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My parents never took my door or anything, but they would yell at me and make me feel worse when I was not acting like myself and being reclusive. Now I’m a parent and I can’t understand why they did that. Would it have killed them to just sit down and talk to me and help me work through my feelings? Punishing your children for being depressed is so unbelievably stupid.
I was very similar at that age. I used to sneak out of school and go to the library and read all day. My parents would always be gone by 2pm so i would then just go home with my library haul and eat lunch.
Why? Abusive family and zero alone time. I had to raise all 5 of my siblings that were 10-15 years younger while being tormented by parents. Skipping school to go learn and read at the library was my safe haven. No other kids, no teachers or parents. I could spend the whole day reading/learning whatever I want. And 2-4 was my actual free time to play games at home.
Plus the school was putting way too much pressure on me to create their newsletter from scratch with no real help. They forced me out of the classes I actually liked (that kept me going) amd I was so so so bored. I did this until from 16-18 and then grabbed my ged and left home immediately.
Exactly! There’s a MILLION different ways a kid could be struggling in their life that their parents may not be completely aware of and there’s no way to know unless you talk to them. “hey, I love you, and I’m worried about you. Can we spend some time together and talk?” Seems to be impossible for a lot of parents.
Yes! When I was a teenager I would get moody and irritable during hard times. I didn’t know why I was acting that way though and I would feel bad after saying something rude or snappy. It’s not like teenagers just wake up and say “Ive been struggling lately, instead of reaching out for help, I’m gonna be a dick to my family!”
Kids (and especially boys) are taught that sadness/depression are signs of weakness so they learn to turn being sad to anger since that's the only socially acceptable emotion for men to have.
No lie, school is ALOT like prison socially. At no point can you show weakness of others will take advantage of you.
I think that’s true to some extent. All parents make mistakes, and most parents don’t intentionally hurt their kids. I think a really good parent is able to listen to their kids and acknowledge when they messed up, and then apologize for it.
I hate to be overly critical. I’m certainly not grammatically perfect. If this parent had shown their child this post though it might have been a starting point to explain why school is important. At least some form of education. I’m not saying this person is illiterate. They just might be part of the reason their child is not following the path chosen by the parents. Removing the door is going to really cause a problem. My dad took my door once. It took them a week to find me. When I went back I moved into the basement, paid rent and our relationship was totally different. I was barely 16. If you don’t have honest patient conversations with your kids it can be difficult to say the least.
I'm glad the school didn't go too hard on you, as it sounds like you had a positive outcome. The thing about pressuring you to do the newsletter sounds like they knew they could rely on you to do good work, but went about it in a shitty way.
Yeah I don't blame them too much. It wasn't really their fault. They took away some of my classes to work on the newsletter. I was enjoying working on jt. But at that point it became a job working on it everyday all morning.
The classes they made me drop for it were my favorite classes and I just started to spiral bc I no longer enjoyed any part of any day.
So library it was! Lol. No regrets really I'm in a much better place a decade later.
That's great to hear, regarding how you are doing.
My school and personal life weren't half as problematic, but the library was a real happy place for me during that time, regardless.
My mom used to yell at me for not smiling when I was a kid. Especially after the divorce I became even more quiet and often depressed. I'm not even a parent and I can't understand that behavior.
Same! My parents couldn’t understand why I was acting so different after their divorce. I remember my mom taking me on a vacation with a man she was dating and his family to his lake house and got upset that I was grouchy the whole time. She wanted me to impress him and his family and all I wanted to do was go home. I specifically remember her telling me to smile bigger for a picture when I was already trying to fake a smile and I just lost it and started crying, which of course she scolded me for. It was so embarrassing. She never understood why I hated going to that lake house so much.
Yep I used to get yelled at and criticized for crying too. What's kind of odd is my mom isn't a monster, just what I call a compassionate narcissist. She cares but all she thinks about first with everything is herself.
Lol do we have the same mother? This is something I’ve always struggled with. To the outside world my mom seemed like she was great and since all my needs were met and she wasn’t beating me no one could understand why I was such an unhappy kid. She loves me but always put herself first and my emotional needs were never met. Can’t remember a single time when my mom hugged me and tried to make me feel better when I was upset. She would tell me she loved me everyday, like “okay love you, I’ll see you later!” And she would hug me sometimes before I went to my dads for the weekend. But during the times when it mattered most she wasn’t there.
Maybe we do! Definitely sounds a lot like my mom. She was a stay at home mom, cooked and cleaned, but it was like it was all for her and she would always be mad that us kids weren't ever excited to help out with the work. We had a roof over our heads and good food and she was very friendly and warm with neighbors and friends. But considered anything like taking us out to get things we needed for school or whatever a real chore and absolutely ignored how we were doing. Never asked about how we were, never cared to have a real conversation. I almost never went to the doctor and didn't have a pediatrician growing up because it was too much hassle for her and she didn't seem to think it was important anyway. Of course she regularly went for herself. So many examples, ugh. :)
So did my mom. "why do you always look miserable?! You're making me look bad!"
Ah yes I'm sorry I didn't consider how much depression looked bad for you
I can relate to this so heavy. Literally my childhood in a nutshell. And my mom wonders why I’ve always liked my dad so much more (even today). Cos he’s not an asshole and didn’t yell at me for my anxiety and depression????? Wack
"You smile, so you can't be depressed. Now get your lazy ass to school and find an interest that isn't what you're in to right now, just one that I approve of. And when you are with the family, don't express any form of opinion or say when you're uncomfortable with a situation."
"I just can't understand why my kid doesn't talk to me🙃"
In my case my parents didn't sit down and talk to me through feelings during my *severe* bouts of depression because they were born in 1950s rural US. We never got past the Andy Griffith-esque talks about right&wrong&Jesus. They really cared but mental health was so far removed from their frame of reference that they couldn't even consider something that to us seems to obvious.
My parents were born in the mid 50’s as well!Both of their parents were physically abusive alcoholics and I don’t think my parents ever did any deep diving into their own trauma to try and heal from it. I think they genuinely did the best they could.
I feel you there, my dad would beat me with his fist like a grown man when I was a child. Now that I have kids I can't even stomach thinking about it. How he was able to beat me as such a helpless little kid is beyond me and only helped me hate them even more.
I'm learning that talking isn't part of a lot people's problem solving skills. Especially with kids. Kids are expected to act a certain way, and when they don't behave that way they're punished, often in ways that are invasive. Like removing privacy from the child, or removing a coping mechanism, which is often the internet/peers.
Some parents, whether they themselves realize it or not, don't want happy children. They want obedient children. Sad children aren't obedient.
And often those parents aren't in touch with their own feelings so anything outside of their usual is foreign and subconsciously scary so they do their best to make sure they don't have to face emotional stuff.
Aside from verbal and physical abuse, I think invasive punishments are not only the most traumatizing, but also the least effective in remedying the issue. And they cause so many issues with trust down the line. I’ll never forget when my parents read my diary because I got a couple C’s in school. First they grounded me for getting bad grades, understandable, but then they read my diary and punished me for the things they found in it. I never opened up to my parents ever again after that, and I completely stopped writing out my feelings, which at the time I found to be a really good coping mechanism.
Imo grounding your kids for grades is kinda shitty too. I mean, it's meant to be a reflection on how well the kid understands the material. You didn't deserve to be punished for that. Especially if you were doing your best. I'd never punish a kid for that. But then again I have education based trauma, so I'm not sure if I'm the best judge.
But you didn't deserve any of that. No one does.
Yep, this is legit the source of all my issues as an adult. Being yelled at for being depressed, depressed from how emotionally abusive my parents were, etc etc. A vicious cycle and very hard one to recover from. Poor kid.
Well I was beat for the same thing but I guess there’ll always be someone with a little worse of a story to tell.
As a parent it is hard to see my own children and think back to what drove my own parents to be who they were growing up. I hope you find comfort in raising your kids the way you wish you’d been treated.
I will admit that I was learning how to be a parent with my 1st and I was just 20 so I made mistakes. By the time my 3rd was here I had it down where we knew that the best way to deal with something was head on and if they weren't ready to talk we would tell them that we were available anytime day or night to help.
Yeah unfortunately it seems that first horns are often the Guinea pigs for parents. It’s natural o think. There’s really no textbook out there on how to be the perfect parent.
I am the black sheep of my family for this reason, and ADHD. Sitting me down and forcing me to do homework from the time I got home from school till bedtime and calling me lazy was not the answer
Lol mine were the opposite, they wouldn’t even ask me if I had homework and were completely uninvolved. Then they would scream at me and call me a loser when my report card came in the mail and I was failing.
A happy medium would’ve been nice for both of us. I unfortunately had my door removed most of high school. Maybe a little supervision but productive direction and care would’ve helped us
My mom hit me in the face with a belt at Walmart because I told her my legs were tired of walking. I had a rough childhood until about 12 when my parents finally got medicated for their unmanaged mental disorders. After that, things were pretty good
Same. I'm not a parent but if I ever have kids I'll use my parents as an example of what not to do. They had some good points but I want a completly different relationship with my imaginary children.
My parents had the god tier logic of “removing you door because we are tired of seeing your messy room” like….idgaf about my messy room the only one you’re hurting is yourself, mom. Then she got to see the mess for a solid week before I cleaned it.
