Rate these parenting skills

In My Humble Opinion
1

The scene: A beach. Temps in the high 60s. Southwest winds around 20+ knots. High tide. Around 3pm.

The players: Mom, Dad, and Kid. Kid is around 3 or 4.

Act I, Scene I:

(Mom is sitting on beach towel. Kid and Dad playing with a kite.)

Kid: My turn! My turn!

Dad: (Deploys kite) Let me get it started, son, then you can have a turn.

Kid: Your turn! Your turn!

(Kite rises to about 20 feet. The wind is blowing it towards a boat-filled cove.)

Dad: OK, Billy, I’m going to let you hold it now. Now be sure you don’t let go of it. Daddy will be mad if you let go of it. It will fly away if you let go of it, and we’ll never get it back.

Kid: My turn!

Dad: Make sure you don’t let go of it! Hold on tight, and don’t let go!

Kid: Yeah! Yeah!

(Dad hands off kite string to Kid)

Kid: It’s flying! Yay!

(Kid then opens his hand. Kite drifts down, away, and towards the water. Dad makes some attempt to grab it, but it gets away.)

Dad: Billy! I told you not to let go of it! Look what you’ve done!

Mom: Oh honey, he didn’t do it on purpose.

Dad: Yes he did! I told him not to let go, and he let go!

Mom: Billy, go sit down on that rock over there. You’re on time out.

(He does.)

Dad: I worked really hard on that kite! Oh, man! I really wanted to fly it.

Mom: Apologize to your father.

Dad: No. I’m not accepting his apology. It took me a long time to make that! Now it’s gone forever!

(Kid starts crying.)

Dad: He did it on purpose. Did you see that? He just let go of it!

Mom: Billy, that was a naughty thing to do. What do you say to your father?

Kid: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Dad: Oh, man. I really wanted to fly that thing. I worked really hard on it! We might as well just go home now.

Kid: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I DON’T WANNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Mom: Billy, settle down.

Kid: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Dad: Honey, he’s got to learn that his actions have consequences.

Mom: OK, Billy, we’re going home now.

Kid: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

(Exunt all, stage left.)

2

Sounds like Daddy is the one who needs a time out.

Understanding what is age appropriate for your child would be a mark of a good parent. …and not behaving like a child when your child does not live up to your unrealistic expectations…

3

The father was a little hard on the kid. I have a 3 year old and I could see her doing something like that. She is pretty smart and not always a sweet little angel so it would be hard to rule out that she didn’t do it on purpose.

I might put her in time out if she did something like that but I doubt I would make the whole family leave. If the kite was that important, he shouldn’t have let the kid handle it at all.

4

Please tell me this isn’t a true story. I rate Dad’s parenting skills a -2 on a scale of 1 to 10, and Mom a -1.

5

Does this kid really belong to them? Please tell me that they rented this kid for a day or that it’s a nephew, there for a day, please.

I give these parents negative scores-- these two clowns show less emotional maturity than the kid!

It’s a damn kite. He is 3 or 4–TOO young to be reliable in this type of situation.

Could Mom waffle any more? Could Dad act more like a spoiled baby brat?

The only one acting age appropriate here is the kid, whom I pity with all my heart. Someday, his therapist will hear this story…
:rolleyes:

6

Agreed. The dad should have flown his special kite himself, and gotten the kid a $10 kite from Target to fly.

7

Yes, it’s true story. Happened yesterday.

Despite the dad’s protestations that he put a lot of work into it, it didn’t look like much more than a $10 kite, little assembly required. I didn’t see a whole lot of quality craftsmanship there.

In the dad’s defense, I was in a similar situation myself a month ago. Except it was a friend’s kid, it was rockets, and I’d put a metric buttload of work into them. I’d have been VERY upset if the rockets got damaged. The again, that’s why I didn’t let the kid handle them, no matter how much he begged.

In the mom’s defense, she waffled, but only to quickly come around to dad’s point of view. I’ve been hearing lately that consistant parenting is good parenting.

I do have to wonder if the dad was familiar with the concept of “downwind.” He could have gone to the other end of the beach and had some safety margin. Or they could have gone to a field.

8

I’m pretty sure that the kid did it on purpose. My girlfriend’s take is that if you tell a small child–repeatedly–not to let go, the little scientist inside him is going to want to find out why not. Hell, I’d be tempted, just to see what happens.

9

I hope he did it on purpose. “Fuck you, Dad!” :slight_smile:

10

Yep, I agree that Dad was over the top. I’m all for discipline in principle, but the kid was just too young. He was set up to fail; the father should have discreetly held the end of the string. And if the dad set such great store by the kite, he shouldn’t have put that temptation in the way of his kid. Excessive harshness, lack of realism – off with his head. (What beach was this, by the way?)

11

Magannsett. In between Monument and Old Silver.

12

If that’s too vague, go over the Bourne Bridge. Take 28 South to 151. Go West. If your car starts filling with water, you’ve gone too far.

13

What if you spy Ireland in the distance?

14

Then you’ve gone waaaaayyyyy too far. I said West.

15

Dad was an idiot. Mom should have queitly pointed that out to Dad.

16

I suspect the kid did do it on purpose. I also suspect if you put 100 kids that age in the same situation, at least 90 would also let it go on purpose, 5 more would on accident, and the other 5 would throw a huge fit and never let go of the kite.

By the time these folks are on their second kid, they’ll know this stuff.

I broke in a pretty mixed up set of parents back in the day. (Heh heh, dad, if you’re up there in heaven, I’m sorry about the stamp collection).

17

Dad was a freakin’ moron. But is it really good to undermine your spouse in these situations? The kid can easily get the idea that when dad is mad, it doesn’t much matter.

Is there a way mom could have given a more appropriate response while not undermining dad?

18

Mom cannot help Dad’s emotional immaturity and lack of judgement.
Why didn’t the kite ahve a string holder? Why didn’t Dad stay closer to the kid and the kite?

Mom could have said, let’s talk about this later, and changed the subject, packed up the stuff, taken kid for a walk to look for shells while Dad cooled off–something.

Definetly Mom and Dad should discuss their reactions and plan out future events better. Point is: kid is 3 or 4. All he knows now is that he did something to make Daddy very angry. Kid feels really bad and scared.

Why the hell was the kid put in time out? when he’s 9, are they gonna let him park the car, then punish him when he drives thru the garage door?
Dad needs to read some parenting books. Mom needs some assertiveness training. Both need to grow up.

PS-Old Silver beach is gorgeous.

19

I should clarify this bit.

It wasn’t a standard kite, but one of those delta-wing type things. A pretty small one. The string was wound on a spool with a nice plastic handle. The dad let the kid hold the handle. There was no safety string or anything in case the kid let go. The dad was pretty close by, his hand was maybe a foot away from the string. But when the kid let go, dad tried to make a grab for it but missed it by a couple of inches. I suppose he could have leapt for it but he would have trampled the kid.

20

Well, it’s not that bad, IMHO. The dad had a right to be mad. The kid was taught a lesson. It’s not like they beat him or told him he was retarded or stupid or anything. They obviously weren’t too interested in staying at the beach or they would have. I had to roll my eyes at the “not accepting his apology” bit, though. That was definitely immature. But I see no major therapy resulting from this incident.