A father writes to "Ask Amy" today about his daughter, who deliberately smashed her cell phone in hopes of getting a new one. What should he do? Here is Amy's answer:
Unless you have purchased insurance, replacing this broken phone could be a very expensive proposition (insurance is also expensive, and there is a deductible to replace a broken or lost phone). I do believe that it is something of a safety issue for a teenager to have a phone these days, and because of that, she should have one.
....I think it's important that your daughter should ultimately pay for the replacement — or negotiate a partial payment with you and her mom. Experiencing the consequences of this incident should inspire her to be much more careful.
I am bursting with follow-up questions:
- The incident happened at a friend's house. According to the letter writer, "I called the friend’s mom and she told me that both girls had deliberately broken their phones in order to get new ones." wtf? Was the friend's mom watching while the phones were smashed? Why didn't she proactively call up the parents to let them know what happened?
- Insurance doesn't cover the deliberate destruction of a phone, does it?
- Why is having a phone a safety issue "these days"?
- This isn't a case of getting the daughter to be "much more careful." She wasn't careless. She deliberately destroyed the phone! She was trying to scam her parents and lied about it to their faces!
- The letter writer says his wife just wants to get the daughter a new phone and be done with it. Seriously?
- Why am I reading "Ask Amy"? I don't remember. For some reason I clicked on this last night.
As near as I can make out, everyone in this story is completely crackers. The daughter deliberately wrecked a phone. Friend's mom didn't bother letting Dad know what happened. Mom just wants to get the daughter a new phone. And Amy is totally out to lunch. Not one single person seems to think that the daughter ought to be punished in any way aside from (maybe) getting a crummy flip phone and (maybe) paying for part of it.
I am not a parent. I admit I might wuss out if this happened to me in real life. But my initial thought is that I'd ground the daughter for a good long time so she wouldn't need a phone for "safety reasons." Help me out here. Am I the asshole?
This point, where a child thinks it's okay to destroy a phone with the expectation of getting a brand new one, was preceded by a thousand other moments where parenting facilitated and supported a permissive environment.
Resolving this does not undo the training from those preceding thousand moments of parental guidance.
The question is, who confirmed they deliberately broke their phones?
Just get them a basic gps and flip phone for old people if that's the case. None inn your plan? Get one and locked everything down on it.
Else, replace phone.
"Just get them a basic gps and flip phone for old people if that's the case."
I logged on to Comments to say exactly this. Get her an old-fashioned flip phone and tell her to earn her own money to replace her smartphone. I'm pretty sure you can buy a flip phone at any Walmart and enter it on just about any carrier in the US. I got one for my husband a few years ago (he decided he really didn't like it and went back to a smartphone. Whatever).
I AM a parent, of kids long grown. They pulled some things like this, though not this drastic and not this old. They learned quickly that those kind of tricks didn't work.
NO. Get her/them both Jitterbugs and tell them the next new phone is the one they'll pay for themselves.
The fact that her friend's phone was also smashed suggests it was not an accident.
Or the kid usually didn't do much wrong and is generally a good kid, and succumbed to peer pressure and did something massively stupid. Or the kid has been bullied endlessly about having an old phone, and is so turned around they're not thinking straight. Or they just made a really bad choice like teenagers do.
You can't judge a kid or a parent from an Ask Amy column.
She should be grounded until the end of time.
two words: military school
May be okay for boys: look at what it did for one Donald J Trump!! But for humans of the female-type girl persuasion, it's just endless Rape Town. Seems like a little too much punishment.
Do you have any evidence that there is any more rape at military schools than at any other boarding schools?
I’d say it’s time for a hand-me-down ancient replacement. That the kid pays for.
No, you're right. And while she's grounded get her a portable phone from the 1980s, the kind that looks like a large brick with an antenna.
It won't work.
In terms of the safety thing, the assumption these days is that everyone has a cell phone, even at high schools that tell kids not to have them at school.
