Well real parenting is not dead

[Jand3rson]

Thats how you handle it.

This. And to all the people talking about how "wasteful" it is that he destroyed her laptop, that's his right! If he bought it, then it's within every right as a parent to destroy it. Mommy and Daddy giveth, Mommy and Daddy taketh away. If he was sweating the money he spent on it that much, he wouldn't have done it.

This act was THE PERFECT catalyst to change this shitty kid's life. And if this doesn't do it, I doubt anything will. I'm 31 years old and a parent of a 6 year old daughter, with another one on the way. I spend 6 days a week in the houses of anywhere from 4-10 random strangers per day, most of them with kids around this (girl in the video) age, and I see the way they act and treat their parents. These kids have EVERYTHING, worlds more than I and most of my friends had at this age, and they don't have an ounce of respect for it, because it's all just given to them.

[M-technik-3]

My ex showed my son this video on Friday. When I chatted with him he mentioned, I asked him what he came away with it. Said that she basically was ungrateful. Good to know that he understood the context of it.

I asked him what his thoughts were when the dad shot the laptop, and he was said he was just trying to emphasis a message. Granted the boy is 17 and graduates soon so he gets life but has a lot more to learn.

[E30 Wagen]

I see the way they act and treat their parents. These kids have EVERYTHING, worlds more than I and most of my friends had at this age, and they don't have an ounce of respect for it, because it's all just given to them.

I still think it all comes down to parenting.

If the parents are going to cave in and give their kid everything, then what do you expect to happen. If kids aren't exposed to what it takes to earn something, then of course there is going to be no respect for it.

[mikeedler]

I still think it all comes down to parenting.

raise your kid right from young on and that crap won't happen. end! kinda stupid video if you ask me, and the guy is so dumb he can't even talk properly.

[Dagamus(NM)]

He speaks proper enough for Texas and being pissed off. I know when I am angry like that words can lump up in my throat. It isn't like he did multiple takes on this, I'm pretty sure he winged the speech.

[Jand3rson]

He speaks proper enough for Texas and being pissed off. I know when I am angry like that words can lump up in my throat. It isn't like he did multiple takes on this, I'm pretty sure he winged the speech.

This. You could tell he was stammering, visibly angry, and probably VERY upset. It must be awful to see your own kid write things like this about you. Calling the guy "so dumb" is out of line here, considering he also stated that he works in IT. Especially that section about her "not being there when they're too old to wipe their own asses". My jaw dropped when he read that part, I was in total shock. What a shitty person that kid is.

Another aspect that people haven't touched on is that he says "your mother, your stepmother". Right there is a clue to what might go on in this family. She's obviously in a divorced family, and there's that dynamic going on in the background. Who knows what kind of parenting she's getting from the biological mother (single or w/ boyfriend/husband), and the biological father/stepmother at that home.

There are simply WAY too many variables in this equation that you or I will never know about, and that all factored into what led up to this point. All we can do is speculate from what we've seen here.

[mrsleeve]

Mike:

When anyone gets that pissed off a stutter here and there is not a sign of lack of intelligence

Some very intelligent and influential people struggle/struggled with stuttering;

Your a 50's GM guy. Harley Earl

Thomas Jefferson. YES that Thomas Jefferson

Churchill

Steven Hawking (before ALS relegated him to his current state) yeah hes stupid

Charles Darwin

Lewis Carrol the guy who wrote Alice and wonderland

Just a few of the more famous ones.

So your going to bang on a guy that is pissed off and mashed a couple of words in a emotional display. Then judge his level of intellect based on those few instances coupled with his choice of why and how to destroy his own property ????

I think you have been living in Germany for too long


Oh here is a list form UNV. of MN with a whole lot more people who have had issues with a stutter, I am sure they are all too stupid as well to be productive and contributing members of society too right

http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/famous/famouspws.html

[MR E30 325is]

I want to drive to Texas and give this man a high five.

More parents need to act this way. I see kids acting like the way his daughter did, in my own family! And my aunts and uncles roll over and take the temper tantrums, and public embarassment. Like it is a natural part of raising a child. I took my lickings, and sat in my timeouts, both as a child and as a grown man. And it has done nothing but make me a better person.

Call it my military background, or the way I was raised, but a respect for your elders is on the top of my list.

[Kershaw]

every single generation complains about how lazy and ungrateful the next generation is.

get over yourselves guys.

you can trace that complaint back to the greeks 2000 years ago.

[smooth]

he works in IT

bet he's a code monkey...heard a lot of if, then, else logic in there :D

[mrsleeve]

every single generation complains about how lazy and ungrateful the next generation is.

get over yourselves guys.

you can trace that complaint back to the greeks 2000 years ago.

your right, this is very true, but has it not been getting much worse in the last 10-15 years or so ????

[urbancynic]

The kid is lucky she was born a girl. My dad would have beat my ass, kicked me out of the house and said good day. I'm only 21 but both my generation and the generation below me are something else, so entitled and unwilling to put in a hard days work. Dad didn't go far enough.