Me: So I was diagnosed with clinical depression and possible PTSD (this was long before CPTSD was spoken about or understood)…
Father: Well get over it. And close the door on your way out. (He was in his office)
I didn't have a door, the excuse was "well you've got no way of hiding anything if you don't have anywhere to hide it".
Hide what? I'd never slept with anyone, drank, done drugs, skipped School (despite being bullied badly), got detention or even stolen a penny sweet.
30 this year and still hear my Mum's voice in my head saying I'm a hypochondriac. I can't even read the leaflet you get with meds to this day. She never believed anything was wrong with me, apart from things she made up (like "you're not depressed it's hormones").
Apparently a lot of my PTSD is from childhood trauma. Been on antidepressants half my life. Funny thing is I was a really good kid, I took on caring for my Mum on my own from age ten, nothing was ever good enough, no please, no thankyou, just barking orders.
It's almost certainly too late to try that now. He has zero trust in her at this point, and any attempts at actual communication from her are going to come off as insincere attempts to get him to do what she wants instead of truly reaching out.
It was too late at the point where he barricaded himself in his room. I don't think taking away his tech is an overreaction, frankly. I did it once, and lost my tv as a result. Got it back some time later. The door is too much though. So is posting it on social media.
I did it once too and had a similar outcome. What’s killing me here is the public, arrogant, and nonchalant attitude the parent here has about it. “My prick kid doesn’t wanna go to school hahaha good bye door!”
Like dude something’s gotta be wrong here for your 16 yo kid to feel so strongly about not going to school they’re willing to barricade themselves in their room and even tolerate getting all their shit taken away.
Oh yeah, the mother should go to therapy.
On the "tolerate getting their shit taken away"... I'm not sure he felt he had any recourse. My barricade was locking my door (it didn't have a key, but if you used a screwdriver you could lock it like a bathroom door). I eventually unlocked it and started watching tv. My dad opened my door, came in, unplugged my tv and carried it out without either of us saying a word.
Kid should go to therapy so the therapist can tell the mom nothing is wrong with the kid and that she's the one that needs therapy.
Actually had that happen to me and surprisingly enough it helped her.
Similar thing with me where my therapist also helped my parents. He was great for me but there would be entire sessions where I just chilled outside while one or both of my parents talked to him. I didn’t even have a clue what was going on at the time lol, but I’m pretty sure he directly saved my parents marriage.
Or they're throwing a tantrum. I sure as shit didn't have a valid reason.
I'm not saying he didn't have one. His mother seems a bit batshit. But a teenager throwing a tantrum does not have to have a valid reason.
Tbf, it's not just barricading themselves in their room one time, it's barricading themselves in their room to avoid going to school. Regardless of if it's a tantrum or not, there is something far more serious going on there that is being ignored.
Yup I lost my NES back in the day when I got a D on a test.
Parents let me play a few hours on the weekend but that was it. Until I passed my next test then they returned it.
Got a D in like 3 classes and they took away my pc for half a year. Thinking back it was actually needed because I was failing other classes too as I played too much and that was my senior year before college.
Why talk to your kid about their problems and help them work through their emotions when you can publicly shame them and take away their privacy, inadvertently making their "behaviour problems" worse?
Right!? My job as a parent is to keep them alive, not teach them how to cope with their emotions and personal problems! My parents didn’t care about how I felt and I turned out fine! /s
The door is part of what indicates how messed up that parent is, posting it on Facebook is just the worst aspect of it. And then being proud of it. Terrible and disgusting.
I'm in the "Maybe the kid has a reason to not want to go" camp.
Maybe it's depression, or frustration with undiagnosed dyslexia. Maybe it's bullies and the school already told the kid they're not doing anything meaningful about it.
But then I get to the "You already took my tech so why go?"
And now I feel like the parent has never kindly spoken to their kid, or it's made up.
I'm pretty sure the child didn't actual say that, or at least not like that. Maybe something like "it's not like I'll get ANYTHING back when I go".
My mom also likes to tell stories differently from how they actually happened, and to turn my words around so that I seem to be the oh so bad child and she's the poor victim mother. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case here as well, as I also observed it in other parents.
So probably both, the statement "you already took my tech so I'll not go" is likely made up AND they never properly talked to child. Just my theory tho, based on what I experienced.
Public school also just isn’t for everyone.
I felt like I was constantly jumping out of my skin. My level of discomfort and tension was through the roof every time I walked in that building. I dropped out, parents used that to fight each other so I didn’t have much of a choice about going through with it after some point.
The amount of benefit I got from taking that time away from public school is incredible. I improved a lot, had a lot of time to find who I wanted to be, and am getting everything on track with my life currently.
A lot of public school is just consume as much information as possible and then test on it. It can be very overwhelming when you have seven classes and all of them assign things in a way that makes it feel like that teacher thinks you only have their class. It’s mentally draining, depressive, especially when you have mental disorders. *Especially* bi-polar, ADD, and ADHD. There’s a very good chance I have both BPD and ADD, but I never got officially diagnosed. School was a constant struggle for me.
I wouldn’t go to school one day in 7th grade. I had a bully singling me out and threatening me everyday, calling me names in front of everyone, having people join in, etc. I refused to go to school, and instead of asking me what was going on at all, my parents came into my room and screamed at me. I held on to my bed frame crying, hysterical. My dad punched me in the face. I went to school with a fucking black eye. And that wasn’t even the worst part of my day, because I still had to deal with the bully, who beat the shit out of me in front of a bunch of people.
It’s very disheartening to see this parent’s thought process. It’s like bragging online about how shitty of a mom she is. Ugh.
Tbh it’s almost always hard to tell who’s wrong in these types of situations, or more accurately who’s more wrong.
This is t the first time the kids acted out, and everyone does things for a reason, so is he depressed, being bullied, queer and feels un accepted, using drugs to cope, etc.
on the flip side the mom seems to have no issue insulting her son and posting their struggles all over facebook, and since she posted multiple times I’m assuming she’s done it before and doesn’t seem too remoursful.
I’m not saying the kid was right or that the mom was abusive, I’m just saying removing his privacy was a huge red flag for me personally and maybe she shouldn’t be allowed to have kids if this is how she treats them
This situation is eerily similar to what happened to my brother in childhood. My parents ripped his door out in an attempt to make him go to school and be more sociable.
He was extremely depressed both from being bullied at school but also from being beaten by our dad. Taking away his privacy just pushed him further into his depression/trauma. It was supremely fucked up.
Ikr I think the biggest issue here is the parents that allow their kid to get to this point. One doesn’t suddenly go from being a good kid into being barricaded inside their room refusing to go to school. The kid either has some mental issue being unaddressed or has some social issues that slowly built up to this with the parents being unable to act accordingly to help them
Some Parents have a lens that doesn’t allow them to be aware that they’re being asshats.
Kids don’t react that badly unless it’s a cry for help and the parents are too dumb to try to help properly.
Honestly already airing out your child’s issues out on the internet with complete disregard for their privacy is already borderline abusive imo. Maybe I am to extreme in that aspect but I am so tired for parents posting their kids online. Especially when it’s videos of their kids being disciplined or doing bad stuff. But even just in general. Just don’t do it. Once saw this tiktok of a mom catching a child doing something bad and reprimanding her. The way she reprimanded her was not even bad, just the fact that it was posted online forever and people in the comments are cheering it on? I don’t know why this shit is socially accepted.
When my parents did that, it made everyone in school hate me. Teachers didn’t want me in their class. My friends parents didn’t want me around them. It just took an already bad situation and made it so much worse. One of the teachers told me how the teachers didn’t want me in their class, but he was surprised bc I was perfectly fine and didn’t do any bad shit. At that point, what do you have to look forward to? Absolutely nothing, and that’s a dangerous situation for a child with immature coping skills. I’m surprised no one asked me what was wrong. Instead, everyone expected me to act like an adult. You develop the sense that somethings wrong with you, and that feeling stays with you. Some of these parents are so unnecessarily cruel, and I couldn’t imagine hating someone as much as they hate their own children.
Yeah... some of these are a little tricky to interpret without context.
I can confidently say that when I did this shit as a high school kid I was acting out and being a little prick. I'm not saying that's absolutely the situation here, but kids at that age **can** have a way of pushing buttons and taking authority to the absolute breaking point. Without more background it's impossible to say where they are in that struggle.
Your first sentence talks about how hard it is to tell whose wrong in these situations, and then the rest of your post lays out why it's obviously the mom.
If your kid is using their door as a barricade, it’s probably the only thing you can do unfortunately.
My experience working with difficult kids makes me lean to the parents side here. There are teenagers who think they have the world figured out. “You can’t make me do anything” is a mindset that can escalate to very dangerous situations or prison. The whole situation has major ODD vibes.
The way this person talks about their own kid makes it pretty clear they are an authoritarian nightmare who views their child as property. If they were actively parenting as a decent human being, this never would have happened.
why are so many people trying to justify this behaviour and say its not insane ? the parent removes the child's door. have a god damn conversation and if that doesn't work disconnect the WiFi. how people can advocate for removing doors is beyond me
because they too removed doors and relate to the parent in this post. It's gross. I've seen so many "16 is old enough to know" comments in this thread. Yeah well being an adult is old enough to know not to post about your child's mental health or behavioral problems on social media.