Back in my day there was a school phone for students to use to call home for rides. That doesn't exist in my kid's school anymore. The school assumes everyone has a cell to call home. And, because everyone has a cell phone, afterschool activities don't need to have a set ending time, either. They let kids go at any time over a three hour window. The assumption is kids and parents can call each other at any time, so a free-for-all is totally fine.
I guess the question about punishment is how you want to view the phone's ownership. If it is the parents' phone, they should punish and replace it with a really cheap one. If it is the kid's, the kid can buy their own replacement. I get to destroy my own property if I want to - but I don't get to make others pay for it.
No phone unless she pays for it. None. Not even a crappy flip phone.
I was gobsmacked by Amy's answer. No, Kevin, you're not an asshole. If my daughter had done this deliberately I'd punish her entitled ass with "Oh, that's too bad. I guess now you'll have to earn the money to buy a new one. How do you think you're going to do that?"
This is the legacy Hillary Clinton will leave behind. Girls who think it's OK to smash cell phones with hammers.
wut
Yeah, right. What?
It would be silly trying to read everything Trump says, but I'm astonished you've never heard even one of the frequent references he and his fans have been making to this story over the years.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/294465-cnn-anchor-stunned-that-clinton-aides-destroyed-phones-with/
Of course they did. When you have classified information on a computer (smartphone) and get a new phone, you don't leave the old computer lying around. You're supposed to disable it, so that it can't be used again. Smashing them with hammers is a recommended method of doing that.
Drilling a hole through a hard drive is another approved method. Why on earth would Fox News think it's a good idea to just leave the phones laying around?
Her staff was following recommended protocol for dealing with classified information for devices that are no longer in use.
RWNJ's should educate themselves.
I am pretty sure the actual protocol is to return the phone to the issuing authority so the destruction (if necessary) can be confirmed.
Assuming the phone was issued by an agency or 'authority'. I don't know that all of Hillary's phones were issued to her.
None were. They were bought by her staff who wanted he to quit using one that was 5 releases or more out of date.
It definitely is NOT acceptable to store classified information on an off the shelf phone that you purchase from a retailer. That info should only be on locked down government devices.
If Hillary's team was just buying phones and putting classified information on them there should have been prosecutions.
Oh dear lord. You've never had a clearance or worked in intelligence have you?
When she had meetings with heads of state or other foreign cabinet secretaries, information regarding the location, the time, travel and even the menu is classified until some time after the fact.
The State Department is focused on diplomacy and doesn't over-classify information. The CIA Is based on secrecy and tends to classify everything and over classify certain things.
From what I remember, Hillary didn't have anything marked Classified on her phone, but after the fact, it was determined there were several emails that should have been classified (as determined by the CIA and DOJ).
But even non-classified information, if she had sensitive information, it's still recommended protocol to destroy the phone and not leave it laying around.
But no, she was not buying phones at Best Buy and storing classified information on them.
E-Mail protocol was not nearly as well-defined in 2015.
And are you really going to 'But her emails' in 2023? She was investigatingated for that. And investigated. And investigated.
Grow up.
You have never been allowed to have classified information on a government cell phone. You mean unclassified but confidential information
Are you sure about that? It seems to have been allowed as far back as 2015.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/mobility/2015/09/03/dod-s-top-secret-smartphone-expected-in-the-fall/
It's either snark or assholery regarding her staff destroying the email server hard drives after they had been reviewed by her attorneys and the contents had been provided to the Department of Justice.
It's a right wing bugaboo that she destroyed the servers before the authorities could get to them in order to hide here ... no one knows.
Good grief, it's been a running joke on the right for years that Hillary destroyed her phones with a hammer. And it's more or less true:
And scum on the right keep ignoring it was the right thing to have done.
No hard drives were destroyed nd it wasn't her staff that bleach bit the email server. And she could document that the person who did bleach bit it had been ordered not to.
I thought it was that Apple commercial from the 80’s.