I have to agree. No one wants to actually Work for a living anymore. They just want a free paycheck and everything handed to them. There are exceptions, but they seem few and far between.

Truth - he probably paid for the computer in the first place.
Truth - where does it say in the law that teens are required to be given a computer?

Perhaps this will make her actually look for a job and learn what it takes to earn a buck. Maybe it wont. Either way she wont be sitting around on her ass anymore wasting time on facebook, myyearbook, and myspace giving her more time to look for work.

I dealt, and still deal with this sort of thing with my step daughter.


She didn't want a job. Said she had no time to work. The only apps she got were ones her mother and I picked up for her. Most never got turned in. She said a job would ruin her future. No shit. She actually said that.

Because of that attitude, all extras were gone. during the summer she lived on ramen. She wanted fancy shampoos and conditioners. She got the $1 bottle of Suave from Walmart. She wanted shirts and outfits because she didn't like what she had. Guess what, everything she had, and still has, has nothing wrong with it, so she got no new clothes.

She wanted a new laptop. Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. Her mother and I do well, but not so well that we feel like throwing money away at someone who sits around all day refusing to do anything and wasting our money by running up utilities while not appreciating anything we do for her.

Our luck was that one of the apps that did manage to get turned in resulted in her getting a call 6 months later. She got a job by luck. Now she has to pay for any extras she wants. We think she's slowly learning that she needs to take care of herself. I think its too little too late because she'll be 18 on April 1st and hasn't bothered to figure out where she plans to live for college.

Her father doesn't pay child support either. last year he barely paid $100 a month. He owes 110k in back support for her.

He was dumb and had a savings account though so the state seized it. Wife got $1500 which immediately went towards bills. It will probably be the only child support she sees all year. Knowing this, when the kid found out her immediate response was to call her mom and say "New computer for Caitlin". Not even a "hey mom".

Whats wrong with kids these days.

I see it when I look to hire younger people too. They are told up front what is expected of them. Then get pissed when they are in trouble for playing on facebook instead of doing their jobs.

I don't think he was out of line at all. What happened to simply taking time to sit down with your kids... and hit them. Not child abuse. Just spankings when it is warranted.

Thats how I was raised. I screwed up, I got spanked. I think I'm a better person for it.

End Rant.

[smooth]

What happened to simply taking time to sit down with your kids... and hit them. Not child abuse. Just spankings when it is warranted.

what happened is that human knowledge about how the developing brain works progressed to the point where we now understand that hitting someone doesn't help them learn anything when their brains aren't fully developed.

coupled with what we already knew, that children do what they see, we realized that hitting children is not only ineffectual but counter-productive to teaching them how to be adults with healthy boundaries and perspectives.

case in point: your story would be slightly altered if you could hit your step-daughter. you were raised with spankings and you think they'd be an effective parenting tool. the things you listed, however (except for the ramen due to its worthless nutritional value), worked. That's right, they worked. Your step-daughter has a job and she's headed for college and she's not even 18 yet. It doesn't get much better than that. Had she grown up being hit by you who knows what would have happened but unless you wanted her to get a job at 15 and figure out where she wants to live by 16 you can't really argue you'd have better results.

[craiggroves91]

I bet all her friends have showed her at school and pick on her for it.
He should have taken her out in the field and made her shoot her own computer.

No need for a video and to share it with everyone.

I bet he will end up buying her a new macbook pro and she'll continue to be a bitch and still get spoiled.

For all we know he is just trolling and that was just a cheap recycled laptop.

[urbancynic]

what happened is that human knowledge about how the developing brain works progressed to the point where we now understand that hitting someone doesn't help them learn anything when their brains aren't fully developed.

coupled with what we already knew, that children do what they see, we realized that hitting children is not only ineffectual but counter-productive to teaching them how to be adults with healthy boundaries and perspectives.

case in point: your story would be slightly altered if you could hit your step-daughter. you were raised with spankings and you think they'd be an effective parenting tool. the things you listed, however (except for the ramen due to its worthless nutritional value), worked. That's right, they worked. Your step-daughter has a job and she's headed for college and she's not even 18 yet. It doesn't get much better than that. Had she grown up being hit by you who knows what would have happened but unless you wanted her to get a job at 15 and figure out where she wants to live by 16 you can't really argue you'd have better results.

There is way more in to that story then what I put in there. Did she get a job? Yes. Because one fell into her lap. She didn't have to work for it. Was she expected to work at 15? No. But she was expected to try to find work at 16 to teach her about responsibility. She refused with one excuse after another. That's why the extras and "luxuries" were taken away. I didn't have a hand in Raising her, I came in when she was 14. To clear up too, the ramen was what was made available to her for lunches if she chose not to eat leftovers. She still got the same meal her mother and I made for dinner. If shed wanted anything special lile fast food she had to pay for it herself... Kind of hard when you don't work.

I never said spankings are the be all end all, but sometimes they are warranted and needed. I don't know about you or how you were raised but I know when I was spanked I knew why it was happening and I learned to never do it again. So it obviously worked on me. Don't confuse spanking for abuse. It has to fit the crime and there becomes an age when it is no longer practical or useful as a tool.