What exactly DOES this teach your kids ?

Kirstie didn't smack the children, she broke a couple of iPads they had been warned not to overuse. They broke the boundaries. She broke the iPads.

It is not emotional abuse. Kirstie is a big character and the boys must be used to her larger than life ways. They have her genes after all and can probably be as stubborn as she is. Had she arbitrarily broke the techno gizmos without warning such capriciousness would be a different matter but clear warnings were issued.

Really, to see the fuss being made no wonder we are raising snowflakes who are spoilt rotten and have no resilience.

Just wondering if the cost has something to do with the outrage? If your child was drawing rude pictures, after you had repeatedly asked him to stop, and you lost your temper and snapped the pencil in half, would people have been quite as judgemental? We are all human, we know we shouldn't lose it, but just occasionally at the end of a bad day it can happen. It's not good, we apologise for the outburst later, but seeing that everyone can eventually be pushed so far that they snap, and the following of this by an apology when things have calmed down, is not a bad lesson to learn?

Dreadful, but as a multimillionaire what's a couple of ipads?
It would have been a much better lesson to donate them to someone who needed them, or just switch off the wifi...or change the password..... I wonder how they will manage when they are in economy while she is in business class!? But I guess they will just buy more! I absolutely abhor wanton waste!

Allsop: lost it. And rather than saying sorry to her kids and admitting her flaws she has twisted it into some sort of parenting meme. Which teaches kids nothing. It is important that your kids see you admit your mistakes and apologise. She clearly cares more about being right than being a good role model for behaviour.

SW: its not about whether her behaviour was right or not, it wasnt. Its about the fact that men are allowed to behave that way all the time without sanction or it being newsworthy but a women doing it is a different matter. Its the double standards.

Fine example she's setting her kids. Not.

My mum used to throw things which weren't put away onto the fire.

It would have been a much better lesson

She wasnt thinking about teaching a lesson at the time was she?
She snapped.
But now she wont admit that she snapped and has dug her heels in and is trying to justify it rather than say "yeah, I snapped, wasnt the best response but I was tired/stressed"
Instead she is being adamant that she stands by it as a logical parenting decision.
Stubborn.

My mum use to fly into a rage and break/burn my things.
It taught me that my mum is full of rage and hate and is not a safe person to be around.
So I suppose I did learn a lesson...

Why didn't she just change the passwords, then they could play only when she chooses..

Because it wasnt about teaching them anything Aepgirl. She lost her temper and did something aggressive.

No matter how much your colleagues/friends/neighbours/partner winds you up, you can't go and smash up their property. What she did is wrong and what she is doing now, re-writing it as a calculated parenting action for her kids own good, rather than admitting her own flaw, is making it doubly wrong.

No parental control, perhaps too busy making money to spend time with the children. To smash a device clearly shows that money is not a problem, bad for the children to see such behaviour. The children don't learn anything at all.

My ex dilemma the her 7 and 4 year olds special comfort toys in the dustbin because they cried for their daddy after he'd dropped them off. Never would they see DogDog and Little Ted again. That was 10 years ago and they haven't seen their daddy also

Between the media, the schools, the Internet and the so called 'experts', we now have a very mixed bag of conflicting views when it comes to sound values, education and how to raise good citizens.

There was a time when adults parented at home with little outside influence and a lot of common sense. Competing with elusive (all permissive) other mothers and being told "Why not?...everyone else's mother does it!" was probably my biggest challenge!

Many of us may not have been perfect, but we were consistent. Our children reached adulthood with a healthy dose of emotional maturity, respect for others and overall good values.

Today, someone on the media wants us to believe it's OK to smash things if you're upset! I guess "everyone else's mother" would approve but back then, it was I who prevailed.

Not today. The competition today is daunting! It's a steady diet of social media, a lot of expert misinformation and graphic violence on screens of all sizes...and let's not ignore our political leaders and governmental 'grown ups' who display unprecedented misbehavior on an even grander scale.

....and on a separate note, here in the US, a school in the state of Georgia (with similarly unfounded credibility) has brought back the Paddle!

No wonder our children are confused!

Whilst I feel for Kirsty Alley at the frustration on kids not doing as they are supposed to, surely her role modelling was unhelpful. I think, if I had decided that they could no longer have the iPad, I would have got them to give it someone who deserved it, like a kid in foster care.
As for Serena Williams, she was out of order throwing her toys out of the pram but it does seem to me that she is picked on for her outfits and penalised excessively compared to anyone in men's tennis. It is time the tennis authorities looked at their penalty system to make it fair and transparent.

I should think her children were really shocked - whatever the reason, smashing something important to them was hardly the way to deal with it. They will not forget this in a hurry, and whether she threw the iPads out of the window in a towering rage or 'tapped them' against the table leg, as has now been reported, the result is the same. Anyway - why is she talking about this on TV? Not her finest hour, but then of course, any publicity......

I should think her children were really shocked

Maybe

Assuming it was out of character.

However IMO people who lose their temper in an out of character way are usually shocked by their own outburst and remorseful.

People who are habitually aggressive/violent tend to re-write the events to paint themselves as the virtuous party. In general. In my experience/opinion.

Really, to see the fuss being made no wonder we are raising snowflakes who are spoilt rotten and have no resilience

Lilyflower

On the one hand it seems you think it was OK to break expensive iPads, otherwise the children will become snowflakes who are spoilt rotten and have no resilience

Whereas I think that smashing an iPad and then probably replacing it at some later date (as she undoubtedly will) could show them that these expensive items are 'easy come, easy go' and not items to be treasured and cared for.

There were far better ways of dealing with this.

I must be a snowflake then because I wouldn't accept a neighbour, colleague or partner smashing up my property.

Its not an appropriate response to any conflict.

Precisely Jalima.

Agree B9X. KA didn't bash her kids over the head with their pads did she.

Me too! Although I was sorely tempted yesterday and today when I had problems!

oh dear, that's huge!

although I did wonder, if she had set me sorting plastic boxes and lids, whether I would have been tempted to have put them all in the oven on a very high temperature

Remember that scene with Charlton Heston, where all the gladiators stand and say "I too am Spartacus"? Well....
I too am Snowflake.

Jalima and notanan2 have it right, this is very unlikely to have been a one off act of aggression. She sounds like a real bully with her children, plus she humiliates them by talking it out on television, with no acknowledgement that she could have dealt with it better. those iPads would have meant a lot to some children, take the children and have them hand the iPads over to a charity shop, where profit can be made but poor children provided with something they can only dream of.
Flower, so sad to read that your daughter in law threw her children's comfort toys in the bin because they cried for their daddy after he dropped them off.
To say a generation of snowflakes is being raised because they don't get physically or emotionally abused is just nonsense.
Yours sincerely
Ms Snowflake
(never hit or frightened by my parents, never had my Teddy bear chucked in the bin as a punishment etc)
Any other snowflakes here?

Flower, so sad to read that your daughter in law threw her children's comfort toys in the bin because they cried for their daddy after he dropped them off.

That is very sad indeed, using the children to vent her anger like that.