Dad Forces Daughter To Walk 5-Miles Daily, She is Not Innocent As You May Think

Dad makes his daughter walk five miles to school in the winter for an incredible reason. Everyone in life has had to make risky decisions, decisions that others would question, that would cast doubt on our perception of ourselves.

But sometimes, acting radically is the only possible way to achieve results, especially if what we intend is to change something that is wrong, something that is harming innocent people that we know. Isn’t it our duty to try to do something to help? Surely, yes. Although you have to have a lot of guts to be able to make a decision as risky as the one that the protagonist of our story had to make.

A father in distress who had to put aside the unconditional love of his pre-teen daughter to prioritize her education and make her a better person. Matt Cox is a single father from Minnesota and has a 10-year-old daughter, Bethany. Matt’s wife died suddenly when the girl was five years old from a heart attack she apparently had an undiagnosed congenital heart condition that caused her untimely death at just 36 years of age.

Since the death of his wife, Matt had to raise his daughter with the only help of his parents and occasionally his in-laws, with whom he didn’t have a very good relationship. A relationship that worsened since he became a widower and that led him to have to take care full-time of a little girl who kept asking for her mother and who cried at night in a disconsolate way looking for her.

Bethany grew up with a constant feeling that something was missing despite her father’s efforts to give her everything she needed and to offer unconditional affection. In fact, it could be said that Matt was overprotective of his daughter and spoiled her too much, something common in single parents trying to compensate for the lack of a mother figure in their lives. This overprotectiveness would probably lead to what would happen a few years later when he discovered that his innocent daughter was not as sweet and innocent as he thought she was at first.

During the years after her mother’s death, Bethany behaved well. She was a sweet, cheerful child who talked to everyone, and she was also a good student, although she didn’t have many friends. She never showed any signs of having attitude problems at school with the other kids until everything changed as the girl grew older.

She became increasingly aggressive, and Matt kept getting calls from the principal’s office to pick up his daughter and answer for her actions. Matt didn’t understand what was going on and couldn’t figure out why his beloved daughter, only 10 years old, had started behaving so terribly.

When teachers talked to him about Bethany’s behavior, they explained things about his daughter he couldn’t believe but had to listen to because, even though the reality was painful and it hurt him to see how his daughter had turned into something so perverse, Matt knew that as a parent, he had an obligation to identify the source of the problem and put an end to it, and he was willing to do so no matter what.

“Mr. Cox, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I have to tell you that your daughter Bethany, whom we all held in high esteem, has turned into a real demon. Not only does she insult her classmates on a daily basis, but she doesn’t stop until she humiliates them in front of other people, and the children go home crying.

There are even those who have stopped coming to class for several days for fear of seeing her again, and that, as you understand, is totally intolerable for us in this center. We reject any kind of bullying behavior, and we have a very strict regulation regarding it,” the school principal explained to him very indignantly while Bethany kept quietly in her seat in front of the principal, next to her father, but without paying them a bit of attention.

Mr. Cox was truly embarrassed by his daughter’s behavior, and although he had no idea what he was going to do about it, he knew that his daughter had overstepped the boundaries and should be severely punished.

The principal had already called him three times during that month, and each time they saw each other, the stories he told about Bethany were more alarming. So, he was not surprised when he was told the school had decided to expel his daughter for a week as an extraordinary disciplinary measure, and that, in addition, when she returned, she would be banned from riding the school bus for another week at the very least.

“Mr. Cox, please be informed that your daughter Bethany will not be able to use the school bus service for one week because, for the past few weeks, she has been insulting different children riding next to her, even spitting on the driver when he asked her to be quiet. Children cannot be afraid to ride the school bus; they all have the right to go to school in peace and without having to endure the constant harassment of one of their classmates. I hope she understands,” the principal stated firmly.

“I totally agree with you, Mr. Principal. My daughter needs discipline, and she will get it. I, as a parent, also have to take my share of the blame and act accordingly so the situation does not arise again. I assure you that whatever my daughter has done will not go unpunished. I’m the first against bullying, and I will not allow my daughter to be the cause of this kind of despicable behavior,” Bethany’s father replied very angrily while looking at his daughter, who seemed not to hear anything of what was being said.

Upon arriving home, the very first thing Matt did to try to find some response to his beloved daughter’s behavior was to try to talk to her without yelling or getting worked up. He simply wanted to know how she was doing and if there was anything she needed to share with him to make her feel better.