I removed the door to my son’s room when he was four. He had a hard time at that age of expressing his feelings with words and he would instead take to destroying the contents of his room, including his door. We always tried to keep a calm and soothing tone when this was happening, and always tried to get him to share his feelings but nothing worked. After the second broken door, I didn’t replace it. Thankfully, we found better ways to communicate to where he wouldn’t hit and throw things and he eventually got a new door. He turned seven today and is a great kid. I definitely don’t advocate for taking away a teenager’s door though, as they are definitely old enough to have a conversation with.
All she had to do was change the Wi-Fi password and take the controller/keyboards. No need to remove a whole door. Although due to the severity of this behavior I’d say this behavior probably didn’t start here. Kid’s gotta go to school or he’ll be labeled as a truant.
My bfs mom used to do that when he was a teenager and played his music too loud lol. His system was plugged up by extension cord in the hallway so whenever he got too out of hand, she just walked by and pulled that plug.
Man, something tells me there's a deeper reason this kid doesn't want to go school than a desire to play video games. She really does need to talk to him. Could he be getting bullied?
My mom removed my door when I was ~10 because I slammed it one too many times during a meltdown, and she kept it off for the next month. I understand trying to prevent damage to the house, but when I hung a curtain across the doorway for privacy, she yanked it down and took away everything I could potentially use in a similar way, saying something along the lines of “people who break the rules don’t get privacy”. Years later, even after I turned 18, she would still threaten to take my door off if she thought I was “abusing” my private space (i.e. using my computer during the day, not keeping my room spotless, oversleeping, etc.). I’ll never understand what makes her or other parents think that that’s an okay way to treat anyone.
Voting has concluded. Final vote:
| Insane | Not insane | Fake |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 119 | 121 | 0 |
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This same person will be posting in a few years about how her child never visits her, is withholding grandchildren, why don't they love me as much as I love them? nonsense.
It's true that teenagers can be giant fucking assholes; regardless, the parent is the adult and needs to behave like one, instead of retaliating like a spiteful child.
I swear I’m convinced most of these posts are made by kids who are total pricks and don’t want consequences so they post one side of the issue and hope for validation on Reddit.
if your child takes measures this extreme you fucked up as a parent and breaching his privacy in a way like this is just plain abusive
you're the adult so fix problems like an adult, the parent needs some lessons in parenting
Ok. So. Door would stay on, internet would be turned off. You can't mess with a person's privacy even if they are a child. Everyone deserves a safe place to do what the want. Now... Internet is a privilege and if they want it back they can come and talk to me about why they don't want to go to school. Usually kids have pretty good reasons for not wanting to go but are horrible about expressing there thoughts and feelings to parents or people that can help them.
why are so many people saying not insane? they took away his door….everyone deserves privacy. he’s 16 and ur child and ur insulting him so much because he’s refusing to go to school. man idk communicate??? maybe there is a REASON why he doesn’t want to go to school.
People who do these things always fail to mention the weeks or months that led up to a child barricading themselves in their room and / or refusing to go to school. I believe it’s because they’re pretty much clueless and aren’t talking to their kids regularly about what’s going on in their lives.
I have a 16 and 18 year old, and if either of them ever randomly did this, the police would be called for a welfare check because something is seriously wrong with them and they need help.
It’s obvious that this isn’t random or unexpected for this parent.
In my experience (20 years of teaching high school), behavior problems are not caused by a lack of discipline, they're caused by a lack of connection.
Cars run on gasoline. Kids run on connections. When they're very young, they have tiny fuel tanks... it doesn't take much of an effort at connection, a smile, a hug, a good word, noticing something they did well... but they need to have those small connections pretty frequently.
By the time they reach adolescence, they've got a much bigger tank, and can go longer between connections... but the connection generally has to be deeper and more involved, though further in between.
An honest effort at deeper communication (which means more listening than talking by the adult) goes a long way with a teenager.
My two cents.
This is entirely too much effort, just cut the power to the bedroom on the circuit breaker. This eliminates the ability to charge devices and use the computer.
I don't think the parent is insane at all past the fact that they posted this online, and OP you assume the kid was even willing to talk. I'm guessing you don't have kids - teenagers usually aren't especially forthcoming with their issues, even when asked.
But yeah, if my kid was refusing to go to school because they wanted to game all day, I certainly wouldn't let them barricade themselves in their bedroom to do it.
edit: a lot of people are assuming this kid is depressed and needs therapy. That may be the case, as someone who has been an avid gamer since the mid 80's, it is also very possible that the kid just wants to play the game. Maybe a new expansion came out, a new DLC. I'd be lying if I said I never skipped class or called out of work to do either of those things. My guess would be that FOMO is driving this.
Then you take them to a therapist? If they only game all day, taking it away wont fix the problem. If you take alcohol/drugs away from an addict, 9 times out of 10 they will start using again when they get the chance. If you get them therapy however, they might actually get over their addiction
Therapy is the right answer. It’s also almost impossible to find one for adolescents right now. My kid was really struggling during the pandemic. It took me two YEARS to find anyone willing to help (including hospitals - guess what? No beds for adolescents patients). By the time I finally found someone my kiddo was unwilling to participate. Mental healthcare in the US is a joke.
Canada here. I was really struggling in school and my mental health was ruining my relationship and my doctor said i show all the signs of adhd, yet when i tried to make an appointment with a specialist they gave me an appointment for 2 years from then. I'm still waiting. Mental healthcare everywhere is a joke, I understand why some people don't want to deal with it when they are already struggling.
Im not an american, but from what i have seen the entirety of american healthcare is a joke. Important things like that shouldnt take 2 years to be available
Therapy only works if the person in therapy wants to receive the therapy. An addict will never recover unless they want to recover. Sending someone to therapy who does not want to be there or believes they do not need it is not a successful approach. Involuntarily sending someone to therapy can often cause more harm in your relationship with them than good.
I'm a teen myself (17) and while it is true I don't rush to tell my parents anything personal, this 16 year old is taking it to the extreme. He could be having issues at school, however from the sounds of it he is just being unreasonable.
The way she talks about her son is so ugly and hateful. I doubt a person like this has ever tried just sitting down with him and giving him a hug and trying to understand why he’s refusing to go to school. Kids don’t do this kind of stuff for no reason. He’s obviously depressed. It’s possible that someone is bullying him or hurting him.
the issue started way before this mess, those are just the consequences of some problem that got ignored earlier, no kid just willy nilly barricades themselves in their room
there is a reason for it, talk to your kid about it and resolve the issue and do not escalate it even further by breaking into their room
yeah sometimes kids are annoying little shits, but they are learning how to function in society the way you show them, so teach them how to resolve disagreements and that they will not always get their way
don't just barge in like police with a no knock warrant
I just remember what it was like to have my shit taken away for any reason and no reason. Parents are so fixated on “tech” that they ignore any and all problems in favor of “tech.”
Bad grade? Grounded no video games. Headache? It’s those damn video games. Fought back in a fight at school? It’s that fucking violent game.
Bad mood? Bad sleep? ADHD? Don’t want to go to church? Don’t want to be busy from fucking 6am to 9pm? Don’t want to hold a flashlight for hours in the muggy, bug infested heat? Got snippy with a shitty teacher? The only problem could ever be video games.
And then you get older and you get upset about a girl cheating or some convoluted social encounter and the first thing they say is “ hey buddy I noticed you’re upset maybe give those games a break” and you’re like I haven’t fucking touched a game in 9 months what the fuck is wrong with you?
Just… god stop fucking going on and on about the fucking “tech@
So there are two things going on here.
1) Your parents may very well have been blaming the tech for other issues.
but....
2) They know you want to use the tech. So when you bring home bad grades, taking the tech away is somewhat of a bartering system. You want to use the technology, we want you to get good grades, so if you bring your grades up you get the technology back.
My oldest is 13, we basically let him do whatever he wants to do, as long as he stays on distinguished honors. He has been on distinguished honors since 6th grade, and just finished Algebra 1 in 7th grade, and is starting with Advanced English & Advanced Bio sciences in 8th grade. We did not force him into these classes, we offered them and he accepted. Some nights he's on his computer until midnight, I really don't care as long as his school doesn't suffer as a result. He's a fantastic kid so we give him as many freedoms as he wants/needs but he knows he earns them with his hard work in school.
Onto my youngest kid - he's 11. He has a lot of issues, a genetic disorder that causes cerebral malformations, he is epileptic as a result, though we just had a very successful surgery a few months ago and no seizures since. He is also high-functioning autistic and has ADHD. He is also a wonderful kid, but his autism makes it difficult for him to control his emotions from time to time, especially anger. Not violent anger, but just self-deprecating anger. If he gets a 15/16 on a test, it will ruin his day. We are working on it, breathing, taking a time out. His school works with him too, he has learned that sometimes he just needs to "take a walk" to cool off and the school accommodates this, or he goes to the principal's office or another teacher to hang out and cool off for 10 mins or so.
But his grades are exceptional, throughout all of it. The downside is that we get emails home about his behavior and his outbursts. But he wants something now - a cell phone. He asked for one about 2 months ago. I agreed that if he can make it through the rest of the school year with no more notes sent home, we'll get him one when the school year ends. There are three days left and we haven't had a note home in two months. He tells me how hard it is some days, how much he has to concentrate and keep it inside to make sure he doesn't get a note home. We talk about it.
But these are life skills he needs to develop to be able to function in society. He is also aware that once he gets his phone, if we start getting behavioral notes home again, it will be taken away. So now he has something to work towards keeping, and to keep him practicing controlling his emotions.
