We all need to make decisions in life and sometimes, those decisions are not going to be the most popular. This is especially true when we are a parent and we are trying to raise our children according to our standards.

Children are going to make mistakes and sometimes, those mistakes can be serious. That is what one mother discovered when her daughter was bullying a homeless man in their local area. She was saying cruel things, and the mother decided to do something about it.

She made the decision to have her daughter sleep in a tent and to help the homeless man directly. It was something that many people considered to be harsh, but it seemed to have the desired effect.

I (34F) am a single mother to two girls, ‘Jasmine’ (16F) and ‘Jessica’ (14F). Their dad died when I was pregnant with Jess, and I had to work hard. We hit rock bottom, and I was barely making paycheque to paycheque but I managed to get a degree, become successful and we live well. Point is, I know how hard it is to be at the bottom of society, and my daughters know this, which is why I was livid at my daughter’s actions.

Yesterday, Jasmine showed me a video of Jessica cussing a homeless man out and telling him, ‘stop asking me for money, you’d earn it yourself if you weren’t so lazy and spending what you earned on substances.’

When the homeless man complained about the cold (we live in NE England), Jessica responded ‘Yeah people camp for fun, even in December, you can’t complain, you’re living someone’s holiday.’ Fury was an understatement for what I felt, as I thought I had raised an empathetic daughter.

Along with finding the homeless man and making her apologize and help pay for a hotel room for a night for him (she paid £20), as well as signing her up to volunteer at a food bank – I decided to take her up on her offer of sleeping outside.

I locked her bedroom door so she couldn’t go in, put a sign on it saying Closed for the holidays, pitched a tent in the garden and filled it with blankets and the sleeping bag I used when I was camping in Norway on a family holiday as a teen (aka really bloody thermal).

She was reluctant to do it, but chose it over the option of not having access to her phone until the Christmas holidays are over.

In the morning, she was crying about how horrible it was to wake up on a cold mat and get disrupted sleep due to birds. After comforting her, I asked her would she like to do that everyday like the homeless man. It struck a cord with her and she was crying over her actions, while even after the £20 she was rolling her eyes and her apology was not sincere. This afternoon, I came home from work to Jessica making a big meal to donate to the homeless people who live on the road near our house.

I was proud of how she turned over a new leaf, and after taking the food to the people, my sister came over. Apparently, my nephew and Jessica were talking at school, and he asked her about her plans for the afternoon, and she said that she was going to cook for the homeless. My nephew asked what triggered that, and Jess told him everything, which he relayed back to his mum.

My sister said that my punishment was too harsh, and just the £20 and the food bank would have done the trick, and I was acting irrationally due to my past. Now I’m second guessing myself.