As well as keeping your child alive, much of parenting is teaching your kid to be a semi-decent person.
This sometimes means giving them important lessons which may not initially go down very well.
Haley Hassell recently had to this after an incident with her daughter which many a parent can relate to, and the mum is being praised for her “tough love”.
Taking to Facebook to recount what had happened, Haley began: “Mrs. Presleigh learnt a tough love lesson today.
“I went to 3 different stores to get that LOL pencil box you see in the trash there. When I surprised her with it this afternoon (just knowing she would be ecstatic) she stared at it and threw it in the trash and slammed the bedroom door.
(Image: Facebook)
“She yelled, ‘that’s stupid, everyone in my class has that…I don’t want it anymore!'”
As you’d expect, Haley was not impressed, adding, “WHHHHAT STOP COME AGAIN? OK So by this time there was probably smoke coming out of my ears and I’m trying real hard not to completely lose it on this kid that I have worked so hard to completely take care of financially on my own & make sure she always gets what she needs and then some.
“BUT I thought I had always taught her to be grateful and know how lucky she was but apparently sis needed a small wake up call!!
“SO before completely going Madea mad on my child I check myself and say, ‘okay that’s fine, let me go get the one you’re going to use’…came back with her new pencil box, which is the ziploc bag.
“She lost her mind! Suddenly the LOL Box she just trashed was good enough and the ziploc bag was horrible…but it’s too late for all that.
“I told her to get the LOL out of the trash and we would be finding a child to give it to tomorrow..one whose mommy and daddies don’t have money for any school supplies or someone who may not even have a mommy or daddy.
“I explained to her she’s not entitled to anything special and she is taking for granted how lucky she is…So for now she will be using a ziploc bag and will personally be delivering the nice box to a child that could benefit from it.
“Maybe I over-react sometimes but I would’ve done anything to have all the things she does as a child. I truly believe changing your perception and just being grateful can turn around any situation in life.”
Haley’s actions and words won her a lot of praise from other impressed mums.
“Pat yourself on the back, mama. She’ll turn out better in the future, mark my words,” commented one person.
Another said, “Everyone should parent like you!”
But some people felt sharing a photo of her crying daughter was taking it a little too far.
One critic wrote: “I would venture to say it’s not over her making her use a ziploc. But more over her blasting her child on Facebook, posting a picture of her upset and crying, embarrassing her. That situation should have been handled in private.”