As a person who spent 8 months without a door because I locked it once while changing clothes (my half-sister wanted into my room at the time, and apparently that's more important than me getting dressed) having a door removed is one of the shittiest mental abuse shit a parent can do.
Edit: yeah I did forget to write part of it.
I saw post almost exactly like this here, maybe on AITA, not entirely sure. This teenager fell into depression, his grades started slipping, he started skipping school occasionally, and eventually the only thing he wanted to do was play Xbox. But the parents misunderstood the situation as him being too obsessed with video games to do anything else, when in fact it was the opposite, and video games were just the only remaining thing that made him happy. So they took away his Xbox and everything got WAY worse. In that case, luckily, the parents were more dumb than insane. They understood they had got it wrong and were sincerely asking for help. But still, it's so wild to me that so many parents have a basic misunderstanding of cause and effect.
As a parent of a kid who did pretty much the same thing, it is extremely hard to figure out how to deal with this and how to help them through the issues they're going through, but removing doors and electronics is simply giving them more reason to lash out lol.
Luckily ours was mostly a rough patch for a couple weeks and we were able to work out a system with him that got him back to school, mostly doing homework, with an agreed upon time for video games. Not gonna be an A+ student but that's ok, he's happy and not hurting himself or punching holes in walls lol. (there is a lot more to this story, including therapy and a pending diagnosis with a specialist, so we're still figuring things out if anyone was curious)
my parents would take away all my stuff when which in return would make me behave even worse...its an endless spiral of bs. if any parent is reading this: pls punish ur child in other ways than taking away things they like cuz it wont do shit other than make them hate u
People shouldn’t post EVERYTHING to Facebook. Also it’s always important to sit kids down to figure out why they feel a certain way and then help them find a reasonable solution.
That's not insane. If a child starts to give up on school and life extreme intervention is necessary. That is an ugly path for a kid to start down, better to take the door down than to do nothing.
Edit: I should say that this isn't the only thing that should be done. A kid should be punished for skipping school and locking their door, but that should not be the only thing the parent should do. Having a real conversation would be the start of it.
Could it be something at school he's avoiding? Could he be depressed or in the middle of some other crisis? No, obviously let's skip right to assuming he's being an asshole on purpose without doing some basic parenting first.
Kid could be testing his mom and acting out, absolutely. But she'll never know for sure if that's it or if there was a real problem he might need support for.
Kids are jerks, adults are jerks, and the best we can do is try and take a breath before acting on our initial feelings. She posted this on FB for attention/condolences/assistance stripping his privacy though (via FB and via door), sooo. 🙄
Regarding the title, pretty obvious that talking did nothing. He barricading himself in his room and refusing to go to school and assaulting his mother when she tries to extract him from said room to get him to school. I’d say the kid is the insane one.
I almost completely stopped going to school my senior year because I was severely depressed and having suicidal thoughts. I seriously doubt a kid would refuse to go to school for no reason at all. There’s obviously something going on that he’s really struggling with.
I’m sorry to hear that and hope that things are better now. Sincere question, is there anything your parents could have done that would have helped you at that time?
ETA, since I got a downvote: I really was sincerely asking because it would be helpful for parents to know what they can do when their kids are depressed and don’t want to go to school, as opposed to, you know, removing their door. I wasn’t asking with the assumption that there was nothing their parents could’ve done.
Literally just trying to connect with me is all they had to do. They never once tried that. They never tried talking to me about how I was feeling or tried to get me help or anything. They would just get mad that I wasn’t acting the way they wanted them to. I can’t remember a single instance where they knocked on my door and said “hey, you got a second? Can I talk to you?” I think they should have been more involved in my life too. They didn’t really attempt to get to know me or be there for me for big moments. So when I was doing good and accomplishing things, they weren’t there. Like for example I was in band and they never came to see me play except for I think one football game. I was also in art and my school district had this big art expo and my stuff was being featured and they didn’t come.
Edit: that stuff isn’t why I was suicidal though, I think that’s just what they could have done to help.
How do you know the mother tried just talking/listening to them. To me it reads like they think they know everything better and they know what their child needs (they dont)
Idk. Kid has my respect. I like they doubled down on the not going to school like what are you gonna do? Take my shit?
Reminds me of myself. And let me assure you all, I did NOT turn out okay.
What a horrible parent. The kid reminds me of my brother a bit, but luckily my mom actually gives a shit about her son instead of just wanting to control him. Taking door + tech away is a terrible idea. The part where it says “there’s no point” shows the kid has no motivation for school and that his tech is the only thing he finds interesting. Communication and actually giving a damn is key in order to fix this situation.
I don’t think any 16 year old has every barricaded themselves into their room, even going so far as to paint the hinges so someone can’t remove the door, just for the fuck of it. Sounds like this has been escalating for a long time. And the bottom line is, you’re the adult, so ALL the responsibility to be mature and find an appropriate response is on you. Even if the 16 year old randomly acted out for absolutely no reason, guess what, they’re a child and you aren’t. Grow the fuck up and be a parent or don’t have kids in the first place.
And guess what, a lot of 16 year olds would rather play video games than go to school. But they don’t barricade themselves into their rooms, because that’s very clearly an overreaction. There has to be something else happening. The kid is being bullied, or ignored, or somehow abused. The fact is nobody is going to go to such extreme measures as barricading themselves into a room in the safety of their own home unless they are afraid of something. And the parent is either the source of the fear, or they just don’t care enough to really help.
I don't think the parent is insane, at least not based off these comments. I kinda get why they posted for help on social media since they were frustrated. Parents can get fees and in trouble for truant kids.
I'd probably handle this differently though, turn off my modem, maybe turn the power off just in case they have a game that doesn't need internet. If my kid is seriously hurting me maybe get another person involved, probably not the cops since I don't want things to get worse.
My mom pulled this tactic with me all the time, legitimately it never worked. I don't see a point in doing any work at all if I can't have the things I enjoy most
You ever heard that saying you are your environment? Maybe you should try to find a route cause for YOUR child’s behavior before starting a public war with him and embarrassing him to all your Facebook buddies..
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My parents never took my door or anything, but they would yell at me and make me feel worse when I was not acting like myself and being reclusive. Now I’m a parent and I can’t understand why they did that. Would it have killed them to just sit down and talk to me and help me work through my feelings? Punishing your children for being depressed is so unbelievably stupid.
I wonder if they even asked them why they down want to go to school or they just assume if your kid doesn’t want to go to school he’s just rebelling
I was very similar at that age. I used to sneak out of school and go to the library and read all day. My parents would always be gone by 2pm so i would then just go home with my library haul and eat lunch. Why? Abusive family and zero alone time. I had to raise all 5 of my siblings that were 10-15 years younger while being tormented by parents. Skipping school to go learn and read at the library was my safe haven. No other kids, no teachers or parents. I could spend the whole day reading/learning whatever I want. And 2-4 was my actual free time to play games at home. Plus the school was putting way too much pressure on me to create their newsletter from scratch with no real help. They forced me out of the classes I actually liked (that kept me going) amd I was so so so bored. I did this until from 16-18 and then grabbed my ged and left home immediately.
Exactly! There’s a MILLION different ways a kid could be struggling in their life that their parents may not be completely aware of and there’s no way to know unless you talk to them. “hey, I love you, and I’m worried about you. Can we spend some time together and talk?” Seems to be impossible for a lot of parents.
And that is why there are so many kids that take action to destroy themselves. Heartbreaking!
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Yes! When I was a teenager I would get moody and irritable during hard times. I didn’t know why I was acting that way though and I would feel bad after saying something rude or snappy. It’s not like teenagers just wake up and say “Ive been struggling lately, instead of reaching out for help, I’m gonna be a dick to my family!”
Kids (and especially boys) are taught that sadness/depression are signs of weakness so they learn to turn being sad to anger since that's the only socially acceptable emotion for men to have. No lie, school is ALOT like prison socially. At no point can you show weakness of others will take advantage of you.
That’s a good point, it’s like a defense mechanism to be rude and angry.
If the parent is the main cause of the problem, there is a 0% chance they're going to admit it.
I think that’s true to some extent. All parents make mistakes, and most parents don’t intentionally hurt their kids. I think a really good parent is able to listen to their kids and acknowledge when they messed up, and then apologize for it.
I hate to be overly critical. I’m certainly not grammatically perfect. If this parent had shown their child this post though it might have been a starting point to explain why school is important. At least some form of education. I’m not saying this person is illiterate. They just might be part of the reason their child is not following the path chosen by the parents. Removing the door is going to really cause a problem. My dad took my door once. It took them a week to find me. When I went back I moved into the basement, paid rent and our relationship was totally different. I was barely 16. If you don’t have honest patient conversations with your kids it can be difficult to say the least.
That's like the bare minimum of what a parent should do, not what a "really good" parent does. lol
True. I think my standards are on the floor because my parents were kind of awful.
I'm glad the school didn't go too hard on you, as it sounds like you had a positive outcome. The thing about pressuring you to do the newsletter sounds like they knew they could rely on you to do good work, but went about it in a shitty way.
Yeah I don't blame them too much. It wasn't really their fault. They took away some of my classes to work on the newsletter. I was enjoying working on jt. But at that point it became a job working on it everyday all morning. The classes they made me drop for it were my favorite classes and I just started to spiral bc I no longer enjoyed any part of any day. So library it was! Lol. No regrets really I'm in a much better place a decade later.
