After an Ohio grade-schooler was kicked off the school bus for bullying another student, her father tried to turn it into a teachable moment. Did I say moment? I meant "agonizing slog through a Midwestern winter."
Matt Cox decided to underline that riding the bus is a privilege by making his 10-year-old daughter do without. He had her walk the five miles to her school (broken up over the course of her three-day bus suspension) while he followed along in the heat of his truck. He shared a video of the punishment along with his reasoning on social media.
“Let me make this extremely clear, bullying is unacceptable, especially in my household,” Cox says in the clip, which has been viewed millions of times since Cox posted it on Monday.
“A lot of children today feel that the things their parents do for them is a right and not a privilege, such as parents taking their children to school in the morning. Or even bus rides to school in the morning," he continued. "All of that is a privilege and should be treated as such. So today my beautiful daughter is going to walk five miles to school in 36-degree weather.”
Though several people complained about the manner in which Cox was disciplining his child, he was adamant about it being the right course of action in an interview with a local ABC affiliate.
“Parents need to hold their kids accountable. That was me showing how I hold my kid accountable,” Cox said. “I’m not going to be another parent that’s just going to brush things under the rug and say kids will be kids.”
He also updated the post to say that Kirsten made it through the punishment no worse for wear. "Lesson learned! Still has all her extremities intact [and] is happy and healthy and seems to have a new outlook on bullying as well as a new appreciation for some of the simple things in life she used to take for granted," he wrote.
