Bouncing Boys

Smashing, crashing and burning. While daughters offer their own parenting hurdles (mostly emotional) to dads, boys are more often the ones going from rough-housing to roughshodding.

The biggest challenge is to manage the transition from acting out to something a bit more socially acceptable. Among those dads who misstepped along their managerial path is the Malaysian father who told his 30-something son to reduce his DVD watching only to have his son take up watching their house burn down ... after he ignited it in the rage that followed his trying to stab his father.

There is also the British father who nicked the on/off button for his son's behaviour when he chose not to pay his allowance — he said the son hadn't been to school and so didn't deserve it this week. The teen rampaged through the house, costing much more in damage than the allowance as well as ending up in court on charges pressed by pop.

To be fair, potential violence may have been precipitated by the son, but it doesn't mean it was necessarily his fault. For example, there was almost a Chinese slugfest over text messages suggesting infidelity. Fortunately, the father and mother found peace (if not total trust) when it turned out they were in combat over their son having borrowed dad's phoen to text his girlfriend.

While children must learn to take responsibility for themselves, it is undoubtedly true that a lot of problems are quickly traced back to poor choices by fathers. Most recently, a 10-year-old crashed a van after racing it through town at speeds as high as 90 MPH. While he shouldn't be forgiven for getting behind a wheel without a license, it probably should be noted that his dad was in the car ... wearing a "buy this dad a beer" t-shirt ... drunk ... really, really drunk ... and the father had "ordered" the son to take the wheel.

This isn't your father's (or maybe it is) rough-and-tumble.