Let's make this clear: responding to your teenage child's words with violence is NOT OKAY. [View all]

[TheWraith]

And that's exactly what the father in the now-infamous laptop-shooting video was doing. The fact that the violence was directed against his daughter's computer and not his daughter directly doesn't make it any less threatening. If I didn't like something that you said, and so I busted into your house and smashed your computer to pieces, would YOU not take that as an implicit threat that next time it might be you? That I was so filled with uncontrollable rage that I would destroy something valuable just for my revenge? And over some comments made on Facebook? If she had said them to him in person, would he have turned around and hit her? How much of a gap is there between being so angry that you'll premeditatedly take out a laptop and destroy it, and being so angry that you'll take a swing at someone?

That said, I find it frankly appalling to hear people justifying what he did, claiming that it was an appropriate response to her "disrespecting" him, or that she was "spoiled." You are horribly, horribly wrong. There is NO SCENARIO under which you are justified in threatening your child with violence, period. And if you cannot tell the difference between taking away privileges and violently destroying something for revenge, you should be reconsidering your parenting qualifications.