Vacations are meant to be a time to unwind, but sometimes they come with unexpected challenges.

So, what would you do if your child’s competitive streak started causing tension during a trip? Would you let it go? Or would you set boundaries to keep things under control?

In the following story, one mother is faced with this very predicament and wonders if her punishment was wrong. Here’s what happened.

AITA for grounding my daughter for ruining our vacation

My husband, daughter (15), stepkids (13, 16), and I just came back from a 2-week vacation.

My daughter is very smart and is very good at a lot of things. She’s also very competitive. My husband is also very competitive.

My daughter started this vacation by telling my husband there was Sudoku on the plane and explaining how to play. He didn’t know that she’d been playing Sudoku for months.

She made a bet with him that if she finished the hardest level first, he’d buy her wifi for the flight, and if he finished first, she’d share a bed with his younger daughter on the trip (his younger daughter was complaining about sharing with his oldest because she kicks and sleeps in the middle of the bed.) She beat him and pestered him until he bought the wifi.

Her challenges had no end in sight, so the mother put her foot down.

When we got there, she’d challenge him to races on land and in the pool (she’s won medals at state track meets and has been swimming since she was 2). Every day, she’d challenge him to something, win, and he’d have to buy her something from the resort or local shops.

My husband was getting sick of losing, and my stepdaughters were upset that their dad was buying her stuff and not them, so I told my daughter she either couldn’t compete with her stepdad or she had to let him win.

She decided to tell her stepdad that she wasn’t allowed to compete with him anymore because he couldn’t handle losing. This made them start to argue, so I told her that if she kept it up, she’d be grounded to the resort for the rest of the trip (a little over a week at this point).

After being stuck at the resort for the rest of the vacation, she told her father when they got back home, and things took a turn for the worse.

She decided to test me, so I stuck to my word, and she was left at the resort while the rest of us went out every day.

The vacation was much more enjoyable without her turning everything into a competition but she told her dad when she got back that we grounded her and he’s mad at me now for leaving her there and excluding her from the vacation because my husband couldn’t act like an adult.

I told him my daughter was warned to stop, but she decided to test me, and now he’s forcing her to stick to the custody schedule (technically, I have her every other weekend, but he was letting her go back and forth whenever she wanted) and is threatening to go to court for child support and back pay.

AITA?

Wow! Now, that’s an interesting situation.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about what the mother did.

This person thinks the whole situation is funny.

These are harsh words, but they are kinda true.

Yes! The husband should’ve politely declined.

As this person pointed out, she did neglect her daughter.

This has to be the world’s worst mom!

She and her husband both need to grow up! It’s unbelievable that they hold the teenage daughter to higher standards than they hold themselves.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.