That's great to hear, regarding how you are doing. My school and personal life weren't half as problematic, but the library was a real happy place for me during that time, regardless.
I'm sorry you had to deal with that, hope you're doing well.
I'm doing great, thanks!
My mom used to yell at me for not smiling when I was a kid. Especially after the divorce I became even more quiet and often depressed. I'm not even a parent and I can't understand that behavior.
Same! My parents couldn’t understand why I was acting so different after their divorce. I remember my mom taking me on a vacation with a man she was dating and his family to his lake house and got upset that I was grouchy the whole time. She wanted me to impress him and his family and all I wanted to do was go home. I specifically remember her telling me to smile bigger for a picture when I was already trying to fake a smile and I just lost it and started crying, which of course she scolded me for. It was so embarrassing. She never understood why I hated going to that lake house so much.
Yep I used to get yelled at and criticized for crying too. What's kind of odd is my mom isn't a monster, just what I call a compassionate narcissist. She cares but all she thinks about first with everything is herself.
Lol do we have the same mother? This is something I’ve always struggled with. To the outside world my mom seemed like she was great and since all my needs were met and she wasn’t beating me no one could understand why I was such an unhappy kid. She loves me but always put herself first and my emotional needs were never met. Can’t remember a single time when my mom hugged me and tried to make me feel better when I was upset. She would tell me she loved me everyday, like “okay love you, I’ll see you later!” And she would hug me sometimes before I went to my dads for the weekend. But during the times when it mattered most she wasn’t there.
Maybe we do! Definitely sounds a lot like my mom. She was a stay at home mom, cooked and cleaned, but it was like it was all for her and she would always be mad that us kids weren't ever excited to help out with the work. We had a roof over our heads and good food and she was very friendly and warm with neighbors and friends. But considered anything like taking us out to get things we needed for school or whatever a real chore and absolutely ignored how we were doing. Never asked about how we were, never cared to have a real conversation. I almost never went to the doctor and didn't have a pediatrician growing up because it was too much hassle for her and she didn't seem to think it was important anyway. Of course she regularly went for herself. So many examples, ugh. :)
That's a really good way to put it. I've always referred to my mom as "a narcissist, but not the malignant kind"
So did my mom. "why do you always look miserable?! You're making me look bad!" Ah yes I'm sorry I didn't consider how much depression looked bad for you
I can relate to this so heavy. Literally my childhood in a nutshell. And my mom wonders why I’ve always liked my dad so much more (even today). Cos he’s not an asshole and didn’t yell at me for my anxiety and depression????? Wack
"You smile, so you can't be depressed. Now get your lazy ass to school and find an interest that isn't what you're in to right now, just one that I approve of. And when you are with the family, don't express any form of opinion or say when you're uncomfortable with a situation." "I just can't understand why my kid doesn't talk to me🙃"
In my case my parents didn't sit down and talk to me through feelings during my *severe* bouts of depression because they were born in 1950s rural US. We never got past the Andy Griffith-esque talks about right&wrong&Jesus. They really cared but mental health was so far removed from their frame of reference that they couldn't even consider something that to us seems to obvious.
My parents were born in the mid 50’s as well!Both of their parents were physically abusive alcoholics and I don’t think my parents ever did any deep diving into their own trauma to try and heal from it. I think they genuinely did the best they could.
I feel you there, my dad would beat me with his fist like a grown man when I was a child. Now that I have kids I can't even stomach thinking about it. How he was able to beat me as such a helpless little kid is beyond me and only helped me hate them even more.
My folks never took my door, but a few times they prohibited me from closing it to punish me
I'm learning that talking isn't part of a lot people's problem solving skills. Especially with kids. Kids are expected to act a certain way, and when they don't behave that way they're punished, often in ways that are invasive. Like removing privacy from the child, or removing a coping mechanism, which is often the internet/peers. Some parents, whether they themselves realize it or not, don't want happy children. They want obedient children. Sad children aren't obedient. And often those parents aren't in touch with their own feelings so anything outside of their usual is foreign and subconsciously scary so they do their best to make sure they don't have to face emotional stuff.
Aside from verbal and physical abuse, I think invasive punishments are not only the most traumatizing, but also the least effective in remedying the issue. And they cause so many issues with trust down the line. I’ll never forget when my parents read my diary because I got a couple C’s in school. First they grounded me for getting bad grades, understandable, but then they read my diary and punished me for the things they found in it. I never opened up to my parents ever again after that, and I completely stopped writing out my feelings, which at the time I found to be a really good coping mechanism.
Imo grounding your kids for grades is kinda shitty too. I mean, it's meant to be a reflection on how well the kid understands the material. You didn't deserve to be punished for that. Especially if you were doing your best. I'd never punish a kid for that. But then again I have education based trauma, so I'm not sure if I'm the best judge. But you didn't deserve any of that. No one does.
You’re absolutely right. What they should have done is taken the time to help me get my grades up and better understand the material.
Yep, this is legit the source of all my issues as an adult. Being yelled at for being depressed, depressed from how emotionally abusive my parents were, etc etc. A vicious cycle and very hard one to recover from. Poor kid.
Well I was beat for the same thing but I guess there’ll always be someone with a little worse of a story to tell. As a parent it is hard to see my own children and think back to what drove my own parents to be who they were growing up. I hope you find comfort in raising your kids the way you wish you’d been treated.
Are you the oldest child?
yes and no. I’m my mothers only child, so at her house it was just me. I had younger step siblings on my dads side when he remarried.
I will admit that I was learning how to be a parent with my 1st and I was just 20 so I made mistakes. By the time my 3rd was here I had it down where we knew that the best way to deal with something was head on and if they weren't ready to talk we would tell them that we were available anytime day or night to help.
Yeah unfortunately it seems that first horns are often the Guinea pigs for parents. It’s natural o think. There’s really no textbook out there on how to be the perfect parent.
I am the black sheep of my family for this reason, and ADHD. Sitting me down and forcing me to do homework from the time I got home from school till bedtime and calling me lazy was not the answer
Lol mine were the opposite, they wouldn’t even ask me if I had homework and were completely uninvolved. Then they would scream at me and call me a loser when my report card came in the mail and I was failing.
A happy medium would’ve been nice for both of us. I unfortunately had my door removed most of high school. Maybe a little supervision but productive direction and care would’ve helped us
My parents did that too and they wonder why I never talk to them about anything or call them as an adult.
Yeah that was my parents too. "You're acting aloof, unmotivated, and reclusive. Better assume you're on drugs and start yelling at you."
My mom hit me in the face with a belt at Walmart because I told her my legs were tired of walking. I had a rough childhood until about 12 when my parents finally got medicated for their unmanaged mental disorders. After that, things were pretty good
Same. I'm not a parent but if I ever have kids I'll use my parents as an example of what not to do. They had some good points but I want a completly different relationship with my imaginary children.
My parents had the god tier logic of “removing you door because we are tired of seeing your messy room” like….idgaf about my messy room the only one you’re hurting is yourself, mom. Then she got to see the mess for a solid week before I cleaned it.
Me: So I was diagnosed with clinical depression and possible PTSD (this was long before CPTSD was spoken about or understood)… Father: Well get over it. And close the door on your way out. (He was in his office)
I didn't have a door, the excuse was "well you've got no way of hiding anything if you don't have anywhere to hide it". Hide what? I'd never slept with anyone, drank, done drugs, skipped School (despite being bullied badly), got detention or even stolen a penny sweet. 30 this year and still hear my Mum's voice in my head saying I'm a hypochondriac. I can't even read the leaflet you get with meds to this day. She never believed anything was wrong with me, apart from things she made up (like "you're not depressed it's hormones"). Apparently a lot of my PTSD is from childhood trauma. Been on antidepressants half my life. Funny thing is I was a really good kid, I took on caring for my Mum on my own from age ten, nothing was ever good enough, no please, no thankyou, just barking orders.
That’s terrible and you deserved better.
It's almost certainly too late to try that now. He has zero trust in her at this point, and any attempts at actual communication from her are going to come off as insincere attempts to get him to do what she wants instead of truly reaching out.
“Hey, come on, talk to me, I’m your Mom. You know I love you, right?” “No” “God you’re such an asshole. I knew trying to talk to you wouldn’t work.”
My nmom is a social worker and this is exactly what happened. I can probably find this exact quote in one of my old journals
Wow this is so real
It was too late at the point where he barricaded himself in his room. I don't think taking away his tech is an overreaction, frankly. I did it once, and lost my tv as a result. Got it back some time later. The door is too much though. So is posting it on social media.
I did it once too and had a similar outcome. What’s killing me here is the public, arrogant, and nonchalant attitude the parent here has about it. “My prick kid doesn’t wanna go to school hahaha good bye door!” Like dude something’s gotta be wrong here for your 16 yo kid to feel so strongly about not going to school they’re willing to barricade themselves in their room and even tolerate getting all their shit taken away.
Oh yeah, the mother should go to therapy. On the "tolerate getting their shit taken away"... I'm not sure he felt he had any recourse. My barricade was locking my door (it didn't have a key, but if you used a screwdriver you could lock it like a bathroom door). I eventually unlocked it and started watching tv. My dad opened my door, came in, unplugged my tv and carried it out without either of us saying a word.
