Judge rules that a father violated parental rights by grounding his daughter

[beau99]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080618/wl_canada_afp/canadachildcourtoffbeat;_ylt=ApJsd6SUGjq5CRPMZ1swXhNNYhAF

Wow.

That is all I can say.

[Bobtheduck]

Yeah... This kind of thing is becoming more and more common...

"It takes a village", right? *sigh*

There's some villages I sure don't want raising my children (if I ever end up having any, I mean)

[Nate]

Ha ha ha. Canada.

[ChristianKitsune]

LOL what?

they wasted money on such a stupid case?

Man, that poor father...

[ClosetOtaku]

Please note:

The girl in question used her court-appointed lawyer.

The court appointed lawyer is there because the parents of the girl have been in a custody dispute...

...for 10 years. In other words, since the girl was 2.

The apple falls not far from the tree.

[animewarrior]

Ha ha ha. Canada.

MEANING? *polishes katana* lol jk jk ((raging Canadian))
meh this isn't that suprising... with all the crap the world goes through everyday I'm not shocked...just rather numb...
which probably isn't that good either... If I only had a heart.....XD

[minakichan]

I think there are definitely some parents who use grounding unfairly, cruelly, and unlawfully, such that a court would and should reverse it. This is not one of them. Seriously, getting rid of internet privileges? OH NOES. If the father had locked the girl in a closet and refused to let her out to go to school or even use the bathroom, then yes.

[Kunoichi]

.....sad

what's worse is parents are already walking on eggshells ...sad...well all i have to say i'm disciplining my children...forget the courts...i may be told to obey authority but only when said authority makes sense!

[Yuen Fei Lung]

Whow... so instead of upholding parents who actually do their job, now society is going to punish them by over turning their decisions? *_*

[Sakaki Onsei]

That's right, Yuen. They'll do that until total control of parenting is run by those who think they know better than parents.

And that is why I will raise my kids in the countryside, if I have any.

[SnoringFrog]

Gee wiz...that's just...haha. Yeah...really not sure what to say to that.

[Nate]

((raging Canadian))

Oh, you're Canadian? I'm sorry. Did you want me to talk slower? Not use so many big words?

[Ingemar]

[REDACTED] Apparently, my opinions are far too strong.[/REDACTED]

[ShiroiHikari]

Okay, this is easily the most ridiculous thing I've heard all year.

[ClosetOtaku]

Be careful not to set up a strawman here.

The girl has a court appointed lawyer because her parents have been in a custody battle over her for 10 years.

In short, the parents have invited the courts into their lives because they can't reach a settlement. The court is not needlessly intervening; they've basically determined that the parents are loopy. I'd come to the same conclusion: if two people can't stop fighting over this kid for 10 years, something is really wrong with the parents.

Your average kid (even in Canada) is not going to have this sort of judicial access. Be careful of conclusions you draw...

[Shilohan ninja]

ARROOO??! Back that truck up, amigo! I can understand getting P.O.'d at dad for grounding her, but this is friggin' bull crap! The fact that she was even able to get a lawyer, or a hearing for that matter, for something like this is whacked and obsurd, even in Canada! Then compound that by the fact that she actually won! Leads me to ask a simple question: WHAT IN THE NAME OF SANITY ARE YOU PEOPLE SMOKING??! A ten year custody battle is bad enough; now said parents can't even legaly chastise their kids for disobediance?! WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO???!!!
Dear Father in Heaven, come back soon! I don't know how much more of this obsurdity I can take!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUGH!!!!!!!

[Etoh*the*Greato]

That's right, Yuen. They'll do that until total control of parenting is run by those who think they know better than parents.

And that is why I will raise my kids in the countryside, if I have any.

Well holy heck! Those guys who think they know better are doing a terrible job to begin with.

[Ingemar]

Okay, this is easily the most ridiculous thing I've heard all year.

Then I retract my statement.

[Bobtheduck]

Be careful not to set up a strawman here.

The girl has a court appointed lawyer because her parents have been in a custody battle over her for 10 years.

In short, the parents have invited the courts into their lives because they can't reach a settlement. The court is not needlessly intervening]parents are loopy[/b]. I'd come to the same conclusion: if two people can't stop fighting over this kid for 10 years, something is really wrong with the parents.

Your average kid (even in Canada) is not going to have this sort of judicial access. Be careful of conclusions you draw...

Wow, non sequitur... The fact the parents are in a custody battle doesn't mean the Father has no right to discipline his child, and for her to fight that right in court, for a punishment that sounded like it was for valid reasons, is not their place, so yeah, it is absurd what happened. The parents only "invited" the courts to decide WHICH parent had rights to the child, and that doesn't mean the parents are loopy... It means they had a severe disagreement...

How do you know it's not the MOM that's "loopy" or perhaps they were people who's views were too different that got married for the wrong reasons and one decided to leave the other, but they both want the child? If I had children and my wife decided to ditch me, I sure as heck wouldn't lay down and let her take them. That's not loopy, that's MY child (in this hypothetical situation) and I will FIGHT for MY CHILD.

[ClosetOtaku]

Wow, non sequitur... The fact the parents are in a custody battle doesn't mean the Father has no right to discipline his child, and for her to fight that right in court, for a punishment that sounded like it was for valid reasons, is not their place, so yeah, it is absurd what happened. The parents only "invited" the courts to decide WHICH parent had rights to the child, and that doesn't mean the parents are loopy... It means they had a severe disagreement...

How do you know it's not the MOM that's "loopy" or perhaps they were people who's views were too different that got married for the wrong reasons and one decided to leave the other, but they both want the child? If I had children and my wife decided to ditch me, I sure as heck wouldn't lay down and let her take them. That's not loopy, that's MY child (in this hypothetical situation) and I will FIGHT for MY CHILD.

