A mother has sparked a massive parenting debate after she revealed how she reacted to her young daughter after the kid made a dent in the wall.
Rosie Lamphere is a North Carolina mom and the co-founder of a blog known as Play At Home Mom who shared her parenting experience after one of her daughters made a hole in the drywall.
As the mother revealed in her viral Facebook post, her daughters were playing when one of them accidentally slammed into the drywall at their home.
“Our girls were messing around yesterday. One of them happened to put their body through the drywall. My nine year old came downstairs crying and frantic saying she had to show me something. I walked upstairs to the damaged wall. The remorse was already displayed all over her body,” Lamphere explained.
“She didn’t need me to make her feel guilty. She didn’t need me to shame her. She didn’t need me to make an already crappy situation worse.
“‘I’m sorry!!!’ I know you are. ‘Daddy is going to be so mad!!! I’m not ready to tell him yet.’ That is OK. When you are ready, you will tell him. She knew. She knew that he was the one most impacted by this. He would be the one taking time from his day to fix this.
“I walked downstairs and told my husband. ‘The kids put a hole in the wall. A big one. M is really upset about it. She’s working up the courage to come and tell you about it.
“‘We have two choices here.
“1 – Scream and yell and make her feel more awful than she already does. 2 – Accept that little girl for each bit of awesome that she is… even in her mistakes. To realize that it was SO hard for her to come down and tell you how she made a mistake. Our response will 100% determine how she comes to us with mistakes in the future.’”
After having a talk, the parents decided to go with option number 2. As the mother added, her daughter now “walks around with a little more trust” whereas she feels that she can tell her parents anything and still be loved.
After the incident, the little girl even went on to offer her own savings and help her dad fix the hole she had made.
“And yes. She still feels sorry. She offered to not receive any Christmas presents this year, all her savings, and her time to help fix it. She didn’t need screaming parents to make her feel this. She did it all on her own,” Lamphere added.
After the mom’s story went viral, fellow parents praised her for remaining so calm and responding to her daughter in a way that didn’t make her feel even worse about the situation.
While plenty of parents agreed with Lamphere’s approach to parenting, some insisted that the punishment-free method wouldn’t work in their homes.
“I have kids who feel no remorse. Parenting is impossible,” one mother wrote.
“I don’t think dad getting mad for these kids putting a hole in the wall is going to ruin their lives. I’m sorry, I just don’t see it. You can preach all day long about your parenting techniques and the bottom line is the most proven method is holding kids responsible for their actions,” another parent expressed.
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Replaced!