Kids naughty, so dad sells their gifts on eBay

from the houston chronicle

Allan Turner
Houston Chronicle

HOUSTON - 'Twas the week before Christmas, and chaos did reign. The kiddies were squabbling. Oh, what a pain! Their language was shocking, their demeanor obscene. But to correct them was useless, you know what I mean?

So to the computer, Dad sprinted so spry. "There's going to be order, or you'll regret it," he cried. Then typing and clicking like wee, tiny elves, he summoned up eBay, determined to sell.

Enough with the poetry.

There's not much laughter today at the home of a Pasadena information technology specialist who has decided to auction off his kids' Christmas presents - and possibly dismantle the family tree - because the youngsters, ages 9, 11 and 15, have been naughty, not nice.

"One thing we teach around this house," said the man, who asked that his name not be revealed, "is that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people."

In Christmas' context, bad people get switches or lumps of coal - or lose the presents they want the most.

"BAD CHILDREN get no Nintendo DS. Santa will skip our house this year," the man announced in his eBay posting to sell three DS systems with PictoChat and Metroid. Also offered were three games for use with the system. "No kidding. Three undeserving boys have crossed the line. Tonight we sat down and showed them what they WILL NOT get for Christmas this year. I'll be taking the tree down tomorrow."

As the auction wound down Thursday evening, bidding was up to $255 - below the minimum price the man had set. Across the eBay site, 540 others were selling Nintendo DS items.

"If you don't buy them, we'll return them to the store," the seller known online as magumbo2000 reported on the site.

"These are normally really good kids," he said. But in a single day, he added, the boys fought one another, used vulgar language and gestured obscenely. The family discord has been in progress for about two weeks, said the man, attributing it, in part, to the laxness of previous discipline.

"It seems like we'd say what we were going to do, then bend and back off a little," the father, 41, said. "We'd ground them for a week, but they'd really be grounded for three days; we'd take away video games, but they would still watch television. ... It decayed to the point that groundings don't work, putting them in their room, timeouts don't have any effect."

The man said he and his wife announced the possible punishment in a family meeting earlier this week.

"We told them to think about what kind of brothers they were being, how they were treating their parents and what kind of men they were going to grow up to become," he said. "We told them they were destroying each other and the calm and peace in the household. It had to stop."

The boys pledged to reform, he said, but were back at their rowdy ways early the next morning.

"When two of them were together, they'd get along great," he man said. "But as soon as the third comes in, it's immediately two against one."

The next evening, a second family meeting was held to announce that the top level of presents - about $700 in video games - would be sold on the computer auction site. The oldest boy, the man said, responded with a challenge to carry out the threat.

"My first thought was, 'Oh, (expletive),' He's telling me to prove it. What are you going to do then?" the man said. "You can't just let the tail wag the dog. If this has a positive long-term effect, and it makes them better people, that's all that counts. I'm certainly not a vindictive, mean, evil beastie of a person."

The boys' mother noted the children increasingly have been disrespectful to her, their father and each other.

"We're on a very limited income," she said, "and we scrimped and we saved. You have no idea how hard it was to get these games for the boys, but I did and I was treated like crap. ... It really crushes me, but we felt like we had to take a stand.

"I kind of prayed that they (the toys) didn't sell on eBay."

Lane Coco, a Ph.D. social worker at Depelchin Children's Center, suggested that the embattled parents may have stumbled into an "ultimatum situation" in which everyone loses.

"Perhaps they should have planned some kind of activity," she said. "It sounds like the kids were bored with school being out. ... Sometimes parents let things go by the wayside, they're lax, then they really come down with something very harsh. It's really not fair to the children, or to them. They usually feel pretty lousy about what they've had to do."

Coco praised the family for its joint meetings, and suggested the parents might have asked the children for ways they could better get along.

"It sounds like the children are at a developmental stage where there is a lot of picking at one another and sibling rivalry," she said. "Making the youngest one the odd man out - that's not unusual at all."

With the situation in its present state, Coco suggested another family meeting in which the parents could assure the kids of their love.

"Maybe he could salvage the presents, take them off eBay," she said. "Get the kids to work with them, rather than fighting with one another. Try to form alliances with the children rather than coming off with this off-the-top-of-the-charts disciplinary thing."

One solution might be to have each child choose one of his gifts to give to a homeless child.

"That takes the spotlight off how bad they are, and turns it into something more in line with Christmas," Coco said.

The father said his wife has been in tears since the final showdown.

"I don't do it outwardly," he said, "but I'm crying on the inside."

Tears or no, he said, if the kids don't settle down, he will auction off the next tier of toys - a bicycle, fish tank and karaoke machine.

Although the man contacted the Houston Chronicle, promoting the tale as a "human interest story," he adamantly refused to be identified.

"In a city of 4 million people," he said, "do you think I want to be a Grinch?"

Quite right too, especially the giving to homeless and children in need. I disagree with setting a minimum bid, though, I'd rather have seen all the gifts given to children more worthy.

This Coco person needs to spend an afternoon with some kids. I can tell by the way she says the things she does that she has never spent more than an hour with any number of children. Sometimes the only way to get through to brats is to carry out impossible threats like auctioning off all the Christmas presents.
K

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Originally Posted by keiko

This Coco person needs to spend an afternoon with some kids. I can tell by the way she says the things she does that she has never spent more than an hour with any number of children. Sometimes the only way to get through to brats is to carry out impossible threats like auctioning off all the Christmas presents.
K

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Amen!! Ive got 3 little bundles of joy who refused to clean their room....that is until Dad came in to clean them, with a hefty bag. Amazing how fast a child can learn where his shirts go...

I agree wholeheartedly as well...I work 5 12 hour shifts a week ...being a nurse isn't easy..it is high stress and exhausting..I worked my ass off this season (several 6 days weeks even (72 hours) To get my kids all they wanted this year..they do not get along very well either...now I have next years idea..I bet those kids will think twice now and show some respect to each other and their parents...at least we can only hope..And I agree ...Coco should sit in some of these families for a week or two before passing judgement...if the parents didn't love them they wouldn't try and show them values...

Agree completely. Why should parents have to work so hard to give presents to ungrateful children?? They should learn from their actions. Cause and Effect.

I always makes me laugh when I hear single people (no kids) give advice on how to raise children, or how one punishment or another is too severe... My Brother in Law is terrified of damaging his kids' psyche, and therfore refuses to punish his kids at all......for anything! These kids have him wrapped aroung their finger and they know it and use it. Adults tend to give children too little credit, they are smarter than you think! If they think the will get away with something, they will do it. Too many parents these days forget that raising your kids means being the mean guy sometimes. I try to cultivate a good relationship with my kids, but my first responsibility is to teach them right from wrong. If punishing them is going to get the point across, then I feel it is not just my option, but my responsibilty to do so. Letting a child grow up believing they can get away with anything with no repercussions isn't doing them any favors. When they find out the "real" world dosent work like that they will be in for a rude awakening.