Mark Wright’s Blog

You are a parent.  You have three boys who are playing X-Box and not getting along.  You repeatedly warn them that if they don’t shape up, there will be repercussions.  The kids don’t listen.  What do you do?  Well recently a dad decided that he’d heard enough bickering and fighting from the boys.  So what did he do?  He nailed their X-Box to a tree in the backyard.

Needless to say, said X-Box no longer works.  There is a current forum running in which people have been commenting about this incident.  Postings range from the guy is a child abuser who has scarred his kids permanently to him being father of the year.  There are people who are posting that don’t have kids expressing their opinions and those with kids saying that the people without kids shouldn’t have opinions.  There are others that are just mad that he busted a $300 video game.

While I think that nailing the X-Box to a tree was a bit excessive, maybe it will teach these kids that there are consequences to actions.  Let me go ahead and get this disclaimer out of the way.  I am not a parent.  However I do possess a certain amount of common sense.  Just because you are a parent doesn’t mean you are a good one.  My measuring stick is from how I was raised.  My upbringing was in a home with a mother and father.  We were a family that did things together.  We went on trips and ate dinner together.  My father would go out in the back yard and play catch with me after a long day at work.  Very Leave it to Beaver.  However, when I screwed up (which was frequently) there were consequences.  I didn’t get time out.  I was only grounded once in my life and that was for a pretty big screw up which I will not go into at this point.  However, I did get spankings and was yelled at when I erred.  When my father was upset about something I did, he expressed his displeasure for long periods.  There were many times I wished he would just spank me or ground me and get it over with.  Yes folks, he did yell at me.  Guess what?  It didn’t damage my fragile psyche.   It helped me to develop thick skin, expect the best of people and ultimately manage people in my job better.   

If I was the father, I would have probably bundled that bad boy up and given it to someone who might have appreciated it more but I can say that in hindsight.  There are times when you can talk to your kids, have a rational conversation and get your point across.  Sometimes it might take nailing an X-Box to a tree to make a statement.