We would embed the video but we have policies against IT on tech violence.

After 28 million views and countless spoofs and comments, Tommy Jordan’s very public discipline of his daughter has captured the national conversation on raising your teen online.

Mr. Jordan’s rant and subsequent laptop-cide have prompted both kudos and outrage from all over the country and the world, but we see a few things that Facebook Dad did right and a few things he did wrong.

What He Did Right

1. He monitored his daughter’s Facebook account and held her accountable for her behavior.
2. He created a clear set of consequences for abusing Internet privileges.
3. He was involved in his daughter’s online life and sought to take steps to correct what he viewed as damaging behavior to his daughter’s reputation.

What He Did Wrong

1. He punished his daughter for cussing publicly by cussing at her, publicly. Parents need to emulate the behavior they want to see in their kids.
2. He punished his daughter for taking family problems public on Facebook, by taking their family problems public on Facebook. See above.
3. Wanton destruction of technology. Granted, ending the video by plugging the laptop full of hollow-point rounds undoubtedly had the visceral impact that he desired, but we have to take issue with both the waste of something that could have been useful to someone, and removing technology from a teen as a way of punishment. Removing technology from teens in order to punish them for misuse of the technology seems like a simple solution to a simple problem, but the punishment might not fit the crime. After all, computers and the Internet are learning tools in addition to being entertainment, and removing the child’s access to both could negatively effect the child’s ability to learn, perform well in school, and thus the child’s college and career prospects down the line.

One has to imagine that Facebook Dad has softened a bit on denying access to the Internet for the foreseeable future, and we hope that he considers the use of parental control software so that he can take a more effective, less drastic measure like restricting access to Facebook without removing access to the Internet altogether.

Filed under: Internet Safety News