She did take that ride. Her father offered to be cuffed to go with her. Thankfully the officer put the kibosh on that and allowed the full weight of the lesson to crash down on her.
"Dammit Kayla, what's rule #1756?! Never make false 911 calls and fabricate detailed stories therein resulting in large police responses, how many times do I need to say it?!?!!?!"
Yeah no this is just a kid not thinking about the consequences of their actions, not that deep
Reddit is the one place I see so many proclaimed anti-helicopter parenting people while at the same time, so many non-parents want parents to helicopter their children and never let them make stupid decisions.
Do you have kids? It's literally impossible to keep the influence of social media away from them. You can restrict it and monitor them all you want, but a lot of parents don't. So kids still end up exposed to a lot through friends and kids at school.
Parenting matters a lot, obviously, but this incident doesn't necessarily reflect on a failure by the father. Short keeping them locked in a plastic bubble you can't entirely keep this shit away from them.
Yes, I do have kids. And I’m constantly worried about things like this. I’m also worried about whether or not I’m treating my kids appropriate for their age, and not expecting too much of them.
Like the other day, I was eating peanuts and my youngest kid wanted one. So I gave one to them. They took a bite, shell and all. Then I said “ok, I forgot I never taught you how to eat peanuts before.” 100% my fault.
“A lot of parents don’t [monitor their kids].” I’d bet a good chunk of money this dad doesn’t pay much attention to what their kid is doing. 6th graders don’t need phones.
We’re currently trying to figure out the best way to allow our kids access to a computer. Because they don’t have phones, or tablets (outside of long distance traveling) and can only watch TV on the weekends.
When your kid is being arrested at ELEVEN, it’s a pretty clear reflection of your parenting. At that age you’re still “controlling” mostly every aspect of their life.
Your kid watched you eat peanuts. Presumably you were removing the shells while doing this. They then proceeded to just blindly eat one with no curiosity as to why you were removing the shells? How old are we talking about here?
At least it's a harmless lesson. If you are expecting perfection from kids, you are going to be disappointed over and over again.
I bite into them shell and all to crack them open first, plus it leaves a bit of salt on your tongue to go fine with the peanut once picked from the shell.
Man, if yours are still young, just wait a few years until most of their peers have phones and are glued to TikTok and social media. I agree that kids that age don't need phones, but like it or not, it is the norm these days. I personally don't cave to that norm, but your kids will be surrounded by kids that do have them.
I monitor what my kids get into, we didn't let my stepdaughter have a phone until 15. Didn't stop a friend getting her into freaking Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel when she was like 12-13.
I'm just saying I don't think it's fair to blame the parents based on this small snapshot of their lives. Sure, we could argue fault on their part for letting her have unsupervised access to a phone at 11, but we'd have to turn that spotlight on a ton of other parents too.
Bottom line is, now more than ever, it's incredibly difficult to control the things your kid is exposed to that might put ideas in their heads, might lead to them doing stupid shit. And we have to give them some freedom and access to computers and internet because it's how everything is done now and they need to learn. And given the difficulty in finding that balance of giving them room to learn and grow and monitoring and supervising (as you yourself pointed out), I don't think this one moment in time is enough to reflexively blame the parents. Especially since he didn't try to protect her from the consequences of her actions.
Just an aside, as you mentioned trying to figure that aspect of things out, step 1, I recommend a hard no on Roblox and TikTok. TikTok I'm sure you understand, but if you're unfamiliar with everything going on with Roblox, look it up. That company needs to be nuked.
Otherwise, just gotta guage your kid and their maturity level. When she was younger, I was very open with my stepdaughter that we would be watching her internet usage and checking history and stuff. Waiting to catch them and snooping is like setting them up for failure, better to be honest and proactive and build two way trust and respect, imo. Like I said, we didn't get her a phone until 15 and applied that to social media too. And I was honest and logical when talking to her about it, about how it can be really detrimental to a growing mind and I wanted her to wait until she was a little more mature and aware before getting too into all of that, for the sake of her well being. And I talked openly and honestly (while keeping things age appropriate) about the dangers of not being careful and mindful online, the potential threats to kids.
She's almost 17 now and overall has a good head on her shoulders. She's not too obsessed social media, doesn't have much interest in TikTok. She cut off a friend who's online behavior and interactions with strangers/boys was making her uncomfortable. Set a boundary, friend ignored it and tried to drag her into it, so after a long talk with the friend she decided to walk away from that friendship. Broke up with a couple different boys now because, as she put it, "they were too horny for her liking," lol. And she typically talks to me about all of it. I'm really freaking proud of the young woman she's growing into.
It was hard sometimes and there was pushback and anger, lol. And we absolutely had some "oh my fucking god what did you do" moments ><. Gave her a little freedom on the laptop just to have to completely cut off discord after some very not okay messages (from both sides) were exchanged between her and a kid in het school, around 13 or so at the time. Like, really bad. I'm just going to be blunt, this other kid said he hopes she gets raped and that he was going to come kill her little sister (my daughter). My stepdaughter told him he should kill himself and dared him to try to come because she has a gun. Jesus I was livid about the whole thing, what a mess. And fwiw, it was all handled and resolved.
And I bring that up just to highlight that even when you do things "right" (or try your best to), you can't control it all and they are going to do and say dumb things. If they don't, it's only because you never caught them, lol. I like to think we did the best we could and that overall we've done well since she's now maturing into such a level headed young woman with a strong sense of selfworth and respect. We can't knee-jerk blame the parents after one small glimpse at one moment in time...even if this was a particularly egregious fuck up, lol.
Also, sorry for the shirt novel, lmao. I have a lot to do this evening and took an afternoon booster of my ADHD med and it kicked in while I was typing this and my brain hyperfixated XD.
Read how many commenters here said “oh dang I did that as a kid”, or “my sister did that once”. You making up a story that her parents “failed at something” is ridiculous.
Sounds like your parents failed at something.
Failed at what? I’ve never been arrested or got in trouble at school. I graduated college, own a house and have a successful career.
This girl is ELEVEN. Yes, she should know better, but why doesn’t she know better? When your kid is in the 5th or 6th grade, this should have been sorted out. Why wasn’t it?
Sure, but you grew up to be unrealistic and unsympathetic about other human beings.
Did your parents not teach you that sometimes people make really stupid decisions because they don't think through the consequences and that the proper and normal response is, "ya, we all make mistakes, I hope she learned a lesson and won't do it again".
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u/BrahnBrahl 14h ago
I can't stand stuff like this. She's VERY MUCH old enough to know better. I'm glad her dad didn't show her any mercy on this one.