16 Y.O. Stepson Deliberately Waters His Stepdad’s Plants With Bleach, Stepdad Cancels Their Family Trip To Discipline Him
Having hobbies is a splendid way of knowing that you’ll never get bored. In addition, doing what you love improves the quality of your life and even has some scientific backups that confirm that it reduces the risk of you developing the loss of cognitive functions.
While focusing on your career and studies is always beneficial, it’s more important to connect yourself with things you know will relax you and somewhat disconnect you from the world when you truly need it. Besides, it’s good to keep yourself busy, especially now, when the world has been at a pause, and most of us are struggling with anxieties and low moods.
This gardening enthusiast also has a favorite hobby. However, not long ago, he took it to one of Reddit’s communities to share a story about how his teenage stepkid, who loves to pull all kinds of jokes, managed to cross all the boundaries and deliberately ruin the things the man deeply cared for.
More info: Reddit
When asking your kid to delete an embarrassing video, be careful, they might ruin your plant collection
Image credits: Scott Brown
This is the story of a Reddit user who is constantly in a prank “war” with his teenage stepson. The post received over 31K upvotes and nearly 4K comments, where people discussed the inexcusable behavior of the young man.
This plant enthusiast’s 16 y.o. stepson deliberately watered the flowers with bleach
Image credits: Reddit
The OP is a plantsman and he loves to collect indoor plants, as there’s not enough space for him to transfer his hobby outside. He’s also a proud stepdad to a teenage boy who, in fact, has been testing the OP with all sorts of pranks lately.
The OP shared that the pranks don’t usually concern him, as he understands that all kids love to mess around, plus, the tricks are usually harmless.
Image credits: Reddit
The trouble began when the boy decided to pull one of his pranks, once again. He thought that it would be funny to record himself spraying cold water on his sleeping stepdad and to later upload the video on Facebook, where a bunch of people would be able to witness his beyond amazing joke.
Image credits: Reddit
Naturally, the stepdad didn’t approve of such a joke and asked the boy to delete the video, as it was quite embarrassing. The teenager kept persuading the OP to let him keep the video—moreover, his mom also joined the team and tried to convince the OP that it wasn’t a big deal, and that he should let the boy keep the recording of his trick.
Image credits: Reddit
After putting an end to that discussion, the teenager suddenly became very affectionate and even asked the stepdad if he could help with his plants. The OP was delighted that his stepchild wanted to help, so he gave him the watering pot and instructed the boy to start with the plants in the kitchen. The kid was gone for a few minutes, but later came back and finished watering the plants.
Some time goes by, and the OP began cleaning his tools when he instantly smelled something weird. He realized that it was bleach and just to make sure, he went to smell the plants, and unfortunately the same smell was coming from them.
Image credits: Reddit
When he went to confront his stepkid, he obviously kept denying that he had anything to do with it, although the OP found a bleach bottle in the teenager’s room, which eventually made him lose his temper. The kid then admitted that it was sort of a revenge thing for making him delete that video of him spraying water on the OP.
The man couldn’t believe it, so he immediately cancelled the family trip to a national park that the kid was looking forward to. The teenager began crying and proceeded to explain that it was a pure mistake and he simply didn’t know what he was doing.
Image credits: Reddit
The OP was absolutely sure that it was the right thing to do, since the boy deliberately decided to damage the plants out of revenge. Though, his wife didn’t agree and was very worried for her son, who wasn’t eating well since the argument, and was convinced that a simple apology would’ve been enough.
The man replied, that he wasn’t going to change his mind and that this punishment was a very reasonable thing to do, as the boy intentionally hurt him. The wife decided to add some fuel to the fire and called him unreasonable and stubborn.
Image credits: Reddit
The OP admitted that his stepchild believes that he will always be forgiven, as long as he admits to it. But the stepfather thinks that the boy needs to finally learn a lesson, as he’s not a little kid anymore and this time the prank went completely overboard.
What do you think about this situation? Do you believe that the stepdad had a very valid reason to cancel the upcoming trip?
Fellow online users supported the OP in his decision
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So, kid takes a video of the stepdad and posts it without his permission. He gets mad and sulky when he is told to take it down, and then does something he knows will kill/hurt the plants stepdad cares about? Huge red flag there, the kid needs help.
Sounds like the kid is trying to be like the YouTube stars who got famous doing this sort of thing. They are sometimes awful to people and laugh about it without facing consequences, and kids take notes from that. I like K. Lange's suggestion of making him help clean the pots, and I'd also make him help take care of the plants so he could see what he damaged with his stupid "prank." He needs to actually see how his actions affect others.
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So... taking away something the kid cares about is abuse? So, does that not mean that the kid purposefully destroying something the OP cares about is also abuse? works both ways, lady.
"Works both ways" is spot-on. Gardening and hiking trips are classic pandemic coping strategies, so it's kinda a shame they deprived each other of what might be keeping them sane during the isolation and anxiety. That's the only angle I can try to see it through the mom's eyes to get where she's coming from with the abuse comment. But I don't think OP did wrong. Parents have a duty to teach their children right and wrong.
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So, kid takes a video of the stepdad and posts it without his permission. He gets mad and sulky when he is told to take it down, and then does something he knows will kill/hurt the plants stepdad cares about? Huge red flag there, the kid needs help.
Sounds like the kid is trying to be like the YouTube stars who got famous doing this sort of thing. They are sometimes awful to people and laugh about it without facing consequences, and kids take notes from that. I like K. Lange's suggestion of making him help clean the pots, and I'd also make him help take care of the plants so he could see what he damaged with his stupid "prank." He needs to actually see how his actions affect others.
Load More Replies... So... taking away something the kid cares about is abuse? So, does that not mean that the kid purposefully destroying something the OP cares about is also abuse? works both ways, lady.
"Works both ways" is spot-on. Gardening and hiking trips are classic pandemic coping strategies, so it's kinda a shame they deprived each other of what might be keeping them sane during the isolation and anxiety. That's the only angle I can try to see it through the mom's eyes to get where she's coming from with the abuse comment. But I don't think OP did wrong. Parents have a duty to teach their children right and wrong.
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