Dad Doesn't Think He's Wrong For Mistakenly Calling Cops On 6th Grade Daughter

He thought his daughter was stealing — she wasn’t — but he still doesn’t think he’s the a*shole

When it comes to teaching our children lessons, there are logical ways to go about it and then there are wild, extreme, batshit ways to approach it. The latter is the route this dad decided to use, according to his post with Reddit’s Am I The Asshole subreddit. An attempt at trying to teach his young daughter about “stealing” went awry and he refuses to take accountability for it.

He begins the post by admitting he was baiting his own child into stealing his money, which doesn’t bode well for the entire scenario, tbh:

“My daughter is in the sixth grade. Every morning, I have her take a couple of dollars out of my wallet for lunch money. In the last few weeks, several times I have noticed that I am missing a little bit more money than usual. So, this week, I planted a 20 dollar bill before my daughter took her lunch money out. Sure enough, she took it.”

Now yes, this is something worth addressing with your child. It warrants a discussion, absolutely. What should never happen is that you, as a parent, CALL THE POLICE on your young child (Also what police force would agree to this? Who has that kind of time?) and humiliate them at school. Especially when you don’t have all the facts and have yet to hear your child explain themselves.

“I called the police and asked them to come with me to the school so that we could teach my daughter a lesson,” the dad writes. “Two officers met me there and we pulled my daughter out of class, after which she informed one of the officers that there has been a bully who is stealing her lunch money/forcing my daughter to buy her lunch. She also has been buying lunch for one of her friends who can not afford it. This was confirmed by both the bully, and the friend.”

Unsurprisingly, his daughter was completely unforgiving toward her dad after this nightmare scenario. His wife was “in tears” over his actions and completely against the whole thing — meaning he didn’t even consult his own spouse and co-parent over this decision.

His daughter is now afraid the bully will retaliate and that the friend she was helping is now too humiliated to continue their friendship. So, basically, this dad lost the full trust of his young daughter and irreparably damaged their relationship as well as the relationships she has at school.

It’s pretty clear who the asshole is here.

Here’s hoping this dad takes accountability for his extreme actions and spends every last ounce of energy he has on repairing the relationship between himself and his daughter and also his wife.

Dads: DO NOT DO THIS. You’ve been warned. Just talk to your freaking kids, for crying out loud.