Unruly Child Sent To Zoom Breakout Room As Punishment

8-year-old Aidan Summers was sent to a Zoom breakout room to “think about what he did” reports Aidan's mother, Janice Summers. The incident happened while the family was on a zoom call with their extended relatives to celebrate the holidays.

Trouble began right as each caller sat-down in front of their webcam. Aidan was accidentally given co-host privileges which let him mute others mid-sentence. Each time he interrupted someone this way he would laugh maniacally like it was the funniest thing he'd ever scene, drunk on the power.

“We didn't know how to un-co-host him without making a new link and it took mom twenty minutes to get in here the first time so...” explained Jack Summers, Aidan's father and the owner of the premium Zoom account the family was using.

“We figured it would be easier to just put him in a Breakout Room and hoped he couldn't figure out how to get back to the main,” said Jack, foolishly assuming that a child of the internet age wouldn't press every button available to him eventually.

The family has been struggling with disciplinary options since March when sending him to his room completely lost its teeth. Pandemic lock-down meant Aidan spent 90% of his time in his room anyway. The beleaguered parents have tried parental-control lockouts, but honestly Aidan knows how they work better than they do.

Sending him to a private breakout room seemed like the best punishment they could manage and it also gave the rest of the family a reprieve from having to try to explain to Aidan's Grandfather all the memes Aidan kept setting as his virtual background.

The peace and quiet lasted about fifteen minutes until Aidan found his way back to the main room and immediately shared his screen showing a video of Twitch streamer Cyb3r_PieR8 playing Fortnite in which he casually used several slurs.

“We completely failed to explain what any of those words meant to Dad,” said Jack.

Aidan's parents are at their wits-end about how to discipline Aidan in these difficult times.

“We've threaten if he doesn't behave we'll make him use Cisco Webex to play with his friends,” said Janice. “That seems to have scared him straight for now.”