Parenting children takes patience, which one Ohio dad had to really exert after his 12-year-old son left the freezer open. According to Ready_Set_Stopppp, his kid was getting a popsicle one night out of the family’s freezer in the garage. The mother allegedly told him to make sure the door was closed tight, to which the son responded. “I got a text at 9am with some pics this morning with her saying it was open all night…” Ready_Set_Stopppp groaned.
The dad claims he lost everything inside, everything from frozen snacks to pricey cuts of meat. “My son is also ADHD af and wasn’t on meds,” the parent explained. “I’ve noticed that he gets so intent on his goal that he tunes out everything else.” Ready_Set_Stopppp recalled how his son would forget to close car doors because of his hyperfixation on going into the house.
Several Redditors questioned why the Ohio family has their popsicles stored outside in the garage. The dad clarified that the kitchen had plenty of popsicles and that the garage’s freezer was used to store food for their main freezer. Unfortunately, the one outside had the flavor the son wanted, resulting now in a tragically large loss of food.
“Congratulations, you got a teenager! Don’t worry, it will only be getting worse for a few years, after that, it usually gets better,” sarcastically remarked a commenter. “Don’t gamble a couple hundreds of dollar on a kid’s interest in getting a popsicle and leaving as fast as possible,” wrote another.
“I got tired of dealing with this with my kids,” sighed a third, who wrote how they have a sensor connected to their phone whenever their freezer has been left open. For those wondering what Ready_Set_Stopppp did to his son as discipline, he claimed that they “had a long and productive talk.”
The Ohio Dad Didn’t Punish His 12-Year-Old Son But Patiently Talked Things Through
There was allegedly no punishment, except forcing the 12-year-old to look through every food item that had to be thrown out. “It’s hard. There’s so much about the way their brains operate that I just don’t get,’ the dad sighed.
While many criticized the dad for not teaching his son properly or for not being harsher with him, one commenter was touched by how he handled the situation. “I just wanna say thank you for being understanding and gentle with him. Not all parents have the capacity to accommodate neurodivergent kids,” the user expressed.
Hundreds of dollars worth of food was still lost, but the Ohio parents fortunately made it into an expensive learning experience for their son rather than an anger-filled, traumatizing one.
