Parenting gets tricky when doing the right thing makes you the bad guy.

So what would you do if your daughter refused to wear a helmet when riding her brand-new bike because her brother said it made her look silly? Would you let her ride without wearing it? Or would you put your foot down and take away her bike to prove a point?

In the following story, one father deals with this scenario and chooses the second option. Here’s how it all played out.

AITA for taking away my daughters bike because she wouldn’t wear her helmet?

My 12-year-old daughter just got a brand-new bike for her birthday a few days ago and has been riding it a lot.

But one day I (42m) noticed she was riding it without wearing her helmet and was quite concerned. I reminded her that she needed to wear her helmet every time she rode her bike, and she said, “Okay.”

I thought that meant she would wear it from now on, but she didn’t.

The helmet kept being an issue.

I saw her riding around on her bike several times without her helmet on and repeatedly told her to wear it but she never did.

I asked her why she didn’t want to wear it and she told me her brother 16m told her she looked retarted when she wore a helmet.

I explained to her that if she didn’t wear her helmet, she couldn’t ride her bike anymore, but she still refused to wear it.

Today, when I saw her yet again riding the bike without a helmet, I just told her to get off.

She did, then I took her bike and locked it up in the garage, and told her she could have it back after a week, but ONLY if she promised to wear her helmet while riding it from now on, and she had to actually wear it.

Now, his daughter and his wife are both mad at him.

She got very upset and went and told my wife (42f) this, and now she’s very upset with me, too.

She says I’m overreacting and being cruel because she is only reluctant to wear her helmet because of what her brother said, and now she’s being punished for her brother’s mean comment.

I said she has to wear a helmet, no matter what mean comment her brother may have made, because safety comes first.

But she and our daughter are still very upset with me and haven’t spoken to me since.

AITA?

Yikes! What a tough situation he’s in right now.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit think he should handle this issue.

This person thinks he did the right thing.

For this reader, his son should be disciplined, too.

Yet another person who doesn’t think his son should get away with it.

For this reader, he only addressed half the problem.

He did the right thing here.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.