The father has every right to discipline the child, and on the surface everything about this case appears wrong.

But that's the problem -- we only have surface information here. We don't know what sort of agreements or arrangements were in place. Maybe mom says it's OK to surf the net]extremely[/i] unusual. I see this, and my first inclination is to think one (or likely both) parents have a problem with control. The kid may not be a kid to them -- the kid may be an object to be fought over, like the house or the car. Sure, the dad's lawyer is going to frame it in the context of "parental rights", that's the only basis they have for demanding the kid do thus-and-so. The Judge, however, may know that this kid has been pushed back and forth like a rag doll for the past 10 years, and may be drawing a line, saying "enough is enough -- she's a child, not a piece of property".

The absurdity of the court ruling can only be understood in the context of the situation. Yes, sometimes courts make some really crazy rulings, but even now I still believe the court is entitled to the benefit of the doubt in the public eye -- you need to read the judicial opinions and, in this case, they haven't been provided.

Unless, of course, your intention is to provide extreme cases that "prove" your point that the entire judiciary is whacked, in which case the facts really don't matter.

There is more going on here than meets the eye. Be careful of the conclusions you draw. That's all that I'm saying.

[ClosetOtaku]

Perhaps some more information would help:

[Quote=from the Ottawa Citizen]The father, who is divorced but has legal custody of his daughter, cut off her Internet access after she chatted on websites he had tried to block. She then used a friend's Internet connection to post inappropriate pictures of herself, Ms. Beaudoin said.

After discovering that, the father told his daughter she couldn't go on the three-day school trip, which ended yesterday. According to Ms. Beaudoin, the daughter "slammed the door" and went to live with her mother, who was willing to let her take the trip.

However, the school wouldn't allow the girl to go unless both parents consented or she obtained a court order. That prompted the girl, with her mother's support, to take legal action against her father, culminating in the ruling.

According to Ms. Beaudoin, Judge Tessier found that denying the trip was unduly severe punishment. The fact that the girl is now living with her mother also factored into the judge's ruling, she said.[/quote]

Now, does that change the picture? Let's do something new here -- let's review the facts --

Dad punished her for misbehaving on the 'net. Dad had every right to do so.

Girl goes off and lives with her mom, who is also her parent. Dad has custody rights, but girl is living with mom. I'm not an expert at Canadian law, so I don't know precisely what the implications of this are.

Mom says girl can go on the trip. Mom is her parent. So, if one parent says yes and another no, who wins? (Remember, we're not talking Christianity here, we're talking the Law.)

School needs both parents to agree, but they don't. So what happens?

"That prompted the girl, with her mother's support, to take legal action against her father".

What a loving family. This girl is likely going to need some serious therapy when she grows up. Mom uses girl to get back at Dad. But my money is on the hunch that this isn't the first time this has gone on, and both parents have been playing this girl off each other.

But what is most bothersome to me about this case isn't the girl, or the dad, or mom, or the judge, or the entire Canadian civil court system.

It's that readers around the world take half the facts and try to make it into something it isn't, a simple case of dad saying "no" and the court saying "you can't make that determination". You're being manipulated and misled by the media and your own biases. Things are rarely quite this simple.

[Kunoichi]

regardless of whether this is right or wrong....I personally think the legal action was ridiculous regardless of whether the courts or the mother disagreed with it...its not like he was abusing her for crying out loud.

It shows why divorce was never intended...in this case the only one who suffers is the kid....though the courts have now set a precedence for the future...parents beware! Now those meaningless threats that kid use nowadays ("I'm going to call the DCF") isn't so empty now...especially with this court case backing it

[Momo-P]

I understand why it was done, but I personally think the courts should've just stayed out of it. Either that or maybe pulled mommy dearest aside and had a talk...seriously, the mom sounds like either A- she wants back at the dad or B- she's playing "best friend". What kind of mother (or parent in general) approves of a twelve-year-old going into chatrooms and posting inappropriate pictures online?

[beau99]

What kind of mother (or parent in general) approves of a twelve-year-old going into chatrooms and posting inappropriate pictures online?

There's nothing inherently wrong with a 12-year-old going into a chat room.

As for inappropriate pics, what's inappropriate to one person, won't be to someone else.

[oro!]

Still, he's her dad, and she should obey him, no matter about the grey areas of the issue. It's not like he was beating her; he just told her to get off the internet, specifically those sites.

[minakichan]

After reading ClosetOtaku's statements (as I was too lazy to read it all myself), I'm starting to see this as justified, or rather, not wholly unjustified. But no one here has all the facts, so who knows.

Still, he's her dad, and she should obey him, no matter about the grey areas of the issue.

From a biblical and ethical standpoint, yes; however, just because something is the right thing to do certainly doesn't mean it is for the good of all parties involved. I believe the Bible says that children should honor and obey their parents just as slaves should obey their masters, but does that mean slave emancipation should never have taken place, or the Underground Railroad was sinful? Extreme and slightly irrelevant example, I know, but who knows with this situation?

[sharien chan]

I don't understand people these days.

[blkmage]

It's funny, because we associate ridiculous lawsuits with America here.

[termyt]

Welcome to the club, blkmage.

I learned something here. I didn't know Canadians raged. I thought you guys were all polite to a fault. Maybe it is good you guys have such strict gun control.

Anyways, this appears to be more of the parents using the children to fight each other - an all too common and sad reality in the broken families that are the norm today.

[TallHobbit86]

That's just wrong. That's all I have to say. O.o