Yesterday, my son was playing games in the laptop and, unknown to me, was tinkering with the files in it. He always had a problem double left-clicking with the laptop’s touch pad, so he sometimes go with the right click. I was wondering, after he used the laptop, why there are multiple copies of files on the desktop. It turned out that was the least of my concerns.
What’s worse, I discovered later, is that he deleted a big chunk of photos of our recent travels.
So I immediately went to the Recycle Bin to see if the files are still there. None. I tried to check how to recover deleted files. I was elated there’s a software to do it and it’s free to download. Excitement grew as I waited for the software to get installed, then started the search process for the missing files. Some photos were found, but there’s a catch. While it’s free to download the recovery software, you have to pay for it should you wish to actually start recovering the files located during the search. Bad trip. I was fuming mad.
Our son was just sitting down at the side, obviously trying to look unconcerned and playing with his toys. He would, however, glance up once in a while to see how the recovery process goes, look at me to gauge how mad I am, then go back to his toys. He was unusually quite that night.
My wife said to our son: “Who’s in trouble now?”
“And I’m very, very sorry,” was our son’s quick reply, uttered with a straight face and a genuinely sorry voice.
How can you get mad with that? He probably didn’t know he did something wrong and it’s probably our fault not child-proofing the files (yes, just the files, not the laptop, for we could always reinstall if the system goes berserk).
Photos down the toilet. Charge to experience. Learn and move on.
Awww…. Never mind the photos. It’s the memories that count. You raised your son well because he knows how to apologize and acknowledge his mistake. Some kids don’t and they even deny and make excuses. Glad to stumble upon this site. More power to dads like you.