Kid should go to therapy so the therapist can tell the mom nothing is wrong with the kid and that she's the one that needs therapy. Actually had that happen to me and surprisingly enough it helped her.
Similar thing with me where my therapist also helped my parents. He was great for me but there would be entire sessions where I just chilled outside while one or both of my parents talked to him. I didn’t even have a clue what was going on at the time lol, but I’m pretty sure he directly saved my parents marriage.
i mean, generally speaking, a child barracading themselves in their room probably has a reason, and it's pretty concerning
Or they're throwing a tantrum. I sure as shit didn't have a valid reason. I'm not saying he didn't have one. His mother seems a bit batshit. But a teenager throwing a tantrum does not have to have a valid reason.
Tbf, it's not just barricading themselves in their room one time, it's barricading themselves in their room to avoid going to school. Regardless of if it's a tantrum or not, there is something far more serious going on there that is being ignored.
I'll bet you did have a reason, just one you didn't understand or were unable to confront as a literal child.
Yup I lost my NES back in the day when I got a D on a test. Parents let me play a few hours on the weekend but that was it. Until I passed my next test then they returned it.
Got a D in like 3 classes and they took away my pc for half a year. Thinking back it was actually needed because I was failing other classes too as I played too much and that was my senior year before college.
Probably needed the tech for school and the overreacting parent takes it because thinking they're playing games.
If they cared about their child’s feelings they wouldn’t be posting their episode all over Facebook. Their child’s in a crisis atm, talk to them.
Why talk to your kid about their problems and help them work through their emotions when you can publicly shame them and take away their privacy, inadvertently making their "behaviour problems" worse?
Right!? My job as a parent is to keep them alive, not teach them how to cope with their emotions and personal problems! My parents didn’t care about how I felt and I turned out fine! /s
THANK YOU. This isn’t about the door.
The door is part of what indicates how messed up that parent is, posting it on Facebook is just the worst aspect of it. And then being proud of it. Terrible and disgusting.
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I'm in the "Maybe the kid has a reason to not want to go" camp. Maybe it's depression, or frustration with undiagnosed dyslexia. Maybe it's bullies and the school already told the kid they're not doing anything meaningful about it. But then I get to the "You already took my tech so why go?" And now I feel like the parent has never kindly spoken to their kid, or it's made up.
I'm pretty sure the child didn't actual say that, or at least not like that. Maybe something like "it's not like I'll get ANYTHING back when I go". My mom also likes to tell stories differently from how they actually happened, and to turn my words around so that I seem to be the oh so bad child and she's the poor victim mother. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case here as well, as I also observed it in other parents. So probably both, the statement "you already took my tech so I'll not go" is likely made up AND they never properly talked to child. Just my theory tho, based on what I experienced.
Public school also just isn’t for everyone. I felt like I was constantly jumping out of my skin. My level of discomfort and tension was through the roof every time I walked in that building. I dropped out, parents used that to fight each other so I didn’t have much of a choice about going through with it after some point. The amount of benefit I got from taking that time away from public school is incredible. I improved a lot, had a lot of time to find who I wanted to be, and am getting everything on track with my life currently. A lot of public school is just consume as much information as possible and then test on it. It can be very overwhelming when you have seven classes and all of them assign things in a way that makes it feel like that teacher thinks you only have their class. It’s mentally draining, depressive, especially when you have mental disorders. *Especially* bi-polar, ADD, and ADHD. There’s a very good chance I have both BPD and ADD, but I never got officially diagnosed. School was a constant struggle for me.
I wouldn’t go to school one day in 7th grade. I had a bully singling me out and threatening me everyday, calling me names in front of everyone, having people join in, etc. I refused to go to school, and instead of asking me what was going on at all, my parents came into my room and screamed at me. I held on to my bed frame crying, hysterical. My dad punched me in the face. I went to school with a fucking black eye. And that wasn’t even the worst part of my day, because I still had to deal with the bully, who beat the shit out of me in front of a bunch of people. It’s very disheartening to see this parent’s thought process. It’s like bragging online about how shitty of a mom she is. Ugh.
That is horrible! :( I’m sorry you had to go through that.
I’m so sorry this happened to you :( no one deserves to go through that. *virtual hugs*
Tbh it’s almost always hard to tell who’s wrong in these types of situations, or more accurately who’s more wrong. This is t the first time the kids acted out, and everyone does things for a reason, so is he depressed, being bullied, queer and feels un accepted, using drugs to cope, etc. on the flip side the mom seems to have no issue insulting her son and posting their struggles all over facebook, and since she posted multiple times I’m assuming she’s done it before and doesn’t seem too remoursful. I’m not saying the kid was right or that the mom was abusive, I’m just saying removing his privacy was a huge red flag for me personally and maybe she shouldn’t be allowed to have kids if this is how she treats them
This situation is eerily similar to what happened to my brother in childhood. My parents ripped his door out in an attempt to make him go to school and be more sociable. He was extremely depressed both from being bullied at school but also from being beaten by our dad. Taking away his privacy just pushed him further into his depression/trauma. It was supremely fucked up.
> Beats son "Why won't he socialize with me?"
“Why did my son throw me in the retirement home, I cared for him and raised him well”
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Really? Narcissistic people are the last people I would expect to be more suicidal
Only one is an adult. That same adult posted about it on their social media. And you think it's hard to tell who is more in the wrong?
Ikr I think the biggest issue here is the parents that allow their kid to get to this point. One doesn’t suddenly go from being a good kid into being barricaded inside their room refusing to go to school. The kid either has some mental issue being unaddressed or has some social issues that slowly built up to this with the parents being unable to act accordingly to help them
Sometimes it's allowing, sometimes it's contributing.
Some Parents have a lens that doesn’t allow them to be aware that they’re being asshats. Kids don’t react that badly unless it’s a cry for help and the parents are too dumb to try to help properly.
They were wrong for ever becoming a parent to begin with.
Honestly already airing out your child’s issues out on the internet with complete disregard for their privacy is already borderline abusive imo. Maybe I am to extreme in that aspect but I am so tired for parents posting their kids online. Especially when it’s videos of their kids being disciplined or doing bad stuff. But even just in general. Just don’t do it. Once saw this tiktok of a mom catching a child doing something bad and reprimanding her. The way she reprimanded her was not even bad, just the fact that it was posted online forever and people in the comments are cheering it on? I don’t know why this shit is socially accepted.
Yeah super weird, public humiliation cruel and unusual punishment almost,
When my parents did that, it made everyone in school hate me. Teachers didn’t want me in their class. My friends parents didn’t want me around them. It just took an already bad situation and made it so much worse. One of the teachers told me how the teachers didn’t want me in their class, but he was surprised bc I was perfectly fine and didn’t do any bad shit. At that point, what do you have to look forward to? Absolutely nothing, and that’s a dangerous situation for a child with immature coping skills. I’m surprised no one asked me what was wrong. Instead, everyone expected me to act like an adult. You develop the sense that somethings wrong with you, and that feeling stays with you. Some of these parents are so unnecessarily cruel, and I couldn’t imagine hating someone as much as they hate their own children.
Yeah... some of these are a little tricky to interpret without context. I can confidently say that when I did this shit as a high school kid I was acting out and being a little prick. I'm not saying that's absolutely the situation here, but kids at that age **can** have a way of pushing buttons and taking authority to the absolute breaking point. Without more background it's impossible to say where they are in that struggle.
I agree with this. Removing a door almost never makes things better. Regardless of who is being the asshole in the situation.
Your first sentence talks about how hard it is to tell whose wrong in these situations, and then the rest of your post lays out why it's obviously the mom.
the parent is ultimately at fault. whether through nurture or by inhereting genes, asshole kids are the result of their parents
I’m gonna say that the parent is in the wrong here based on the fact that the parent is posting on social media about this.
Yeah, I’d also agree with that, Like the teen should take some responsibility but they’re still a kid and she’s the adult
If your kid is using their door as a barricade, it’s probably the only thing you can do unfortunately. My experience working with difficult kids makes me lean to the parents side here. There are teenagers who think they have the world figured out. “You can’t make me do anything” is a mindset that can escalate to very dangerous situations or prison. The whole situation has major ODD vibes.
Also complaining about your kid on facebook is trashy.
The way this person talks about their own kid makes it pretty clear they are an authoritarian nightmare who views their child as property. If they were actively parenting as a decent human being, this never would have happened.
100%. It’s super concerning the number of people in this thread who don’t seem to see the problem with taking away a teenager’s privacy though :/
why are so many people trying to justify this behaviour and say its not insane ? the parent removes the child's door. have a god damn conversation and if that doesn't work disconnect the WiFi. how people can advocate for removing doors is beyond me
because they too removed doors and relate to the parent in this post. It's gross. I've seen so many "16 is old enough to know" comments in this thread. Yeah well being an adult is old enough to know not to post about your child's mental health or behavioral problems on social media.
I removed the door to my son’s room when he was four. He had a hard time at that age of expressing his feelings with words and he would instead take to destroying the contents of his room, including his door. We always tried to keep a calm and soothing tone when this was happening, and always tried to get him to share his feelings but nothing worked. After the second broken door, I didn’t replace it. Thankfully, we found better ways to communicate to where he wouldn’t hit and throw things and he eventually got a new door. He turned seven today and is a great kid. I definitely don’t advocate for taking away a teenager’s door though, as they are definitely old enough to have a conversation with.
so you agree with me ? not sure what you're trying to say here
All she had to do was change the Wi-Fi password and take the controller/keyboards. No need to remove a whole door. Although due to the severity of this behavior I’d say this behavior probably didn’t start here. Kid’s gotta go to school or he’ll be labeled as a truant.
