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View Full Version : Crime, punishment and appellate court

St. Theresa
08-20-2006, 05:52 PM
This is just a rant. But it's a rant about conflicting disciplinary influences and kids.

Yesterday, my son got pissy at his sister because, for some stupid reason, he had to wait for her to come home from a camp-out/sleepover/party before he could go to a pond with his friends. His sister had been at the mercy of her friend's mother, who had my daughter call to say she'd be home in 5 minutes, but then took another two hours to get there.

(This was all at my ex's house, and my ex was the one who decided to wait for her before taking my son anywhere.)

Anyway, it wasn't HER fault, but the boy got annoyed, logged into her Gaia account and began making obnoxious post reports. This is a REALLY busy site, and the mods don't appreciate it.

She called me later, upset because she was getting admin messages warning her to stop abusing the report system or face banning. She let me into her account to see the messages, and they came complete with an IP address. It wasn't hard to figure out by the IP and time stamp that it was my son.

When I confronted him about it, he denied it. I told him I would simply gather more proof that this was, in fact, their IP address, but he admitted it to his uncle in the meantime.

So next time we spoke, I said, "Good. I was going to take the computer away from you for THREE days but since you've rectified the lying part of all of this, it's only going to be two." He cried that it wasn't fair.

(By the way, my logic was one day for what he did to his sister, one day for inconveniencing the mods and another day for lying.)

Uncle got on the phone with me and tried to get me to show mercy. After all, he said, it WAS frustrating to have to wait for his sister.

HELLO! Not her fault and NOT an appropriate response even if it HAD been her fault.

I finally said, "Well, you can do whatever you want at YOUR house, but on Monday, he gets no computer at my house."

Later, I noticed my daughter's account was suspended for 3 days because of what my son did. Now *I'M* thinking, NOT FAIR. She gets punished for 3 days. He gets maybe one.

So I tried to hack into his Gaia account, but he's a smart ass and had already changed the password which was saved on the machine here.

I DID, however, get into another account of his, change the password AND the email address, and he'll have a lot of fun trying to figure all that out.

I was so worried that my daughter would be upset today, but all she did was make another account so she can communicate with friends there until her banning is over.

I was more upset than she. (It's not just a user name - it's a whole profile, journal, HOUSE, avatar which can take a long time to perfect, collecting items, trades in the marketplace, etc.)

I tried to tell the Uncle that, at 14, he has to learn REAL world consequences. Like, in 3 years, when he's driving, if someone pisses him off, he's not going to get away with rear-ending someone in anger because the person didn't use the blinker or drove too slow or whatever. The cops aren't going to say, "Aw, geez, you're upset. Ok, well, then, don't worry about it."

(I swear, I spend tons of time with/on my kids when they're not even HERE for the weekend.)

/end rant.
iciclespark
08-20-2006, 07:31 PM
Yeesh. What a crappy thing for N to do. Does he not understand that they could have up and perma-banned her?

Me? He'd lose that computer for a week. I'm a bitch, though. ;) You hacking is account is hyterical.
Dillinger
08-20-2006, 07:56 PM
I'm just trying to be helpful here so dont get mad. You teach your son not to hack into other people's accounts by..um..hacking into his account?
St. Theresa
08-20-2006, 08:25 PM
I'm just trying to be helpful here so dont get mad. You teach your son not to hack into other people's accounts by..um..hacking into his account?
Yeah, I know, I know. I claim parental privileges. It's MY computer they use. And I wasn't really "hacking." I bought him (and host) own domain. I can log in there (email and all.) His passwords WERE saved on MY computer, but he changed it at his dad's house. So, I was going to have the site email me the password, but Gaia is uber-secure and required me to put in (my) his mother's maiden name and his favorite pet's name and I have NO idea what he put there, so I couldn't do it.

I felt that if they weren't going to impose appropriate consequences, that I would do it my own way here.

Plus, I told him all about it today.

Ten years ago, I'd probably say you NEVER go through your kids personal stuff (like diaries) unless you really have a good reason. But this is the Internet. And I need to watch them. I can't/won't give them 100% Internet privacy. It's too psycho out there.

They also know that, since we're networked, all I have to do is log onto "their" machine (my computer that they use) and drag their Firefox stuff into a separate Firefox profile on my machine and I'm THERE.

The good news is that after they realized her account was suspended, they decided to give Noah the day off from the Internets.

Yay!

(And he keeps calling me to say he loves and misses me...little charming snake. He wants to know if he can go swimming tomorrow. Yes. Unless there's wireless access at the pond, that's a-ok by me.)
St. Theresa
08-20-2006, 08:30 PM
Yeesh. What a crappy thing for N to do. Does he not understand that they could have up and perma-banned her?