“Honey, I don’t understand why you’re doing all this. You’ve always been such a sweet girl, and you’ve never fought with anyone. What happened? Has someone made you feel bad? Do you feel like you’re missing something, and that’s why you’re acting like this? Tell me something, honey. I need answers to understand all this,” begged the father in an attempt to connect with his daughter, but to no avail. Bethany just didn’t answer. She wouldn’t even look him in the face as he spoke.

“You’re not gonna tell me anything? Really? Not even a simple explanation for all the hate you’re imparting against your classmates? For God’s sake, Bethany, I’ve always taken care of you and given you everything you’ve ever needed. What’s gotten into you? Is it because of mommy, honey? Do you miss her, is that it? You can tell me,” but the only response he got was silence and indifference from his daughter.

Seeing that it was impossible to talk to her and try to settle things peacefully, Mr. Cox made a drastic decision regarding the punishment he would impose on his daughter. He would not take his daughter to school by car, not a single day while she was punished and unable to get on the school bus. To make it more official and make her understand that he was totally serious, he decided to share the whole punishment through his social media account.

Matt had had to raise just one girl, and that took a lot of time away from his social life, but it didn’t stop him from keeping up with the latest trends, and he didn’t consider himself an old-fashioned dad either, far from it. He liked to use his smartphone and had an Instagram account with quite a few followers, over two thousand, where he shared his day-to-day life with his daughter and talked about his work as a carpenter.

“Okay, Bethany, if you don’t want to do things the easy way, we’ll do them the hard way, the way you usually do them lately. You’ll spend the week of suspension at home, studying and advancing homework, and then when you have to go back to school and can’t use your school bus, I don’t plan to drive you to class in my car. You’ll walk by yourself, do you understand?” he told his daughter as sternly as he could, in a rather threatening tone.

“You’re gonna let me walk to school? You’re crazy! I’ll freeze to death! Yeah, you have to drive me to school; you’re my father!” shouted the girl, who seemed to have been quite frightened by her father’s decision.

“No, miss, I’m your father, and precisely because of that, I can decide how you’ll go to school. It’s your punishment for acting like this for the past few months. So, maybe you’ll learn that you can’t play with other people’s feelings or publicly humiliate them whenever you feel like it, and maybe, who knows, you’ll also start to appreciate how lucky you are for the life so full of comforts I’m giving you.

And that’s all there is to it,” finished the sentence with a resounding slam of the door, leaving Bethany with a word in her mouth and a look of rage in her eyes.

After the first week of punishment and home confinement, Bethany began the second part of her sentence for the bullying she had subjected several of her classmates to. She never again argued with her father about it and took it with resignation. For his part, Matt was as good as his word in sharing the entire punishment on social media, sharing several videos a day documenting it and talking about his thoughts on the matter and his intentions in applying such a severe punishment.

“The other day when the school principal told me that my daughter could not use the school bus for a week, I said to myself, great! You have the opportunity to teach your daughter to value everything she has in life and, at the same time, teach her a lesson for her bad actions,” explained clearly and forcefully, Cox, in one of his first videos.

And he continued saying, “Many children feel that the things their parents do for them are a right and not a privilege, like parents driving their children to school in the morning, or even busing them to school in the morning.

Today, my daughter will understand that this is not the case. To set an example and show the world and his daughter that he was a father fully committed to children’s rights in his rejection of bullying in any form, Matt Cox forced his daughter to walk five miles to and from school in the cold winter weather for an entire week. That’s right, my dear public, today my precious daughter is walking five miles to school in two-degree weather. I know a lot of you parents won’t agree with this, but it’s okay,” the father said in a video he shared on his Instagram stories.

For her safety, Cox forced his daughter to wear winter-appropriate clothing and drove slowly behind her to make sure she reached her destination. However, the long drive in frigid air would teach his daughter the privilege of being driven to school in a vehicle and give her plenty of time to reflect on her bully behavior.

While some people went as far as to call Cox a bully as well for the punishment he provided his daughter, the bottom line is that it is important for parents to intervene when their child bullies someone else. While it is important for the school to intervene in resolving bullying cases, parents must also take responsibility for ensuring that their children receive punishment, learn their lesson, and refrain from bullying again in the future.

During her punishment, Bethany had plenty of time to reflect on what she’d done and the pain it had caused the other children and her father. The girl apologized to all her classmates, her teachers, and even the school principal. She also managed to make peace with her father and agreed to go to therapy to deal with her behavioral problems.

Bethany is one case of hundreds, and unfortunately, bullying is a reality that thousands of families have to deal with on a daily basis. It is a silent evil that we must eradicate together through education and empathy.

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