Plenty of parents talk about teaching their kids right from wrong, but not all of them follow through.

Imagine you had taught your kids not to steal, but then caught one of them trying to sneak something out of a store.

How would you handle it?

Would you privately discipline them?

Or would you make them own up to their actions in more than one way?

In the following story, one mother finds herself facing this very decision and chooses the latter.

Here’s what she did.

A rare showing of awesome parenting

I work in retail at a store aimed at kids, so naturally we deal with a lot of kids. I’ve seen a lot of horribly behaved kids and equally horribly behaved parents.

One day, a mom came in with two girls, age 6ish and 8-10ish.

They shop around, and the girls pick out about $75 worth of stuff that seems more like fun and cute clothes, not necessities.

They check out, and everything is great. Mom is really nice, kids are nice, out they go.

Surprisingly, they came back to the store shortly after.

They return about 5 minutes later and come up to the cash register.

I ask if they forgot something or needed something else, and mom looks at the older daughter and says “No, but she has something to say to you.”

The older daughter sheepishly says, “I’m sorry I took this,” and hands me back a gift card she took from our display. The cards don’t have any money on them, and I’m sure they’ve been swiped many times.

I tell the girl, “Thank you,” and take it back.

Mom then looks at the daughter who stole the gift card and says the golden words, “We also need to return these things. Stealing is not allowed in this family.”

All **** broke loose.

Even with all the yelling, the mother stuck to her senses.

This girl threw one of the most impressive fits I’ve ever seen, particularly for an 8-10-year-old.

Boots on the floor, coat on the floor, throwing herself on the floor screaming bloody murder and how much she hates her mom, this store, everything.

Mom allows little sister to keep her stuff and is perfectly pleasant to us. I attempt to make small talk during the return while this girl is throwing the fit of the week.

Mom ignores her completely.

I wanted so badly to say “YOU’RE DOING THE RIGHT THING!” but of course I couldn’t.

After the return, mom picks up her coat, picks up her boots, grabs her by the arm, and marches her out of the store.

My coworkers and I stood in awe of an actual showing of awesome parenting that so rarely comes our way.

Wow! Some parents would’ve given in to all that.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit relate to this story.

Apparently, this person knew someone who did this very thing as a con.

Here’s someone who enjoyed the story.

This would’ve been a nice gesture.

For this person, the mother is parenting the right way.

That took courage!

Other mothers would’ve just told the girl not to do it again and let her keep the clothes.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.