Is this the posting from BizarroWorld?? Hillary Clinton? WTH??
Hillary's staff destroyed unused and unwanted phones as a security measure.
Perhaps Kevin is becoming a Republican?
At least in my family, child smartphone are a necessity. We live on UAE and kids must use Careem to get home from school on days with after school activities.
I would buy a cheap low end second have phone in this situation. It would be a downgrade from original phone.
A bigger question is how did we become so indulgent of misbehavior?
It isn't just kids smashing phones. What about illegal immigrants who commit crimes or protesters who block roads?
Or protesters who block women from medical they need.
How do you know they actually smashed their phones on purpose?
Also, why did you go straight to the bigotry?
Lastly, we don't need your foreign bigotry.
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/united-arab-emirates/
Protesters who block roads? Who are are, Bull Connor? Do you think that John Lewis and the other protesters at the Edmund Pettus Bridge were like this? Martin Luther King Jr. blocking streets? Women in Iran blocking downtowns to protest covering clothing requirements?
And what's with the focus on "illegal immigrants" who commit crimes? Are you under the impression that there are no fully documented native-born American citizens who commit crimes?
You have the right to protest. You do not have the right to block others from going about their business while ignoring you.
The focus on illegal immigrants because you cannot deport Americans (native born or naturalized).
I have lived abroad the last 30 years and I have always known that any crime (including a misdemeanor) or even being out of work for more than a month or two would likely result in deportation.
This is the way almost every country in the world works - well behaved foreigners who work, pay taxes and contribute to the local economy and do not cause problems are welcome. Others are deported, perhaps after a stint in a detention center or prison. I see no reason why the same should not be true in the US.
Stop getting your information from professional liars who target complete imbeciles.
Laugh. You are unable to actually address a single point I made so you resort to general ad hominem attacks.
It's not a crime to be an illegal immigrant. Never has been. Civil disobedience has a long and proud history in the USA, Rosa Park is a national hero for committing the crime of being black in the front of a bus.
You’re not the asshole, the girl and MF above are. The cheapest smartphone is $35 at Walmart.com. Buy the girl that one and tell her it’s her fault for destroying her previous one.
Ground her. Make her pay for the phone. No phone unless she wants to work and ear her own phone.
What ever happened to responsibility…
I am a parent, and it took me a long time to figure out that the best way to raise a normally sociopathic baby into becoming a responsible adult is to allow them to suffer the consequences of their actions. With the sole exception of ensuring that those actions don't kill them.
The kids broke their phones? Well, let the kids buy themselves another phone. The kids says they can't afford another phone? Geez. That sounds like they might have created a problem for themselves. I hope they can solve that problem, but I'm not going to do that for them.
I completely agree with D_Ohrk_E1's comments, though, and I have zero expectations that the parents will change their behavior to make their kid a good citizen. That kid is going to have a rude awakening when they reach adulthood.
Let me add one thing. The reason that letting a kid suffer the consequences of their actions works so well is that it basically duplicates the real world.
You don't succumb to blackmail and buy the kid another phone.
You don't add extra effort to your day by grounding the kid and then trying to enforce a "grounding", which is by no means guaranteed to work.
Instead, you do nothing, and the kid learns to take care of their stuff. Everyone wins.
My kid is 6 and sometimes he does thing that force consequences. He tells me he's sorry and he won't do it again. I thank him and say that is the right thing to do but its too late to go back, I already gave him a last chance (I usually give him 2-3 tries). But we can start fresh tomorrow. I try not to be mad but to say it calmly so he can link his action with the consequences not think making me mad is what leads to consequences.
What's a suitable punishment? Buying her a flip phone. She can upgrade as soon as she earns the money to afford it.
Apparently, she wanted to upgrade and thought disabling what she had would help her end up with an upgrade.
I think the important line here is, "I am not a parent." Parent's sometimes come down really hard on some minor shit they actually think is funny (and that the parent's likely did themselves when they were kids) because it teaches a lesson and hurts no one. But then other times you let big things go or only give the "disappointed" punishment (quiet treatment, small loss of privileges) for a major infraction because you know the kid is terrified.
