Dad Made Daughter Walk 5 Miles to School to Teach Her a Lesson on Bullying

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Each parent has their own way of disciplining their child. There is no parenting  rule book that individuals can implement. A father from Ohio was criticized for making his 10-year-old daughter walk to school in the bitter cold. But even in the face of backlash, he’s not relenting.

When Matt Cox’s daughter, Kirsten, was suspended for the second time from riding the school bus on Nov. 30, 2018, for bullying a classmate, the father from Swanton knew it was time to teach her an important life lesson that she would never forget.

To punish Kirsten, Cox made her walk 5 miles to Evergreen Elementary School in Metamora while following her behind in a car. The punishment lasted for a three-day period. He captured his now-viral parenting approach on video, which he later uploaded to his Facebook page.

“Let me make this extremely clear, bullying is unacceptable, especially in my household,” Cox starts off in the video.

He later on went to explain that many children nowadays think that it’s “a right” when parents drive them to school or send them to the class via the school bus. But “all of that is a privilege and should be treated as such,” he said.

“So today my beautiful daughter is going to walk five miles to school in 36-degree weather.”

Since then, the video has taken social media by storm; it has garnered over 22 million views, with at least 84,000 comments. In the comments, there are those who are for and those who are against Cox’s parenting methods.

One person commented, “I AM SO PROUD OF YOU FOR BEING A GREAT DAD!! I hope other parents follow your example.”

While another said, “You right people are going to either hate or love this. I agree with it. Your a good dad!”

The 39-year-old, explaining his actions, told PEOPLE, “I absolutely do not feel I went overboard at all,” and added that he felt that parents should not “turn a blind eye” when their kids do something wrong.

“Parents need to hold their kids accountable. That was me showing how I hold my kid accountable,” he explained to WTVG. He also added, “I’m not going to be another parent that’s just going to brush things under the rug and say kids will be kids.”

But did his punishment really work?

Apparently so, as Kirsten said she learned her lesson, adding that she knew how it felt to be bullied.

“I was bullied many times by kids bigger than me,” she explained.

Kirsten was not the only one who learned that bullying was wrong. When Cox read through the thousands of comments on his video, he saw many people sharing their own stories of bullying and decided to show the comments to Kirsten and her siblings.

While his own children have been taught a life lesson on the effects of bullying, Cox felt that this wasn’t enough.

He hoped that other kids could also watch the video and read through the comments and “see just how much words can hurt and cut deep and can have lasting effects on those involved sometimes in the most awful cases life-ending effects.”

It seems like Cox’s parenting method worked for his lovely daughter Kirsten, who will remember this valuable lesson—that she can’t just get away with her actions.

If your child were to bully someone, how would you handle it?

Thumbnail Credit: L: Facebook | Matt Cox, R: Facebook Video Screenshot | Matt Cox

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