Part of parenting is teaching valuable life lessons to children, which help them grow into kind and responsible individuals. However, a father who is doing his best to teach his daughter a lesson was seen in a bad light for doing so.
The man wrote, “I have a daughter, Emily (16F), from a previous marriage. My wife, Sasha, has a son the same age, Mark (16M). Mark doesn’t stay with us that often; he prefers to stay with his bio dad. That being said, when he is here, I find Mark to be a pretty good kid, polite and respectful.
His dad decided to take a trip for work, in the last few weeks of school, so Mark’s here for a bit. He’s out of the house most of the time and doesn’t take up much space. He does get kind of grumpy when there’s too much going on around him, especially noise, but for that, his favorite thing is the expensive noise-cancelling headphones, which he almost always has with him — a present from his dad.
Emily’s school has already finished, so she’s home. The problem is that the room Mark is, sometimes has miscellaneous items put in when he’s not here, and therefore Emily seems to think it’s fair game to go through his stuff. I’ve told her to stop, but Sasha hasn’t been taking it seriously, in my opinion, saying that most of Mark’s stuff is easy to replace.”
As a parent I think you're doing a wonderful thing about teaching your daughter a lesson .You need to be very hard and put your foot down so she will understand that she cannot continue to do what she's doing and not suffer consequences. I don't understand your wife at all it seems as if she runs the house.
He continued, “The big problem happened when Mark accidentally left his headphones in his room, and Emily accidentally snapped them.
Mark found out when he came home from school and flipped. He shouted at her, saying she was ’spoilt without anything to back it up’, loud enough that my wife and I heard it from the other room. Sasha wanted me to calm things down, which I did — but I also told Emily, she’s replacing them.
The thing is, Mark’s dad offered to have someone get him a new pair immediately, and that it wasn’t a problem. I said Emily would pay him back, and I’m sticking with it.
Emily and Sasha think that’s unfair since Mark’s dad can afford to buy 10 more. But I don’t think you get to break someone’s stuff and not pay for it. Those aren’t the values I was raised with or what I want for my daughter.
That being said, I do realize in this case it’s kind of unnecessary and there may be better ways for her to make it up to him. Am I wrong?”
I think you're not only doing the right thing for Mark, but also for Emily. The fact that she is sixteen and can't respect other people's privacy and keep her grubby little paws off their stuff is insane. You don't want her kicked out of her college dorm because she was stealing her roommate's stuff do you?
The fact that you're believing that hogwash that Emily 'accidently' snapped those headphones means you need to watch over her better. But your placing the responsibility of her replacing them is spot on.
A user pointed out, “Emily is encountering the find out portion of her messing around. I can see why Mark prefers to stay with his dad; his mom is being super flippant about his space and belongings. Get Mark a lock for the door and remove the miscellaneous items from his room when you know he’s coming over.” OP answered, “I’ve been working on convincing Sasha to let him have a lock. Unfortunately, that’s her rule, and he is her kid. As for the second part, yes, of course, we do that anyway.”
They have a rule, as he stated, “We have an agreement where we’re obviously a family, and can parent each other’s kids (mildly), but the final decision is up to the actual parent. In this case, I can make Emily pay for the headphones, but I can’t allow Mark to have a lock.”
He added, “We make sure all the stuff is out before Mark comes back. I thought she’d stopped after I reminded her there was no reason for her to be in there while Mark is here, and Sasha convinced me not to ground her for a small slip of mind. I was shocked by the fact that she was still going in, let alone that she broke something of his.”
A user replied to it and said, “I can MAYBE see going into the room being a small slip up at first, but if she’s continuously going in his room while he’s staying there, that’s no mistake. It’s invading his privacy. Let alone breaking something he values, even if it was an accident.
Why is Sasha not letting you ground your own daughter? Is she trying to be the ’good parent’? Does she want to teach your daughter that she can just destroy someone’s property and that someone else will come and fix it for her with x amount of money?”
He responded, “See, that’s what I thought. Unfortunately, I was not aware that she continued to go in after the first one or two times. For now, I do think paying for the headphones is an acceptable punishment. They are not cheap, and we’re not a rich family, so she’ll probably be taking at least a month and a half to pay it back.”
In another story, after years of planning for a wedding, all of a sudden, a woman’s sister wants a double wedding. Fed up with it, she did something unexpected that you can read about through this link.
Everyone is failing Mark, control your brat of a daughter!
If you can't win the argument for a lock on Marks door. Maybe it's time your daughter lost the door to her room until the cost of the headphones are paid back through actual paid work done outside the house.