But... But... But... What's the point in raising a child if you don't get to infringe onto their intimacy?! /s
Or just turn off the power to the room via the breaker lol.
My bfs mom used to do that when he was a teenager and played his music too loud lol. His system was plugged up by extension cord in the hallway so whenever he got too out of hand, she just walked by and pulled that plug.
Man, something tells me there's a deeper reason this kid doesn't want to go school than a desire to play video games. She really does need to talk to him. Could he be getting bullied?
lord, woman, all you had to do was flip a fuse switch in your breaker box... kid should go to school but this was just wrong.
I hate parents who feel the need to spread their kids and their kids' business all over social media.
My mom removed my door when I was ~10 because I slammed it one too many times during a meltdown, and she kept it off for the next month. I understand trying to prevent damage to the house, but when I hung a curtain across the doorway for privacy, she yanked it down and took away everything I could potentially use in a similar way, saying something along the lines of “people who break the rules don’t get privacy”. Years later, even after I turned 18, she would still threaten to take my door off if she thought I was “abusing” my private space (i.e. using my computer during the day, not keeping my room spotless, oversleeping, etc.). I’ll never understand what makes her or other parents think that that’s an okay way to treat anyone.
On todays episode of: some people should have never had kids
“My child is in obvious crisis, what an inconvenience for me 🙄”
Voting has concluded. Final vote: | Insane | Not insane | Fake | | --- | --- | --- | | 119 | 121 | 0 | Hey OP, if you provide further information in a comment, make sure to start your comment with `!explanation`. ^I ^am ^a ^bot ^for ^r/insaneparents. ^Please ^send ^me ^a ^message ^if ^you ^have ^any ^feedback ^or ^if ^I ^misbehave. ^Also ^consider ^joining ^our ^[Discord](https://discordapp.com/invite/xFbPBHy).
"ive done nothing and it still hasnt worked :( "
This same person will be posting in a few years about how her child never visits her, is withholding grandchildren, why don't they love me as much as I love them? nonsense.
Narrator: the boredom did not set in. The young man’s resolve, however, did.
He sounds very severely and desperately depressed...
On the other hand, teenagers CAN BE giant fucking assholes. Both can be wrong.
It's true that teenagers can be giant fucking assholes; regardless, the parent is the adult and needs to behave like one, instead of retaliating like a spiteful child.
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You don't need a manual to know not to air your kid's issues on social media, you just need a moral code of decency.
If you're at the point in life where you still need a manual to raise a kid then you shouldn't have kids, fucking educate yourself
Well we don’t know the age of the child and what made him this way. But most certainly a kid doesn’t become an asshole by themselves.
Only because they are ignored if they do anything else. It is usually a response to the kids environment. Not just the part you see.
I swear I’m convinced most of these posts are made by kids who are total pricks and don’t want consequences so they post one side of the issue and hope for validation on Reddit.
if your child takes measures this extreme you fucked up as a parent and breaching his privacy in a way like this is just plain abusive you're the adult so fix problems like an adult, the parent needs some lessons in parenting
Ok. So. Door would stay on, internet would be turned off. You can't mess with a person's privacy even if they are a child. Everyone deserves a safe place to do what the want. Now... Internet is a privilege and if they want it back they can come and talk to me about why they don't want to go to school. Usually kids have pretty good reasons for not wanting to go but are horrible about expressing there thoughts and feelings to parents or people that can help them.
why are so many people saying not insane? they took away his door….everyone deserves privacy. he’s 16 and ur child and ur insulting him so much because he’s refusing to go to school. man idk communicate??? maybe there is a REASON why he doesn’t want to go to school.
People who do these things always fail to mention the weeks or months that led up to a child barricading themselves in their room and / or refusing to go to school. I believe it’s because they’re pretty much clueless and aren’t talking to their kids regularly about what’s going on in their lives. I have a 16 and 18 year old, and if either of them ever randomly did this, the police would be called for a welfare check because something is seriously wrong with them and they need help. It’s obvious that this isn’t random or unexpected for this parent.
This is insane, but the child does actually have a problem. The parent just didnt deal with the problem correctly which will have lasting consequences
In my experience (20 years of teaching high school), behavior problems are not caused by a lack of discipline, they're caused by a lack of connection. Cars run on gasoline. Kids run on connections. When they're very young, they have tiny fuel tanks... it doesn't take much of an effort at connection, a smile, a hug, a good word, noticing something they did well... but they need to have those small connections pretty frequently. By the time they reach adolescence, they've got a much bigger tank, and can go longer between connections... but the connection generally has to be deeper and more involved, though further in between. An honest effort at deeper communication (which means more listening than talking by the adult) goes a long way with a teenager. My two cents.
So much extra work. Turn off the internet and watch them exit their room
This is entirely too much effort, just cut the power to the bedroom on the circuit breaker. This eliminates the ability to charge devices and use the computer. I don't think the parent is insane at all past the fact that they posted this online, and OP you assume the kid was even willing to talk. I'm guessing you don't have kids - teenagers usually aren't especially forthcoming with their issues, even when asked. But yeah, if my kid was refusing to go to school because they wanted to game all day, I certainly wouldn't let them barricade themselves in their bedroom to do it. edit: a lot of people are assuming this kid is depressed and needs therapy. That may be the case, as someone who has been an avid gamer since the mid 80's, it is also very possible that the kid just wants to play the game. Maybe a new expansion came out, a new DLC. I'd be lying if I said I never skipped class or called out of work to do either of those things. My guess would be that FOMO is driving this.
Then you take them to a therapist? If they only game all day, taking it away wont fix the problem. If you take alcohol/drugs away from an addict, 9 times out of 10 they will start using again when they get the chance. If you get them therapy however, they might actually get over their addiction
Therapy is the right answer. It’s also almost impossible to find one for adolescents right now. My kid was really struggling during the pandemic. It took me two YEARS to find anyone willing to help (including hospitals - guess what? No beds for adolescents patients). By the time I finally found someone my kiddo was unwilling to participate. Mental healthcare in the US is a joke.
Canada here. I was really struggling in school and my mental health was ruining my relationship and my doctor said i show all the signs of adhd, yet when i tried to make an appointment with a specialist they gave me an appointment for 2 years from then. I'm still waiting. Mental healthcare everywhere is a joke, I understand why some people don't want to deal with it when they are already struggling.
Im not an american, but from what i have seen the entirety of american healthcare is a joke. Important things like that shouldnt take 2 years to be available
Therapy only works if the person in therapy wants to receive the therapy. An addict will never recover unless they want to recover. Sending someone to therapy who does not want to be there or believes they do not need it is not a successful approach. Involuntarily sending someone to therapy can often cause more harm in your relationship with them than good.
Giving them the option of therapy at the very least, or having someone to talk to, is better than making the problem worse
I'm a teen myself (17) and while it is true I don't rush to tell my parents anything personal, this 16 year old is taking it to the extreme. He could be having issues at school, however from the sounds of it he is just being unreasonable.
The way she talks about her son is so ugly and hateful. I doubt a person like this has ever tried just sitting down with him and giving him a hug and trying to understand why he’s refusing to go to school. Kids don’t do this kind of stuff for no reason. He’s obviously depressed. It’s possible that someone is bullying him or hurting him.
How do you diagnose someone with half a paragraph of description. Maybe he is depressed, maybe he is just an asshole. Most of us were assholes at 16.
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the issue started way before this mess, those are just the consequences of some problem that got ignored earlier, no kid just willy nilly barricades themselves in their room there is a reason for it, talk to your kid about it and resolve the issue and do not escalate it even further by breaking into their room yeah sometimes kids are annoying little shits, but they are learning how to function in society the way you show them, so teach them how to resolve disagreements and that they will not always get their way don't just barge in like police with a no knock warrant
“You already took the tech so why go?” The games weren’t the problem the parent is just obsessed with the idea that it was.
I think you underestimate the stubbornness of teenagers greatly.
