There isn't a "one size fits all" to parenting because not all parents are from the same race, religion, gender, socioeconomic background or mind. Same with their children. Another thing you guys seem to forget when saying, "Bad Parent!" or "If your kid is shit it's because of you" - Kids are capable of making their own decisions and acting how they want, despite their parents best efforts. I'm almost certain all of us here did something our parents asked/told us not to do. Does that mean they're bad parents because you didn't listen?
I have no problem with what this guy did. He said (and I'm posting this because some people have no interest in looking deeper before making judgement)...
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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 you 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.
"Wah, he broke expensive equipment!"
Who cares if he bought it?
"Wah, there was no need for him to publicly humiliate her!"
She tried to publicly humiliate him and his wife.
"Wah, he could've just yelled at her!"
Not all kids respond to, or learn from, yelling.
I know I didn't. My dad would yell at me but then I'd just leave the room and give him the finger. I was disrespectful to him... not because of anything he did, but because I had more fun being that 'rebel' prick. But when my old man grounded me for a summer for forging a report card, or when he sat behind me in one of my classes for weeks because I would always sleep in that class... or when he'd make me write this long ass sentence hundreds of times (like Bart Simpson) when I'd fail to do my chores... or the time he and I got into a fist fight because I raise my hand to my mother. Yea. Sometimes kids are just fuckholes and despite what parents can say or do, tough love could be the best option. None of us are in any position to criticize these people.
PS: CPS and the Police said there was no harm done.
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For those that feel the need to keep calling the police and CPS. lol
Apparently both the local police and the department of social services are OK with it. Yes they came. Of course they came. They received enough "Oh my god he's going to kill his daughter" comments that they had to. I knew that the moment it went viral.. it was too late and it was inevitable. I'm only surprised it took as long as it did to be honest.
The police by the way said "Kudos, Sir" and most of them made their kids watch it. I actually had a "thank you" from an entire detectives squad. And another police officer is using it in a positive manner in his presentation for the school system. How's about those apples? Didn't expect THAT when you called the cops did you?
The kind lady from Child Protective Services looked all through the house, the yard, and found ours to be a healthy home. She saw the unloaded guns in their rack with the magazines removed and stored separately and safely. Funny thing: The case officer asked to see "the gun".... "Umm, sir, may I see the actual..umm.. weapon used for the video?" She wasn't at all scared of me but I could tell she doesn't like guns as a general rule. To each their own though. She was comfortable that I was adhering to NC gun safety regulations for the protection of minors, and that's all she needed. But of course if you want to continue, I'm just going to leave a pot of coffee on for the next officers who come by. (Digress: Maybe I can get Krispy Kreme to sponsor me with lifetime donuts? Oh God that would be heaven. Dunkin? Crap... KK all the way....)
She asked if I minded if she interviewed my daughter privately but that I didn't have to agree. I let her meet in private and then she and I met for about an hour and a half. At the end of the day, no I'm not losing my kids, no one's in danger of being ripped from our home that I know of, and I actually got to spend some time with the nice lady and learn some cool parenting tips that I didn't know.. I use them on my 8 year old son, but not on my fifteen year old daughter.. but now I will! There were a few things I thought she was "too old" for, but after talking to the case worker, I feel like it's worth a shot to try them. Maybe I'll sell those secrets in my next book! (Seriously? You just got mad didn't you? I'm kidding. Besides, that would still only give me two pages of material- one parent tip page and one page on handgun selection techniques appropriate for different electronic destructive purposes.)
