Ah, parents, parents! How I weep for thee! Such a glorious job and yet one fraught with devilish temptations. Like hiring a bully to beat up the bully who is bullying your kid. Sounds kind of wonderful, doesn't it? Hey, if a kid beats up a kid, then you don't get in trouble. You're just like, A bully bullied the bully who was bullying my kid. Karma! But not if you get caught. Now you just look like a bully yourself. This reportedly went down when fed-up dad Philip Prokop was arrested for paying a 17-year-old girl $21 to beat up the 13-year-old girl who was bullying his own teen daughter. What's with the one extra dollar? You can just hear the bargaining session now. Twenty bucks? Cantcha kick in another buck?
Prokop denies he paid anyone to do anything. He says he merely went to a local hang-out with his 15-year-old daughter, Rose, to confront the girl who was verbally bullying his daughter so badly that she wanted to harm herself.
Right here we've got an adult doing something they shouldn't -- getting involved in inter-teen disputes. But can anyone blame him? Especially if other tactics, like reporting the behavior to school officials and the bully's parents, weren't working.
Prokop says that he introduced himself to the girl who was bullying his daughter and asked her to stop. This is where accounts diverge. Witnesses said that a teen whom Prokop paid to avenge his daughter attacked Rose's bullier. But Prokop says a melee broke out and he isn't sure who started it, but he denies paying anyone to start it.
Whatever happened, Prokop is the one who was arrested. He's out on bail. And the other teen's parents are furious with him. So, in the end, though his intentions were good, he's the one who ends up in hot water. And teaching your kid that bullying is the way to go -- as long as it's not your kid being bullied -- is not good parenting. But emotionally I can empathize with the dad, just like I can with the mom who got so enraged with bullying remarks a male teen was posting about her daughter on Facebook that she choked him.
This latest incident also involved Facebook. The bully had allegedly written about Rose: "I love how you're spreading rumours about me. I thought the only thing you could spread are your legs."
Maybe one solution is to keep all teens off Facebook, period.
Would you confront your kid's bully?
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Comments 4
But other than things like that, adults should never confront children. PERIOD.
Go to their parents, go to the school, go to the police. If that doesn't work, just keep everyone in your family away from them. Homeschool/get a transfer. Block them on social media sites, and from txting/calling on cell phones.
This just goes right back to what I said the other day about parents monitoring and helping their kids control their phone/online interractions. If dad had made the daughter temporarily close her fb, and/or block the offender(s), it wouldn't have escalated unless it was at school, in which case, go to the school. If the school does nothing, file a suit againt them. See the circle here?
If he really paid a 17 year old to give his daughters tormentor a little roughing up... I say, ohh well, little brat will learn a lesson and leave people alone. The law is NOT going to help you out in this situation, and schools act on nothing. Sometimes, you have to take matters into your own hands.