This… is something like an essay. It was an idea I had a few months ago. It was one of those moments when I realized that "omg I'm gonna be sixteen pretty soon!" Thus this led me to remember a specific scene from the little mermaid where Ariel uses the overrated, completely useless argument "I'm not a child anymore".
So this led to this essay depicting how I would have put little Ariel in her place if I had been her mom. Or, since I'm younger than Ariel was, how I would have used my parent's methods to deal with her. First of all I wouldn't have snapped at her so much.
Ariel is a teenager and yelling at her will only make her more determined that she's right. I would have sat her down to have an open discussion with her or at least used my mom s method where I would have scoffed at her and pointed out that oh yes of course and because she's sixteen she's now all knowing and infinitely wise.
I would have also turned her previous argument against her by pointing out that if she wasn't a child she would have been more responsible and instead of going off to do whatever she wanted she would have been on time to the recital that she had obviously been preparing for a long time prior to the actual recital!
Another thing I would not have done that Triton did (and was immensely irresponsible and oh my god why are parents in cartoons so stupid) is giving the responsibility of watching Ariel to Sebastian. You know the crab? The one small creature that will be completely useless when trying to physically stop Ariel from doing anything (shown when he grabs onto Ariel's tail when she's going to Ursula's) and too slow to call me so that I could stop Ariel?
Of all the stupid parental moves of the movie that one's gotta be el numero uno. Triton basically threw all responsibility regarding Ariel onto Sebastian, because of a comment he made.
Obviously everyone thinks parenting is easy (I'm living proof of it) until they actually have children. Nowhere in the movie is there any indication that Sebastian has children of his own. It's clear as the movie progresses that he doesn't know how to handle Ariel.
He's obviously so much more preoccupied with his own well-being and it shows when he tries to hide the fact that Ariel is in love with a human from Triton in fear for himself and how Triton will react.
Then when he discovers Ariel is going to the witch he falls for her jab "why don't you go tell my father" and instead of doing what he clearly should have done and gone to tell Triton he follows her! THEN INSTEAD OF GOING TO TRITION WHO CLEARLY HAS ENOUGH POWER TO BREAK THE SPELL HE HELPS HER TO FIND THE PRINCE SHE HAS NEVER EVEN MET MERELY SAVED!
She would NOT have been miserable for the rest of her life. She's sixteen and obviously having a crush. A crush based solely on appearances at that.
Now for the Little Mermaid's worst parental move number two. That moment at the cave where Ariel's having her little omg let's run away together oh magical man of my dreams I have never actually met but watched while he slept because that's not creepy at all (Hetalia reference: every time I see that part in the movie I can only ever imagine Ariel looking at Erik and thinking "ah seriously… just look at that face…*France rape face* I want to lick it…"). Yeah that moment where Triton barges and completely destroys something Ariel clearly treasures.
That my friends could be considered abuse. Using violence to discipline children and destroying their property in front of them is traumatic and causes the child to be afraid of the parent. Having a fear for your parents because they can take away your stuff or because they may become disappointed in you is one thing, being afraid that you're going to be used as a punching bag is another thing.
What I would have done is sealed off all exists to the cave until she showed me that she was capable of being responsible and until I had talked the matter over with her objectively and not with the I AM YOUR FATHER AND YOU SHOULD OBEY ME WOMAN attitude Triton had.