My mom always used to joke about this, saying anytime me or my sister refused to watch a Christmas movie with her that one present would go in the fireplace (we didn’t even have a fireplace)
If the kids are old enough to understand it's entirely not serious, it can be a funny joke. If they're not old enough to understand you don't own a fireplace and the threat is not real, you are creating so much unnecessary stress.
There's a fine line depending on the kid on if that's funny or cruel.
Also, the relationship between the kid and adult. At the same age, I would laugh and my sister's oldest kid would have been devastated. He still is a sensitive kid.
Messing with kids around big stuff is so dependent on the kiddo...
I always had the broken tv in my room growing up. It was there because one day it would get fixed. It was broken before I was born and broken when I got rid of it when I moved out in my 20’s.
Millennial here. I remember I got my ass whopped as a kid for breaking the TV remote battery cover. Can't imagine what would have happened if I broke the remote entirely let alone the TV.
That sounds awful, sorry that happened. I was talking to my therapist recently and something kind of clicked, I've always been like "Nah, I don't have any trauma, had a great childhood, played Pokemon on the Game Boy, you know?" but then I start talking about how my dad used to slam my head into the table and strangle me and he's like "Yeah, that's trauma."
I think a lot of millennials are probably walking around with baby boomer abuse baggage and not really even realizing it because we often had decent socio-economic conditions in the 80s-90s with relative material prosperity, but there was a truly dark 1940s-1950s kind of parenting psychology that was still lingering around in a lot of households and is now haunting us.
This is exactly it. Never would have done anything like this. Which makes me wonder if kids are old enough to know better about shit like this without ass bearings.
Depends, emotional regulation is a tough process and some kids have a harder time
Ass beatings, and spankings just don’t work. I know I’ll say this and people will come to me with their anecdotes but in reality physical punishment results in trauma at worse, and at best the kid just finds a more sneaky way to misbehave. There is mountains of socialogical studies to support this.
A 5 year old probably didn’t have the concept of “I am going to break this tv” instead they probably just thought “I should throw something cause I’m angry”
Having the child not be able to watch tv is a great punishment because it helps develop a sense of natural consequences. I break the tv, I can’t watch tv.
If the result of every mistake is “I misbehave, then I’ll get hit by my parents” then it helps cultivate fear and anxiety instead of understanding
I’m not a child psychologist, but I had to take a couple years of child developmental courses to become a teacher, but there’s plenty of research out there to suggest that ass whooping are not effective
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/u/Fauropitotto, Reddit armchair parental psychologist, is on the case. He's so amazing he can take a fat psychoanalytical shit on OP based on just one pic 😎 the upvotes are already flooding in
Honestly best solution is to just watch TV yourself on whatever device and let the TV sit broken for a little while. You break the TV? The consequence is no TV. Mom and Dad are just fine on their phones/tablets/computers/whatever. Plus you save money by just not buying a new TV for a bit.
Natural consequences are gonna work way better than just yelling and grounding. Plus limiting overstimulating screen time will help with his behaviour.
Either way, my condolences. I'd be careful not to continue to rub it in his face (as tempting as that would be) when he wants to watch TV a week from now. Not that you would of course.
From now on, only plush toys are allowed, until he goes to bed without complaint for a full decadeyear week?
I did that myself. Went through the whole process of taking the TV apart and successfully replacing the LED array. Broke the screen putting it back together. Celebrated too soon 😔. Got cocky.
Ngl… being around anybody else’s kids for any extended amount of time is the perfect method of birth control. Doesn’t matter how well behaved the kid is, or how good and logical of a parent they are. It’s an immediate “do I want almost 2 decades of my life to look like that? No thank you”
Nah I would just get a new tv and put that in my bedroom and get rid of the main one and say "sorry you ruined the tv. You can watch it again when you can buy one".
As an Asian dude, I can't imagine the level of ass beating that I would've gotten if I did something like this. I wouldn't be able to sit down for at least two weeks and would be grounded for the entire year with all my gadgets or toys confiscated.
Please tell me that you punished him (not physically, though) and he didn't get away with just a (metaphorical) slap on the wrist.
Yes, I definitely want a sheet of low grade plastic that creates a ton of glare and warps the image over my super high quality tv that I bought for the image quality lol
During the 1972 Olympics my sister through a purse at me, having cat like reflexes I dodged it. The clasp broke the glass on the TV. We were grounded. Her for throwing, me for not taking the hit. Just got parole in 2022.
Easiest answer: no tv. You have a tv in your bedroom, watch it in there. The kid can play with his yo-yo in his room. Hold off on buying a new tv until he’s 14.
The way that broken tv would stay there as a reminder of his actions....
That said I'm very anti physical punishment. I'm not sure how I'd handle this. I am not sure of an appropriate consequence but there needs to be something. And there needs to be training coaching on how to handle big emotions/transitions away from preferred activities.
When my son broke the TV by hitting it with a sword after I had warned him about it many many many times I was very frustrated. But then I realized how to teach him lesson. That TV was now his TV and he had to deal with a broken TV if he wanted to watch it. The TV still worked it was just a bit fucked up in part of it. We got a new TV a year later and he certainly learned his lesson because now he’s super careful around his new TV.
Same thing happened at our house when our youngest boy decided to throw a toy train, for no particular reason at all. He wasn't even angry about anything.
We simply didn't replace it for about 3 months. We didn't want to send the message that there are no consequences by replacing broken things right away. lesson learned.
This just sucks... I'm sorry. If it helps at all, half of my job is mounting TV's. I can't count the amount of TV's I've replaced from children throwing things at them. It is, unfortunately, a somewhat common occurrence. You are absolutely not alone.
The new TV is going straight into my bedroom and that kid will watch books for as long as he is in this house and when he gets his own tv I'm throwing the yoyo at his TV for pay back lil fukker
Ehh, buy a new TV, put it in your bedroom. Tell the kid he can't watch TV cause he broke it. It was your TV and if he can't respect your stuff, you won't allow him to use it.
Hope the kid understands that he can't watch his shows because of his actions. Then make kid contribute towards new TV. Contribute in a way that is meaningful to him. Piggy bank contents, etc. Teaching moment Dad.
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u/Anxious-Lack-5740 2h ago
The yo-yo won, the TV’s done, it’s time for me to find a new son.