Me? He'd lose that computer for a week. I'm a bitch, though. ;) You hacking is account is hyterical.
He totally understands and hoped that's what would happen. On this site you collect "gold," with which you can do all sorts of nifty things. (I'm trying to save up for a kitty.) Noah's got a friend whose accounts were banned twice, and he lost all his stuff forever and has to start from scratch. So it's really more than a name, and it really pissed me off.
St. Theresa
08-22-2006, 07:31 PM
;l

List him on Gaia! I bet you could get 1,000,000 gold, with which you could buy 10 kitties!

(I'm way too into this Gaia thing lately, by the way.)

The boy went back to three days' punishment because his father, by Sunday night, completely fed up with the kid, insisted.

And so it was.

So, nevermind 1/2 of the previous rant. ;)
Dillinger
08-22-2006, 07:35 PM
I've looked around it a bit. How do I get clothes.
St. Theresa
08-22-2006, 07:47 PM
You have a starter set. Go to "Customize Me," click on what you want to wear and "Equip" it. When you're done, save your avatar.

You can also buy things in the marketplace and in stores, but of course, you need gold for that. You get gold just for clicking around the site. There's all kinds of ways to get gold. I like going through Gaia towns and shaking trees and kicking bushes and rocks, and picking up bugs, flowers and trash. With enough gold, you can then get a vending license, then sell your stuff in the marketplace for more gold. I'm saving for a kitty (100,000G.) I'm only over 6,000 now.
Dillinger
08-22-2006, 08:28 PM
I didn't have anything in my starter kit. I had to spend all my gold on clothes.

*looks for town*
St. Theresa
08-22-2006, 11:19 PM
I didn't have anything in my starter kit. I had to spend all my gold on clothes.

*looks for town*
Hmmm, I think the kids said something about a glitch where new sign-ups weren't getting a starter kit. That happened very soon after I signed up (and got one.)

They usually have one glitch or another. Like the marketplace search. If your search term contains all words under 4 letters like, "old can" or "red ink," nothing will come up. So people end up thinking those items are rare.

Also, you can't do anything with your house right now. There's a glitch which doesn't let your house inventory come up when you click to arrange it. So if you get a permit for a house and find a vacant one, you can HAVE one, but it's one room, with cement walls and no windows, doors or furniture. You CAN lock it and turn the lights on and off, though.

Edit: Noah says something about having to click on starter kick on sign-up. Now that you're signed up, he think there ought to be something on the home page about starter kits.
NightRose
08-23-2006, 02:24 AM
I totally understand why you are angry with your son. What he did is entirely out of line. He needs to know the consequences of his actions. Especially since your daughter was at the mercy of someone else's schedule. My mother likes to do that a lot where she will call and say she will be right over and I wait and wait and finally call and she hasn't left the house yet or she changes her mind and forgets to call and tell me and I wasted an entire day at home. But I would never go into her internet accounts and fiddle with them because I am pissed I had to wait for her.

Sometimes a child needs to have a taste of their own medicine when they misbehave. It may seem childish but sometimes that is what it takes to make them see what they did was wrong. I know people that if their children bite them they bite them back to show that it hurts. I think the punishment you gave was fair. And if he doesn't have access to an account he knows what it feels like to be his sister who lost access to her's.
PotatoFace
08-23-2006, 10:33 AM
SPANK HIM!!!!


hehehe.

Of course the internet is filled with crazies, look where you are posting. hahha.
St. Theresa
08-23-2006, 03:04 PM
;l

Right. The kid is taller than me and has bigger feet. And he's stronger. It's a good thing I never relied on spanking before, 'cuz I'd sure be up shit's creek without a paddle now!
Autumn
08-23-2006, 04:16 PM
Did you try breastfeeding?

Seriously, I think the punishment was appropriate. But why does son have access to daughter's account info and password anyway? Maybe they need to keep their passwords secret from each other to avoid any malicious activity in the future?
NightRose
08-23-2006, 06:26 PM
Did you try breastfeeding?

Seriously, I think the punishment was appropriate. But why does son have access to daughter's account info and password anyway? Maybe they need to keep their passwords secret from each other to avoid any malicious activity in the future?

Sometimes they can guess so easily. My brother can usually figure out what my passwords are or at least the secret questions ;u
Autumn
08-23-2006, 06:33 PM
^

Haha, yeah, I guess that's possible. I'm just wondering if they should maintain privacy in that area (from each other, not mom) in order to avoid stuff like this happening in the future. Of course, if the punishment was effective, she shouldn't have anything to worry about anyway.

Man, sometimes I'm really glad I only have one.
NightRose
08-23-2006, 06:45 PM
Man, sometimes I'm really glad I only have one.

Right there with you right now [post83]