Car Door Latch

When I was younger, I was out with my mother, we were about to leave the car and as I opened the door I saw the locking latch mechanism, I pulled down the latch and then tried to shut the door but it bounced back as the latch was already in place with metallic ring. My mum was furious, saying it was my fault for messing with the mechanism and that I had better fix it, immediately. As I wasn’t really sure how the system worked I pulled the latch down again in an attempt to fix the door and tried closing the door once more where it bounced back open. At this point my mother was furious. I tried once more to just close the door without fiddling with the mechanism where it closed as normal.