It would be interesting to see what led up to the daughters frantic posting. I wonder if teens are being more disrespectful these days
because most parents punish their kids in disrespectful ways? Which comes first, rebellion and then punishment or punishment and then rebellion?
As a child, my parents would react like the video dad did (not with a gun, but destroying my treasures) and to this day, I find it hard to
communicate with them as adults. I remember so well the intense anger I felt and left home at 17. When I look back, I wished that they had
taken parenting courses (all they had back then was PET) because there are so many better ways to deal with children’s disrespect.
The memories of my childhood have faded … yet, that video will be around until that daughter is in her sixties. Does her Dad want her
to relive that over and over and over again? I think that yes, she was disrespectful and stupid to post it, but Dad could just quit paying
for her cell, internet and all the million other things he probably does for her. As the mom of two teens and two young adults, I have never
punished them, ever, in their teen years, and they are in no way disrespectful to me or others. We have a problem – we talk. If they have a
problem with chores, they talk. It’s the adult way. Respect must be mutual in love relationships. I would treat them as I do to any other adult.
I certainly wouldn’t blow away my husband’s laptop. Why would I do it to my other love relationships? Posted by Judy Arnall, author of the bestseller “Discipline Without
Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment or bribery.”