I can’t stop thinking about the newly viral You Tube video posted by Tommy Jordan, entitled Facebook Parenting: For the Troubled Teen. You can watch it below if you haven’t seen it.
So many parents have jumped on this guy’s bandwagon and are responding to his video with verbal “pats on the back” and accolades for being a great dad.
What?!
We can all agree that this teen’s behavior was rude, offensive, and punishable.
I hope we also agree that sometimes our kids can drive us to the brink of insanity and that we might have irrational and outrageous reactions to having our buttons pushed.
What surprises me, though, is that so many parents see no connection between her “spoiled behavior” now and what must have led up this moment. This fifteen year-old girl didn’t become spoiled without help from her parents. If I fed my child a steady diet of Twinkies for fifteen years and then posted a video of me humiliating her for being fat, would the world congratulate me?
I suspect this girl complains so viciously about her chores because something bigger is wrong, but she can’t yet process it. If she had an understanding of the subtleties of her father’s personality and the vocabulary to express it, I think she’d be complaining about having been raised by a self-righteous and humiliating dad.
Three cheers for tough love and discipline! Three boos for this guy who doesn’t know how to do it right but thinks so highly of himself he thought he’d put it out there for the world to see.
Here are some specific things this dad does wrong:
1) Teaching his child to stop throwing a temper tantrum by throwing a temper tantrum.
2) Humiliating his child publically.
3) Punishing his child when he was steaming hot mad.
4) Spending $130 and 6 hours on his child’s laptop after he told her to get a job but she refused.
If you’ve seen the video, let me know what you think.
Michelle Icard | Founder and CEO
Michelle In the Middle
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11 comments
What bothered me in the video was that he ruined the computer. With so many wonderful children in need of proper school supplies, why wreck something of value? It seemed so irresponsible. The message would have been just as intense and the result the same if he had just given the computer to a child in need.
Krista, I’m with you! I read a comment that he should have taken her to donate her laptop to a shelter and then driven her to volunteer there every Saturday for a month. But I think he wanted to throw a fit more than he wanted to make a real impact. Thanks for your comment. – M
I agree with you completely Michelle that two wrongs don’t make a right and it’s pretty obvious where this teen models her behavior. HOWEVER, as we are raising our kids in this high tech generation, it’s hard to get the message across to your child that when you post something on facebook, THE ENTIRE WORLD CAN SEE IT. To this father, case in point, although I’m sure this Albemarle fella had no idea the level of response he’d receive. It’s clear that he reacted with a hot temper, I’m sure he has major regrets. Would I do this myself EVER, no way. But you know, it worked for him and I don’t judge. His daughter will never cross him again. He now has a voice.
Jen, it is so scary to think about kids not understanding that what they post is forever available to the world. (Scary for me, too, as I blog!) I suspect this girl will not have learned a lesson about indulgence and respect as much as she’ll have learned to get the you-now-what out of Dodge as soon as humanly possible!! We’ll probably never know, so it’s pure speculation. The good that came of this, from my perspective, is so many important conversations being held around this topic now.
Michelle, I agree! Thanks for taking a different and well-explained view.
Thanks for your comment, Lee! I’m glad this resonated with you.
Thank you Michelle. I think you verbalized my thoughts exactly. I have had several facebook friends post this video and I have avoided commenting on it. Unfortunately, while I don’t think his daughter’s behavior is particularly un-typical for a teen… I find HIS behavior disturbing. He is an adult and I don’t think he chose a very mature way to deal with this.
I felt the same way, Lisa, when I read all the comments rolling in! It’s an interesting debate. Think he could have stripped her room of all her belongings and taken her to volunteer to get them back…or something along those lines. But the truth is that is a lot harder and more time consuming than firing off an angry video. PS: I also think he might have waited a couple minutes to enjoy that cigarette …
Wow – the video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Tommy Jordan?! So now this guy’s going to get rich off this… Disturbing!!
I totally agree with you Michelle! I think this dad went about this all wrong and probably has really damaged his relationship with his daughter.
My Daughter found this video online and showed it to me. I personally could not get pass all the bad language.