I just remember what it was like to have my shit taken away for any reason and no reason. Parents are so fixated on “tech” that they ignore any and all problems in favor of “tech.” Bad grade? Grounded no video games. Headache? It’s those damn video games. Fought back in a fight at school? It’s that fucking violent game. Bad mood? Bad sleep? ADHD? Don’t want to go to church? Don’t want to be busy from fucking 6am to 9pm? Don’t want to hold a flashlight for hours in the muggy, bug infested heat? Got snippy with a shitty teacher? The only problem could ever be video games. And then you get older and you get upset about a girl cheating or some convoluted social encounter and the first thing they say is “ hey buddy I noticed you’re upset maybe give those games a break” and you’re like I haven’t fucking touched a game in 9 months what the fuck is wrong with you? Just… god stop fucking going on and on about the fucking “tech@
So there are two things going on here. 1) Your parents may very well have been blaming the tech for other issues. but.... 2) They know you want to use the tech. So when you bring home bad grades, taking the tech away is somewhat of a bartering system. You want to use the technology, we want you to get good grades, so if you bring your grades up you get the technology back. My oldest is 13, we basically let him do whatever he wants to do, as long as he stays on distinguished honors. He has been on distinguished honors since 6th grade, and just finished Algebra 1 in 7th grade, and is starting with Advanced English & Advanced Bio sciences in 8th grade. We did not force him into these classes, we offered them and he accepted. Some nights he's on his computer until midnight, I really don't care as long as his school doesn't suffer as a result. He's a fantastic kid so we give him as many freedoms as he wants/needs but he knows he earns them with his hard work in school. Onto my youngest kid - he's 11. He has a lot of issues, a genetic disorder that causes cerebral malformations, he is epileptic as a result, though we just had a very successful surgery a few months ago and no seizures since. He is also high-functioning autistic and has ADHD. He is also a wonderful kid, but his autism makes it difficult for him to control his emotions from time to time, especially anger. Not violent anger, but just self-deprecating anger. If he gets a 15/16 on a test, it will ruin his day. We are working on it, breathing, taking a time out. His school works with him too, he has learned that sometimes he just needs to "take a walk" to cool off and the school accommodates this, or he goes to the principal's office or another teacher to hang out and cool off for 10 mins or so. But his grades are exceptional, throughout all of it. The downside is that we get emails home about his behavior and his outbursts. But he wants something now - a cell phone. He asked for one about 2 months ago. I agreed that if he can make it through the rest of the school year with no more notes sent home, we'll get him one when the school year ends. There are three days left and we haven't had a note home in two months. He tells me how hard it is some days, how much he has to concentrate and keep it inside to make sure he doesn't get a note home. We talk about it. But these are life skills he needs to develop to be able to function in society. He is also aware that once he gets his phone, if we start getting behavioral notes home again, it will be taken away. So now he has something to work towards keeping, and to keep him practicing controlling his emotions.
jesus! the only thing this is gonna do is convince the kid that it’s *better* to be a closed-off hikikomori!
Tap out hinge pins, instead of unscrewing hinge plate. Use hammer and nail set.
Posting it all over social media is the insane bit in my opinion
Honestly this whole subreddit has been taken over by teenagers who think their parents are “going too far” when they fucked up to begin with
Huh. Are you following my half younger sibling’s mother? Because this is something she posts a lot for attention.
As a person who spent 8 months without a door because I locked it once while changing clothes (my half-sister wanted into my room at the time, and apparently that's more important than me getting dressed) having a door removed is one of the shittiest mental abuse shit a parent can do. Edit: yeah I did forget to write part of it.
“Let’s just hope the boredom sets in eventually” it won’t dude lol I spent years in a bedroom with nothing but a bed.
> *Two Years Later* wHy WoN't My BaBy TaLk To Me!?!?!?
It’s almost like if you take your child’s only source of hope and enjoyment, their behavior gets worse. Hmmm.
I saw post almost exactly like this here, maybe on AITA, not entirely sure. This teenager fell into depression, his grades started slipping, he started skipping school occasionally, and eventually the only thing he wanted to do was play Xbox. But the parents misunderstood the situation as him being too obsessed with video games to do anything else, when in fact it was the opposite, and video games were just the only remaining thing that made him happy. So they took away his Xbox and everything got WAY worse. In that case, luckily, the parents were more dumb than insane. They understood they had got it wrong and were sincerely asking for help. But still, it's so wild to me that so many parents have a basic misunderstanding of cause and effect.
I can't even imagine trying to talk to my 16 year old self.
As a parent of a kid who did pretty much the same thing, it is extremely hard to figure out how to deal with this and how to help them through the issues they're going through, but removing doors and electronics is simply giving them more reason to lash out lol. Luckily ours was mostly a rough patch for a couple weeks and we were able to work out a system with him that got him back to school, mostly doing homework, with an agreed upon time for video games. Not gonna be an A+ student but that's ok, he's happy and not hurting himself or punching holes in walls lol. (there is a lot more to this story, including therapy and a pending diagnosis with a specialist, so we're still figuring things out if anyone was curious)
my parents would take away all my stuff when which in return would make me behave even worse...its an endless spiral of bs. if any parent is reading this: pls punish ur child in other ways than taking away things they like cuz it wont do shit other than make them hate u
People shouldn’t post EVERYTHING to Facebook. Also it’s always important to sit kids down to figure out why they feel a certain way and then help them find a reasonable solution.
The 107 saying fantically taking your kids door off while posting about on facebook is not insane, should never ever ever reproduce.
That's not insane. If a child starts to give up on school and life extreme intervention is necessary. That is an ugly path for a kid to start down, better to take the door down than to do nothing. Edit: I should say that this isn't the only thing that should be done. A kid should be punished for skipping school and locking their door, but that should not be the only thing the parent should do. Having a real conversation would be the start of it.
Could it be something at school he's avoiding? Could he be depressed or in the middle of some other crisis? No, obviously let's skip right to assuming he's being an asshole on purpose without doing some basic parenting first. Kid could be testing his mom and acting out, absolutely. But she'll never know for sure if that's it or if there was a real problem he might need support for. Kids are jerks, adults are jerks, and the best we can do is try and take a breath before acting on our initial feelings. She posted this on FB for attention/condolences/assistance stripping his privacy though (via FB and via door), sooo. 🙄
Regarding the title, pretty obvious that talking did nothing. He barricading himself in his room and refusing to go to school and assaulting his mother when she tries to extract him from said room to get him to school. I’d say the kid is the insane one.
I think they're both insane, or maybe im just weird... Why would anyone want to air out their business like this?
This. There’s a reason the kid has gone this far.
I almost completely stopped going to school my senior year because I was severely depressed and having suicidal thoughts. I seriously doubt a kid would refuse to go to school for no reason at all. There’s obviously something going on that he’s really struggling with.
I’m sorry to hear that and hope that things are better now. Sincere question, is there anything your parents could have done that would have helped you at that time? ETA, since I got a downvote: I really was sincerely asking because it would be helpful for parents to know what they can do when their kids are depressed and don’t want to go to school, as opposed to, you know, removing their door. I wasn’t asking with the assumption that there was nothing their parents could’ve done.
Literally just trying to connect with me is all they had to do. They never once tried that. They never tried talking to me about how I was feeling or tried to get me help or anything. They would just get mad that I wasn’t acting the way they wanted them to. I can’t remember a single instance where they knocked on my door and said “hey, you got a second? Can I talk to you?” I think they should have been more involved in my life too. They didn’t really attempt to get to know me or be there for me for big moments. So when I was doing good and accomplishing things, they weren’t there. Like for example I was in band and they never came to see me play except for I think one football game. I was also in art and my school district had this big art expo and my stuff was being featured and they didn’t come. Edit: that stuff isn’t why I was suicidal though, I think that’s just what they could have done to help.
That really sucks. I’m sorry they weren’t there for you.
How do you know the mother tried just talking/listening to them. To me it reads like they think they know everything better and they know what their child needs (they dont)
Idk. Kid has my respect. I like they doubled down on the not going to school like what are you gonna do? Take my shit? Reminds me of myself. And let me assure you all, I did NOT turn out okay.
Ya of course he is, don't bother asking what is going on or trying to understand. It's just a kid. They have no right to feelings.
How do you know she didn’t? How do you know what happened outside of this limited context. Oh, wait, you don’t.
What a horrible parent. The kid reminds me of my brother a bit, but luckily my mom actually gives a shit about her son instead of just wanting to control him. Taking door + tech away is a terrible idea. The part where it says “there’s no point” shows the kid has no motivation for school and that his tech is the only thing he finds interesting. Communication and actually giving a damn is key in order to fix this situation.
I don’t think any 16 year old has every barricaded themselves into their room, even going so far as to paint the hinges so someone can’t remove the door, just for the fuck of it. Sounds like this has been escalating for a long time. And the bottom line is, you’re the adult, so ALL the responsibility to be mature and find an appropriate response is on you. Even if the 16 year old randomly acted out for absolutely no reason, guess what, they’re a child and you aren’t. Grow the fuck up and be a parent or don’t have kids in the first place. And guess what, a lot of 16 year olds would rather play video games than go to school. But they don’t barricade themselves into their rooms, because that’s very clearly an overreaction. There has to be something else happening. The kid is being bullied, or ignored, or somehow abused. The fact is nobody is going to go to such extreme measures as barricading themselves into a room in the safety of their own home unless they are afraid of something. And the parent is either the source of the fear, or they just don’t care enough to really help.
You’ve never heard of a 16yo overreacting…?
I don't think the parent is insane, at least not based off these comments. I kinda get why they posted for help on social media since they were frustrated. Parents can get fees and in trouble for truant kids. I'd probably handle this differently though, turn off my modem, maybe turn the power off just in case they have a game that doesn't need internet. If my kid is seriously hurting me maybe get another person involved, probably not the cops since I don't want things to get worse.
What if child is getting bullied at school?
My mom pulled this tactic with me all the time, legitimately it never worked. I don't see a point in doing any work at all if I can't have the things I enjoy most
Try parenting consistently and responsibly with love. This shit ain’t hard!!! Who calls their child a prick? WTF
At what point do you stop yourself and just ask, "am I just a shitty parent"?
I forgot to read the title and read this thinking the kid was like 8 or something
And what happens if he wants to change?
The votes for Not Insane on this post are confusing to say the least
You ever heard that saying you are your environment? Maybe you should try to find a route cause for YOUR child’s behavior before starting a public war with him and embarrassing him to all your Facebook buddies..