My 15 year old daughters reaction to "Laptop dad" [View all]

[Mother Of Four]

After reading alot of the replies to other threads about laptop dad, I decided to do something. I showed the video to my two teenage girls (15, 17) with no preamble and then asked them what they thought afterwards. We live in the same state as laptop dad, NC.

What was interesting is neither of my girls even remotely though that him shooting the laptop was a threat against the daughter in question. They thought it was a little bit of overkill, but that it got the message across with finality, that's a collapsed version of what they said last night.

I watched my girls faces as they were looking at the video, eyebrows went up at the "too old to wipe your own a**" comment and some muttering happened. Surprise at the "cleaning lady" comments, and nods to the dad when he was defending said lady.

Both girls were more than willing to talk about it, my 17 year old was mostly shaking her head and saying "Drama much?" then capped it off with "That girl needs to get a serious reality check."

I focused more on my 15 year old, because of the age and she did something very similar to what that girl did. Her's was discovered in a chat record stating that her dad was an arrogant a** and her mother was a controlling b**ch.

What we did:

Removed the laptop from her possesion for two months.

Removed access to any cell phone except mine or her dads, so that we could have a better idea of who she talked to and when.

Removed the priviledge of facebook or any other social networking site until she matured enough to understand that the "internet" is not a privacy safe place. Anything and everything you say or do leaves footprints. It may be mild as a teen, but have have SERIOUS repercussions as an adult. Tenative date is when she turns 16.

The effect it had was to show what controlling could feel like, and it made her take a whole new view on the word.

My 15 yr old is sitting with me as I type this (I typed this out in openoffice before copying it to post), and I looked at her asking her "What would you say about it now that you had the night to think it over?" She said that she feels bad for the girl because she's been where this other girl has been and has had her laptop taken away for two months "I would never repeat it because I learned my lesson. That girl is really stupid for repeating it."

I asked "What do you feel about him shooting it?"

She replied "That she got what she deserved, especially since she called the family friend the cleaning lady. I mean there used to be four kids living here, we each had chores we had to do. Now theres just two of us kids helping with chores. Heck, I'm going to volunteer when I turn 16 to get my liscense, get a job and still finish up school. That girl has it good, she needs to stop complaining. She's lucky she got a laptop to begin with, the only reason I got mine was for XXXXXXXX school I was accepted into." (she said the name, I bleeped it for privacy's sake)

"I mean, she was stupid for trying to block her dad to begin with. He was IT, and he was upgrading her computer so he was going to be digging in her computer anway. No matter how much she wanted her privacy. Heck, most upgrades I ask for are upgrades I need and don't cost alot of money. Um, my laptop isn't that good but I appreciate it. I have a phone, but I only use it for an alarm because the minutes ran out. I don't bug to ask for a new camera or extra minutes and I'm happy with what I got. So she needs to shut her mouth, apologize to her dad and work off her punishment. I worked off my punishment and I turned it right around. " She added as an afterthought "I hate it that I hurt you so bad, I don't ever want to do that again."

(Note here, she did turn her whole attitude around, even loaning her laptop to her brother for AIT. Before all this happened in our family she was secretive and possesive about the laptop. Now, if I ask she just hands it to me and says go for it because she knows I'm checking for her sake and not just mine. Part of it was I let her see just how much her words hurt me, and told her that it broke my heart to know she was talking about us like that to people we welcomed into our home. Her friends. I kept nothing back, not the dissapointment or the tears. I let her see it all.)

I then asked her "There are many adults out there that feel this is abuse...what do you feel about it?"

She replied "That's not abuse, it's just a stupid laptop. It's her own dang fault for putting that rant out there. If people want to see abuse, look it up on the computer but that is not abuse. Wasteful, but not abuse. I feel bad for the whole family because now they have to make up the money lost from the computer. "

I asked "What would YOU have done had you been that dad?"

She replied "I'd have found someone who needed it and given it to them, or I would have kept it myself or pawned it. Cause that computer could be used by someone else, who wouldn't normally be able to afford it. I would have said to that girl "This is a really nice laptop, I feel bad that you aren't mature enough to own it." and then "It's not MY fault that you got it taken away, you were the one that was being disrespectful. So now it can go to people that will treat it with the respect that it deserves."

I asked her "Any other thoughts?" (She was watching me type this, correcting me when needed. She wanted her full thoughts on this out there.)

My 15 year old brought up one thing as well, she mentioned after- that the girl didn't even really take a break between the episodes. She got off grounding, according to her dad recently, and then turned around and posted something else. It makes my youngest wonder, how does she gain the respect she needs to get a laptop? " I'm being serious here, I had to work for it. I don't want it taken away. I don't understand why she's being so hard headed. Families need to share the work to make sure the house stays nice, and kids do chores because it helps them learn how to take care of themselves too. It's important to be part of a team, because especially now you have to rely on others more and more. You don't want to burn your bridges with your parents, look at how many kids are still at home after highschool because they have no money?" (She has the unique perspective of having a 17 sister, 19 brother, 21 brother and seeing how hard it is for the older two has sobered her up to reality.)

So, the reason I'm posting this is to get my 15 year old daughters voice out there on this. A similar situation, for the same aged girl in the same state. Food for thought so to speak.

Thanks for reading.
MoF