When you homeschool your kids, you are acting as both a parent and a teacher. Part of that means that you need to always be teaching them life lessons to help prepare them for growing up.

What would you do if you were bringing your young daughter to meet her favorite author, but when she was asked to write a short story to share with the author, she refused?

That is what happened to the homeschooling mother in this story, so she told her daughter that since she didn’t have a good story to read, she couldn’t read it to the author. Not surprisingly, this made her daughter cry, so when she couldn’t compose herself, Mom decided that they would leave the event before she even got to meet her favorite author.

Personally, I think she could have given her daughter a little more time to get herself under control. Kids do need to listen and follow directions, though, so it wasn’t an easy situation.

AITA for keeping my daughter from meeting her favorite author?

AITA for keeping my daughter from meeting her favorite author?

When done right, homeschooling can be very effective.

Background: I homeschool my children. They do a lot of world schooling and they do very little “sit down work.”

Much of their school work is very hands on and interactive. We use programs outside of school hours as part of our school instruction and take every opportunity as learning.

This must have been very exciting.

On a whole they do much less work than other kids their age, so when I tell them to do something I expect it done.

My 9 year old is obsessed with books called The Magic Treehouse and we went to NYC today so she could see the author and get a picture with her.

Learning to write is important.

Her younger sisters came with us but were not as interested and excited as she was.

During the program they asked the kids to practice writing a story and said for those that can’t write, they could draw a story. I told my 9 year old she needed to write.

Sometimes you have to do things you don’t enjoy.

She HATES writing assignments. She will write her own comics all day but screams and throws a fit with assigned writing.

She started to pout and stomp during the program that she was not writing and she was drawing a picture.

Kids need to do as they are told.

I told her she would regret it and that no matter what she would be doing writing today, so please do this project now. She refused and sat there with her arms crossed.

As I suspected, after the writing time they allowed kids to stand up and read their story to Mary Pope Osborne. My daughter started crying her eyes out and rushed into writing 2 horrible sentences and wanted to raise her hand to read.

These are the consequences of her actions.

I put my hand on top of hers and said “no you did not do the work you rushed through this and have something incomprehensible you will not be reading now”

She started wailing. Not just crying but sobbing loudly.

Making her leave is pretty mean. It is understandable why she was upset (even if it was her own fault).

I took her out and warned her to get herself together. Sent her to the bathroom to wash her face and told her she had 5 minutes to get herself together.

She continued to cry louder. So I picked up my other children and we left. She was screaming crying on the way out about not getting a picture with the author.

Telling her she can’t read it aloud because she rushed isn’t bad.

I felt so torn. On one hand I could have just let her read her thrown together 2 sentences. She would have been happy and no one would have said anything.

On the other hand she refused to listen and do the work in writing something even when I, as her teacher/mom, told her to do it 4 times and I don’t feel bad work should be rewarded.

At least the day ended on a good note.

She wrote the piece in the car and we went to a reptile expo with the rest of the day, so the day was not ruined, but I can’t shake the feeling that maybe I was too mean to her and I should have just let her read her thing and meet the author.

I don’t want to raise bad children who don’t do the work and expect a reward.

AITA?

There is nothing wrong with showing kids that their actions have consequences. I think she could have given her daughter a little more time to compose herself before making her leave, but other than that, it will hopefully be a lesson learned.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who is irate after she gave a group leader money for her daughter’s lunch, only to have him pocket the cash and ask all of the kids to pay their own way.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

You do want kids to do their best. Making her leave early was harsh, though.

This is a risk of forcing her to write under pressure.

The fun experience was ruined.

Going to New York is a big deal. Leaving without meeting the author was a mistake.

This person feels bad for the kid. Personally, I don’t think it was a big deal.

Maybe she was a little harsh by making her leave without meeting her hero, but kids do need to learn to do as they are told. Her daughter should have written the story as directed in the first place, and all of this could have been avoided.

That being said, another part of learning and growing up is figuring out how to manage emotions. When Mom made them leave because she was upset, she lost the opportunity to work through that process and get herself together.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man whose celebratory post-grad school vacation is being ruined by his family’s insistence he’s being lazy.