Parents have to make a lot of choices, and from the outside the choices often don't make any sense (IF MY DID DID THAT I'D ...) to outsiders, but each parent knows their kid, knows themself, knows the other parent, knows the friends, knows that they, too, were dipshits as kids, etc.
Yeah. Parenting is full of these kinds of situations requiring decisions about how to react. You do your best and move on, and the kid grows up and is fine. All this hand-wringing about how if you don't handle this "crisis" exactly correctly the kid will be ruined forever is just silly. Relax. They all grow up eventually and become whoever they are pretty much independent of how you handled the cell phone crisis of 2024.
Do whatever you want about the phone, but for god's sake, don't let her have a car.
Agree. This whole situation is messed up.
When my kids accidentally broke phones, we would reach into the retired phone drawer or they could pay for a new one.
On the insurance front, a lot of credit cards now have "free" insurance if you pay your cell phone bill with the card.
Does the insurance cover deliberate destruction? Particularly if the hammer blows are obvious?
Before anybody reaches any huge conclusions about the younger generation or parenting today, I think it's worth pointing out that there is always a decent chance that a story in an advice letter is just something someone made up for fun.
This is spot on.
There are multiple aspects of the story which seem made up or exaggerated. The behavior of everyone in the story seems suspect. Also, on these facts, what parent writes into an advice column to ask how they should punish their kids?
This feels like a letter written to show how bad kids are these days and how bad all parenting is these days.
Assuming it’s true (which I doubt), I basically agree that Amy’s advice is pretty off-point. I agree that phones are a safety issue these days (especially for older kids) but, as others have pointed out, that doesn’t mean you get this kid the phone she was hoping for.
"Someone" actually being the advice columnist themselves.
Assuming the story is true, put me in the flip phone column and the kid can go get a job and pay for a new smartphone herself.
Safety problem solved.
Message sent.
If it were my child, I'd verify the story first. If true, she could have a cell phone when she pays for it. The idea that a child needs a cell phone to be safe is just bullshit.
I'm on Team Get Her a Funky Phone. But it doesn't have to be an old-fashioned flip phone. It will be humiliating enough for her to have a super-cheap smart phone. Smashing her phone suggests that she uses her phone as a fashion accessory so if she has to use something like a Samsung Galaxy A03s, that would be real punishment for a teen girl. When she can pay for her own phone, she can get what she wants. This will have more impact if the family is well-off enough that they obviously could buy any phone, so the cheapness will be seen as intentional.
But there is something off in this scenario. How old is this girl? Has she been acting out a lot lately? Has her overall mood been deteriorating? Somebody needs to get answers to these questions (and more), and maybe somebody needs professional counseling.
I'm a father of two teen/tween-aged daughters. If one of them deliberately smashed her phone, then lied about it, she wouldn't even get a flip phone from us. After being grounded for a month, for safety purposes she would go back to having a "gizmo watch" -- a smart watch with GPS which only allows incoming phone calls from parents. We used them when the girls were younger to coordinate school pickups, etc.
IMO, this is not "being an asshole". It's called "parenting". Having a phone is a privilege.
I have to agree with the other posters here, though; I have to wonder how much of this story is genuine. On the other hand, I do know a bunch of other parents who don't seem to do much of the old-school "parenting" these days, so it doesn't seem all that unbelievable to me...
I agree this not a "phone" issue, but one of trust and responsibility. There should be clear punishment for the deception (and any subsequent lying if occurred), as well as the financial irresponsibility.
After that, daughter would have to go work somehow, at home or actual job, to pay for the next phone, after which she'd be back on the good list and likely getting gifted future phones again.
I would not ground her or even yell at her, but I would also not get her a new phone or device of any kind. She goes without for at least a year.
Buy the exact same model on swappa and talk the cost out of her allowance/income.