I had a bit of a problem this morning with my 'puter…doing weird things when I was trying to finish my Sociology presentation which is due tomorrow. Every time I typed in words/symbols it would tell me I was a ‘Goddamn Woman’ or would tell me to ‘Screw You Hippie’. You get the picture.
Anyway, being somewhat technologically challenged, I assumed I had a virus and spent many hours downloading and running virus-scans and checking every damn program in the computer. Those hours COULD have been spent doing my assignment and studying for a class test (worth 25% of my mark) which I ALSO have in the morning.
After MUCH mucking-around I discovered that my youngest child (but not for long…) had screwed around with the ‘Auto-Correct’ function in MS Word. Now I want to pay him back.
It can’t be physically painful (otherwise I’m SURE he’d call the Au-thor-I-Ties). He’s 13 yrs old BTW.
It can’t be too long-lasting because I can’t afford therapy for him AND me.
But it MUST give me a sense of delicious revenge.
He’ll be home in about 2 hours, so you’ve gotta be quick here! I asked his older bro’s and sis about appropriate pay-backs, but they just laughed and congratulated his cheekiness. God I hate kids.
C’mon, there must be some brilliant ideas out there amongst you lot. I promise NOT to tell the judge where I got the inspiration from!
Lock him in a darkened room for a few hours, and make him listen to Parliament on the radio.
Conversely, I’ll be in Melbourne tomorrow, so I can put him on The Apparatus (if it’ll get through airport security). It’s from the dark ages, and was constr… ooh, you said nothing physical. Oh well.
Does Junior have any MP3’s on the PC? Wouldn’t it be horrible if they were all suddenly deleted or if what he thought was Metallica’s “Sandman” turned out to be Lawrence Welk music?
Alternatively, you could always explain things to him the way Bill Cosby’s father supposedly did, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out. And it doesn’t matter to me because I can make another one just like you.”
Finally, you could simply make vague comments about what you’re going to do to him and just let his tortured imagination do the rest.
With regards my first suggestion I just remembered the time my mum found a copy of Playboy in my brothers room.
She sat down and read it, made notes and then when he got home from school she asked him to sit down and discuss with her some of the issues it raised.
Tell him the PC dictionary is corrupt from his antics and that he has to retype it all. Give him a few hours (days) and call it off.
Tell him you suspected a virus and had to reinstall the OS and that you couldn’t recover any of his data or games (rename the .exe if necessary). Basically anything he thought was valuable.
Get some pictures of him when he was younger (and in embarassing situations) and email them to his friends.
Tell him that the garbage needs sorting in preparation for recycling.
13 years old, huh? You could be sure to drive him to school/pick him up from school/be prominently seen in public in places where he hangs out with his friends for the next week or so.
I’ll it to your imagination what to wear and how to behave while you’re out in public with him. Be creative.
Yes, yes, YES! Thank you all…I now have some wonderful tortures to put him through when he (finally) gets home…funny that!..he’s late tonite!
First I put a ‘notice’ on the front door to 'Beware the Spanish Inquisition…‘cos nobody expects it’. He will have a vague idea that something is a’foot.
Now I’ll go through and delete ALL of his MP3’s and his games.
I won’t do the ‘embarrass him at school’ bit, because all of his mates know me and they’d just think it was normal anyway!
And THEN I’ll make him listen to my daggy music all night.
Loudly.
And I’ll be singing/fluting/guitaring along.
After which TLD, as you recommended, a dose of Parliament would be good for his soul (and his regret!)
But what is the WORST thing you can do to a 13yr old?
I think I’m gonna go with Tuckerfan and just make mumbled threats and leave the rest up to his creative imagination!.. I’ll keep ya’s posted on the depth of ‘regret’ he experiences!
Find all the games he plays on the computer. Find anything in any folder called “savegames,” or “saved” or something along those lines. Open up those files in Notepad and type some random junk in the middle of the file (since mostly they should be a mess of symbols and blanks anyway). That should corrupt his saved games.
I’m not sure if he’s home yet, or if you’ve gotten your revenge, but there’s one thing that I’ve found that drives people nuts.
Take one shoe from every pair that he owns, or maybe just his favourite shoes (probably best to leave his school shoes alone) and hide it. I don’t know if it’ll work on a 13 year old, but everyone I’ve done this to, gets so frustrated about only being able to find one shoe. Just stay quiet, and smile. Do not reveal the hiding place. Once he’s suffered enough, take his shoes back into his room (when he’s in the toilet or something) and smile even wider, when they suddenly ‘appear’.
I know it sounds tame, but it’s hilarious to watch the frustration of only having one shoe Other than that, I like the naked baby pics to his friends (male and female)… it’s evil and will work a charm.
I used the " I made you and I can make another one just like you" phrase the other day with my heathens at the store.
The woman behind us broke out in fits of laughter.
Threads like this one and the curses thread remind me never to cross the masses around here. Way too scary!
Public embarrassment, especially around girls he knows is the best. Or wait till he doesn’t feel good, load him up with NyQuil and when he passes out, tie some pretty ribbons in his hair and give him a touch of lipstick and take pictures. Do with the pictures as your imagination sees fit.
But I did want to add a caution to making him listen to Parliament. It’s possible, just possible, that he could become one of the strange folks, like myself, that really digs them. Then it would backfire on you when he is playing it loud and endlessly.
DEFINITELY embarrass the little darling at school. If at all possible, you should go with what meek said. A 13-year-old does NOT want to be mothered in front of his friends, so this should definitely send the message that you are not to be messed with.
This is assuming you are leaning towards messing with his mind. The first thing I thought of when reading this thread was just to old-fashioned punish him. He did a terrible thing which showed no respect to his parent. This deserves a grounding at least, preferably with loss of privileges like after-school activities and such.
I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, as I enjoy a good prank as much as the next doper, but if you’re trying to establish a precedence for lack of respect this would be the best way to accomplish it.
I’m with neneiron’s first instinct. Just go for a simple punishment. To ‘strike back’ doesn’t seem to be the wisest long term strategy.
Publicly humiliating your thirteen year old will probably do more harm than good, for a couple reasons:
He’s at the age where looking cool in front of friends is of paramount importance. I suspect that embarrassing him in front of them’ll probably cause a bit more hurt than he deserves - at least temporarily. Teens tend to blow things out of proportion.
Plus, it’ll probably make him truly loathe you for a while. This is tricky 'cause;
A) I’m guessing it’s not a good feeling to have your kid hate you, even though you know they’ll get over it, &
B) It’s part of what leads to Issue 2, revenge.
“Issue 2”. I feel like John McLaughlin. Anyway…
My theory’s that if you go the “embarrassment” route, your kid’s gonna be especially pissed & try to really screw you - and you won’t really have a leg to stand on when protesting it. Why?
You’ve already gone the retaliation (as oppsed to punishment) route. He’s learned that the way to express his displeasure at being disrespected is to do the same, upping the ante. Baaaaaad.
Other than that, I like the naked baby pics to his friends (male and female)… it’s evil and will work a charm.