Parents Forcing Son To Pay $300 After 'Prank' on Sister Backfired Praised

The internet has backed a dad who made his son pay $300 towards his sister's beauty treatment, after a prank he made out of revenge ruined her freshly done hair.

The dad, u/Aitatoofar, shared his story on a Reddit post last Sunday, where he explained that his 16-year-old son, Logan, has a habit of trying to "get back" at people with pranks which he has to ground him over for "fairly often".

Recently, Logan wanted to go swimming with his sister, 13-year-old Lucia, but his dad reminded him that she had just had her annual keratin treatment done, to tame her curly hair, and she couldn't get her head wet for the next few days.

The next day the dad woke up to Logan "laughing hysterically" and Lucia "yelling at him" after he "dumped" a bottle of water on his sister's head while she was sleeping to "get back" at her for eating the last ice cream in the freezer, ruining her expensive treatment.

Tired of his son's pranks, he decided to give him a harsher punishment than usual and made him give up the $310 that he was saving to buy a new video game console to pay for his sister's treatment since he was the one that ruined it.

The National Library of Medicine says that every parent has a different approach in how to interact and guide their children, and "the child's morals, principles, and conduct are generally established through this bond."

The are four main approaches to parenting, which range from uninvolved to permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian, and a child's identity will inevitably be affected by the approach to parenthood you take.

According to their data, children of uninvolved parents are usually resilient and may even be more self-sufficient than children with other types of upbringing, although they might have trouble controlling their emotions, have less effective coping strategies, may have academic challenges, and difficulty with maintaining or nurturing social relationships.

Permissive parents raise children who usually have some self-esteem and "decent social skills", however, they can be impulsive, demanding, selfish, and lack self-regulation.

Children of authoritative parenting are more confident, responsible, and able to self-regulate, and manage their negative emotions more effectively, leading to a better social outcome.

Authoritarian parents raise children who will usually be the most well-behaved in the room because they are afraid of the consequences of misbehaving. This parenting style can result in children who have higher levels of aggression but may also be shy, socially inept, and unable to make their own decisions, as well as having low self-esteem.

It turns out that the parenting method the poster used on his child worked, and he even apologized to his sister without his dad pushing him to do it.

However, the boy's aunt, whom Logan told everything to, reached out to the dad, saying he shouldn't have taken his son's money, because since he's still a minor he's the one who is responsible for covering whatever his son damages.

The post which was first shared on the r/AmItheA**hole subreddit has gathered over 7,000 upvotes and 944 comments in less than a day.

The top comment, which has got over 10,400 upvotes, reads: "[NotTheA**hole]. This isn't a cruel and unusual punishment but rather a fair one that comes with good parenting. Her brother knew that her hair meant everything to her, and so he decided to take what she loved the most thinking it was a simple prank. He needs to have consequences for his actions."

A second user commented: "16 is too old to be making a habit of 'get back at' pranks, especially over a piece of food. He wasted a $300 treatment out of malice and disproportionate to the act he responded to, having him pay to get the treatment done again and to be present while it happened is an apt punishment.

"Being a negligent father would be either doing another useless punishment or ignoring it altogether. Sometimes parents need to make the hard decisions to help their kids become better people and Logan clearly learned from this."

And a third added: "Eventually he's going to f*** up and have to pay a legitimate fine if he doesn't learn from this ridiculous behavior, in that case, Aunty can bail him out if that's her view."

Newsweek reached out to u/Aitatoofar for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.