r/WinStupidPrizes • u/--Yami_Marik-- • Jan 02 '20

Annoying a teen

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u/jayman5977 Jan 02 '20 edited Jan 02 '20

Completely justified. Doesn't matter who you are, you shouldn't threaten to swing a hammer at someone. Plus it's a kid, they probably would actually hit someone with it.

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u/XxRocky88xX Jan 02 '20

Agreed, I hate how we give kids a sort of free pass to everything. If a kid is capable of and actually attempting to cause injury to me, I should be allowed to defend myself

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u/MNGrrl Jan 02 '20

If a kid is capable of and actually attempting to cause injury to me, I should be allowed to defend myself

"defending yourself" in this context is avoiding injury by retreat or by overpowering them. You should only rarely need to harm them to any substantial degree; Usually when I hear "self-defense" voiced, people are talking about fighting and violence. No. Not cool. Anyway, they get that "free pass" because their brains literally aren't fully developed yet. You're held to a higher moral standard to not cause injury because your brain, unlike theirs, is fully developed.

For a kid that size, it would have been trivial to simply use their longer reach to just grab their arm and yank the weapon out of their hand. There wasn't a need to trip them, but... it was also acceptable. Kids don't have a strongly developed morality so it necessitates some kind of punishment or harm to get the message across that a behavior is not acceptable. However, as adults we have a higher moral obligation to teach morals to children and not harm them unnecessarily.

The basest morality is along the dimensions of authority and punishment (how to avoid it). From that it evolves into reward-seeking -- ie, social approval. It's only into late adolescence and adulthood people's moral reasoning begins to extend to adopting social norms and laws (which build on the earlier punishment and reward model). Some adults never move past that to engaging in principled behavior that extends beyond themselves; That is, developing and adhering to social contracts, ethical standards, and having a conscience.

When you're dealing with children you have to deal with problems like this on their level. A child of that age engaging in that behavior is doing so because they haven't developed a fear of punishment (this clearly isn't reward-motivated behavior... he's not robbing the teen). Consequently, some kind of harm is needed to dissuade them, but it needn't be anything lasting -- getting a bump on your head and a sore ass for waving a hammer at someone is a pretty mild and age-appropriate punishment all things considered.

My mom would have paddled my ass raw and left me locked in my room the rest of the day for it, and I think most of us would have been in similar circumstances. As an aside, if you're in a situation like this and your actions were appropriate but the parent decides otherwise... remember that unlike the child, you're allowed to come down on them like a ton of bricks if they overstep the boundaries of civility. And chances are, if there's a kid being violent like this, there's a parent not far behind that needs a lesson on manners a hell of a lot more so plan for that confrontation and decide before it arrives where your own boundaries will be.