What to Know
Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a threat to your child about taking away a toy or an electronic and didn’t follow through with it? Now, keep that hand up if you went back in your head more than once, wishing you did what you said you would with that punishment? Yeah, I thought so. One mom on TikTok, Paige Carter did what many of us wish we had the gall to do when she threw her daughter’s iPad out the car window on the way to school following lots of not so great behavior from the little girl.
The way Paige explains it in her initial video, there were no tears or screaming, but plenty of backtalk from her daughter, who said at one point she didn’t think her mom would actually follow through. Paige explains that she took the iPad and tossed it out near a stop sign, but the situation isn’t described as being heated or out of control. Instead, it’s about this mom following through on her promise to discipline, and other parents are here for it.
@mrs.lunchbox_ She’s gonna learn her mama don’t play. 😎
♬ Mastermind – Taylor Swift
The mom stood on business with her threat and other parents commended her for it.
Paige sets the scene in her TikTok about throwing her daughter’s iPad out the car window on the way to school. She explains that her daughter was misbehaving and wouldn’t stop misbehaving. So, after Paige threatened to throw the iPad out the window if she didn’t stop and she did not stop (spoiler alert), Paige tossed it out the window. Don’t worry. She went back after school drop-off and found the iPad, intact. But the point still stands that she followed through in a big way.
“You said you’d throw it out and you kept your word,” someone commented on the TikTok. “That’s good parenting.”
Another user added, “In a way this builds trust. She will look back on this one day and know you absolutely DO NOT play. It also establishes dominance. Great job, Mom.”
The closest I’ve ever come to being on Paige’s level was when I threatened to not let my kid use her iPad during a long car ride because of her behavior. When I actually followed through with it, I was honestly so proud of myself.
And no one was any worse off for it.
In a follow-up video, Paige explains that she wanted to reward her daughter’s behavior, which had been more positive, with having her iPad in the car on the way to school. Unfortunately, it backfired when Paige was forced to not only take the iPad away, but to dispose of it, even if that was only temporary.
“We got in the car, she was being not the best. And I said, ‘if you don’t stop, I’m gonna throw your iPad out the window,'” Paige says. “And she said, ‘I don’t care.’ So I grabbed it and she said, ‘see, I knew you wouldn’t throw it out the window.’ She done messed up. I rolled that window down and tossed it right out and kept on driving. And we were pulling up to the stop sign and she was like, ‘let me out, let me out right now.’ And I obviously didn’t.”
People commented on that video to applaud Paige for following through on her threat. Some also said that her daughter’s comment about Paige not throwing it out the window meant she sort of had to at that point.
One person wrote, “her rage baiting you into throwing was probably the best thing that could’ve happened.”
