Parenting is a constant balancing act between authority and teamwork, especially when discipline is involved.

After their morning routine had stalled to a halt, one father made a quick decision to correct his daughter’s bad behavior.

However, his wife didn’t appreciate being left out of the equation.

Read on for the full story!

AITA for telling my daughter she’d be punished?

My (35M) car is in the shop right now, so my wife (35F) was giving me a ride to work today and taking our daughter (10F) to school.

When we got in the car and were about to go, our daughter got out of her booster seat.

The parents try to curb this behavior, but she doesn’t listen.

My wife and I told her to get back in it, but she said she wasn’t sitting in it. We told her she needed to sit in it and to get in it right now because we had to go.

She raised her voice and said, “No, I’m not sitting in that stupid booster seat, you buttfaces!”

My wife kept trying to calmly tell her to get back in her booster seat, but our daughter kept arguing.

After this got nowhere, the father decided to take a more stern approach.

I became very irritated because I had to get to work, so did my wife, and our daughter had to get to school. This little argument was going to make everyone late.

So, I turned to my daughter and told her that if she didn’t get back in her booster seat, she would lose her iPad for three days.

Naturally, this worked much better.

After this, she got back in her booster seat and buckled up. She didn’t talk to us and had a grumpy look on her face the whole car ride.

But it wasn’t just their daughter who was unhappy.

After we dropped her off at school, my wife expressed how upset she was with me for telling our daughter she’d be punished all on my own.

She felt he had left her out of the parenting decision altogether.

She said we are BOTH her parents and need to discuss how to deal with her misbehavior together, and it’s not okay for one of us to just decide on a punishment.

But he defends his point of view too.

I tried to explain to my wife that I didn’t mean to upset her and that we needed to get going, which is why I did it. This didn’t make my wife feel any better.

Her hurt seemed to really stick.

When I got home from work, I tried to see if she had gotten over it, but she was still giving me the cold shoulder.

I asked if she was still mad, and she said, “Of course I still am. Did you think anger just evaporated?”

AITA?

He thought keeping the morning on track was the priority, but now he’s the one facing consequences.

What did Reddit think?

Discussing these things ahead of time can save a lot of headache in the heat of the moment.

This commenter is surprised this issue is just now coming up.

You should probably trust your partner can make the right decision without your input.

Sometimes a firm punishment (or at least the threat of) is really what’s needed.

He may have smoothed out the ride at first, but now it seems like the road ahead is even bumpier.

Maybe next time he’ll check in with his co-pilot before taking the wheel on discipline.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.