When Ally Olsen set her stepdaughter up for a difficult situation, it wasn't because she wanted to inflict pain; it was because she wanted her stepdaughter to stop inflicting that pain on others. Ally found out 11-year-old Kaylee was the mean girl at school. Kaylee, who loves fashion, took to making fun of another girl's clothes.
"She said, 'You're ugly, you dress sleazy, you're mean,'" Ally said. "She needed to know how inappropriate she was behaving." So Ally took her daughter to a thrift store, had her pick out the clothes she thought were the ugliest, and then made her wear them to school for a mere two days. In those two days, Ally was teased for her outfits, but she experienced something much more powerful than a few harsh words: empathy.
"I [was] like, why would they do that to me," Kaylee said. "I'm still a normal person. It doesn't matter what you wear." Like bully Jacob Cordero, she learned that bullying does hurt, that you shouldn't judge others based on their appearance. She apologized to the girl she made fun of and now they're best friends.
"We really think if you felt how this little girl feels, you might have a little empathy for her,"Ally said. "She learned exactly what we wanted her to learn. We couldn't be happier."
What do you think of Ally's lesson? Was it too harsh or did she strike a good balance between discipline and teaching a lesson?
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