective do you think your punishment was (i.e. shooting her laptop and reading her letter online)?

A: I think it was very effective on one front. She apparently didn’t remember being talked to about previous incidents, nor did she seem to remember the effects of having it taken away, nor did the eventual long-term grounding seem to get through to her. I think she thought “Well, I’ll just wait it out and I’ll get it back eventually.” Her behavior corrected for a short time, and then it went back to what it was before and worse. This time, she won’t ever forget and it’ll be a long time before she has an opportunity to post on Facebook again. I feel pretty certain that every day from then to now, whenever one of her friends mentions Facebook, she’ll remember it and wish she hadn’t done what she did.

The second lesson I want her to learn is the value of a dollar. We don’t give her everything she asks for, but you can all imagine what it’s like being the only grandchild and the first child. Presents and money come from all sides when you’re young. Most of the things she has that are “cool” were bought or gifted that way. She’s always asked for very few things, but they’re always high-dollar things (iPod, laptop, smartphone, etc). Eventually she gets given enough money to get them. That’s not learning the value of a dollar. Its knowing how to save money, which I greatly applaud in her, but it’s not enough. She wants a digital SLR camera. She wants a 22 rifle like mine. She wants a car. She wants a smart phone with a data package and unlimited texting. (I have to hear about that one every week!)

She thinks all these things are supposed to be given to her because she’s got parents. It’s not going to happen, at least not in our house. She can get a job and work for money just like everyone else. Then she can spend it on anything she wants (within reason). If she wants to work for two months to save enough to purchase a $1000 SLR camera with an $800 lens, then I can guarantee she’ll NEVER leave it outside at night. She’ll be careful when she puts it away and carries it around. She’ll value it much more because she worked so hard to get it. Instead, with the current way things have been given to her, she's on about her fourth phone and just expects another one when she breaks the one she has. She's not sorry about breaking it, or losing it, she's sorry only because she can't text her friends. I firmly believe she'll be a LOT more careful when she has to buy her own $299.00 Motorola Razr smartphone.

Until then, she can do chores, and lots and lots of them, so the people who ARE feeding her, clothing her, paying for all her school trips, paying for her musical instruments, can have some time to relax after they finish working to support her and the rest of the family. She can either work to make money on her own, or she will do chores to contribute around the house. She’s known all along that all she has to do is get a job and a lot of these chores will go away. But if you’re too lazy to work even to get things you want for yourself, I’m certainly not going to let you sit idly on your rear-end with your face glued to both the TV and Facebook for 5 to 6 hours per night. Those days are over.

Q: How did your daughter respond to the video and to what happened to her laptop?

A: She responded to the video with “I can’t believe you shot my computer!” That was the first thing she said when she found out about it. Then we sat and we talked for quite a long while on the back patio about the things she did, the things I did in response, etc.

Later after she’d had time to process it and I’d had time to process her thoughts on the matters we discussed, we were back to a semi-truce… you know that uncomfortable moment when you’re in the kitchen with your child after an argument and you’re both waiting to see which one’s going to cave in and resume normal conversation first? Yeah, that moment. I told her about the video response and about it going viral and about the consequences it could have on our family for the next couple of days and asked if she wanted to see some of the comments people had made. After the first few hundred comments, she was astounded with the responses.

People were telling her she was going to commit suicide, commit a gun-related crime, become a drug addict, drop out of school, get pregnant on purpose, and become a stripper because she’s too emotionally damaged now to be a productive member of society. Apparently stripper was the job-choice of most of the commenters. Her response was “Dude… it’s only a computer. I mean, yeah I’m mad but pfft.” She actually asked me to post a comment on one of the threads (and I did) asking what other job fields the victims of laptop-homicide were eligible for because she wasn’t too keen on the stripping thing.

We agreed we learned two collective lessons from this so far:

First: As her father, I’ll definitely do what I say I will, both positive and negative and she can depend on that. She no longer has any doubt about that.

Second: We have always told her what you put online can affect you forever. Years later a single Facebook/MySpace/Twitter comment can affect her eligibility for a good job and can even get her fired from a job she already has. She’s seen first-hand through this video the worst possible scenario that can happen. One post, made by her Dad, will probably follow him the rest of his life; just like those mean things she said on Facebook will stick with the people her words hurt for a long time to come. Once you put it out there, you can’t take it back, so think carefully before you use the internet to broadcast your thoughts and feelings.

- Taken from Tommy Jordan's Facebook Page

 

[fstime]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9chNh_baJe0#!

Whole video is a hoax to get a video to go viral?

 

[blamb425]

After reading some of this man's Facebook posts regarding the incident, I've definitely found a lot of respect for him.

 

[QueBert]

I'm pretty impressed by his writing. When thinking of him as a gun toting laptop blasting dad, he comes across as very rational and intelligent sounding. When I initally heard about the story but hadn't read anything on it. I honestly just assumed he would be your typical redneck fool, I mean who shoots a laptop? lol. But he sounds like a hellova dad after I digested it all.

He definitely deserves a father of the year award, I'm off to Google to look for a petition I can sign that'll get him some recognition for how damned awesome he is.

 

[Mike Gayner]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9chNh_baJe0#!

Whole video is a hoax to get a video to go viral?

I'm 6min30secs into this painfully slow and verbose "expose`" and so far this old ah heck has provided nothing but unverifiable "inside info". I have no idea what this old guy's connection is or how he knows it's a hoax, but I see no reason to believe him.

 

[Miramonti]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9chNh_baJe0#!

Whole video is a hoax to get a video to go viral?

Hmmm...this just got more interesting.

 

[disappoint]

While the nerd in me hates to see a perfectly good laptop wasted, Dad made a critical error.

He should have shot it in a vertical position or opened into a "V". Must more entertaing when you have pass through.

He should have bought his daughter a jacket. Then when she leaves it lying around somewhere, pissed on it in a V pattern. V for victory.

 

[Joseph F]

Good for him. Fucking spoiled self-entitled kids nowadays seem to think their parents (and the world) owe them everything.

Sure, he COULD have given the laptop to someone else...but this will make a stronger point to her...and one she can look at every day. (I'd nail the fucker to her bedroom wall, just so she could be reminded)

HOWEVER, I'll be surprised if he actually sticks to his guns and follows through with the long-term punishment. Odds are, she gets a new laptop within a few weeks.

+1. I really don't understand the self-entitled attitude of today's kids.
Where does this come from?

 

[Stuxnet]

Why not just sell it and make some money back? Or donate it to someone else? I do not care at all that he's punishing her, she should be and severely! But he's destroying his own property, not hers. WTF is wrong with you that you feel the only response available is a violent one?

Asked and answered numerous times. RTFT.

 

[NetWareHead]

He is angry over her nonsense internet post, but what does he do, just one ups her with own internet video,

The child acted out in public and deserved to be reprimanded in public. When I was a child, if I ever acted up or threw a tantrum in public, I would get punished in front of everyone. An unruly child embarrasses not only herself but the parents who are supposed to be raising her.

Call it nonsense all you like, but if I read a post like that from your daughter, I'd be embarrassed for you and privately question your parenting style/skills.

The girl's post might look like an act of teenage rebellion but the things she said were embarrassing to the father and family. The father was correct in doing what he did, in a public fashion because that is the only way he can save his own face. Nobody likes unruly, unbehaved wild children but parents who permit shit like that to go unchecked are even more reviled. Instead of being reviled, the father now has my respect.

 

[Genx87]

LOL!! well I can certainly understand his frustration with his daughter. Have been to a similar place a couple times with my own 2 teenagers. I think though that his response with the whole video thing and shooting the laptop was probably not the most effective way to deal with it. He said he worked in IT. That could mean a lot of things but If he has any kind of networking background he could have had a lot more fun teaching her a lesson in a more private and just as frustrating manner for her. I put my networking background to use to teach my boys about how far disrespect and failure to follow the rules would get you in my home by turning my home network into a fully managed enterprise style network. I made great use of things like bandwidth throttling and prioritization, protocol and url filtering, and internet access per user authentication requirements to name a few. That last one was loads of fun. Requiring them to provide credentials at time intervals of my choosing to access the internet drove them to serious distraction particularly when I set the interval to every 30 seconds. It earned me the exalted title in my home of the Internet Nazi. Apparently Playing WoW isn't much fun when you get disconnected every 30 seconds because you internet access authentication expired. LOL!!! Throttling the ports that WoW uses to push updates to you was lots of fun to. One update took a week to download. The wailing and knashing of teeth was music to my ears. They did eventually learn the lessons and we were able to keep it all in the family. Oh and their friends thought it was hilarious and that I was some kind of IT god LOL!!! I figure if you are going to war with your teenager you may as well have some fun. When they see you having so much fun it will drive it home even more.

Now that is funny

Fiancee and I are dealing with her 13 year old boy not doing his school work and instead playing too much Black OPs and World of Tanks. Kids these days have it so easy in school. We went to conferences and of course got all the work he hasnt done yet. But they allowed him to turn it in for full credit. We got on his ass pretty good about that and yanked all access. It was hilarious when he came up to me and said "It says my account is disabled". Set the tone rather quickly we werent fucking around. He got caught up within a week and are managing it from there. I could try your idea. But at this point going with the black and white approach.