A dad who invited all but one child from his daughter's class to her birthday party has been praised.
He recently found out about his daughter and has taken over full custody after her mum "left the picture". As reported by the Mirror, he has vowed to always put his daughter's needs first - even if it means upsetting others - while admitting he is still "learning the ropes" of fatherhood.
Taking to Reddit, he said: "She just turned seven and we’re having a small birthday celebration in my backyard with her classmates this weekend. When school opened again, we started having problems with one kid in particular, Nick. A lot of the parents have been complaining about him because he’s a huge bully to the other kids and gets benched (basically a time out) a lot during recess.
"I’ve had talks with the teacher because he made my daughter cry after teasing her constantly about her mum. Her teacher promised that they’re going to be handling the situation with Nick and keep him away from my daughter."
Nick has stopped tormenting her on the playground since speaking to his daughter's teacher about the situation. The dad added: "For my daughter’s birthday, she decided to invite almost everyone in the class - obviously except for Nick. His mum confronted me after school when I was picking her up. I guess he was crying that he didn’t get an invitation.
"I had my daughter wait in the car and this lady was giving me hell for excluding her son when this could’ve been a chance for him to finally get along with his classmates."
He told her she had months to do something about her son's behaviour - but never bothered. He said: "It's too late to be trying to make friends now with how he was treating all the kids especially my daughter.
"She just kept saying I should be ashamed of myself for not taking this opportunity teach my daughter a valuable lesson on learning compassion. It was just a really intense encounter but in the end I still refused to give an invitation since my daughter said she doesn’t want Nick at her party.
"I’m still thinking about the whole interaction. I’ve never dealt with a parent like that and being still new to it all myself I’m sort of having doubts on how I handled it."
Although he wants his daughter to be "comfortable and happy" on her birthday, he has asked Reddit users whether he was too harsh on the young boy. In response, one user said: "She should be ashamed of herself. This would be a great opportunity for her to teach her son about the consequences of his actions."
Another user added: "The daughter learned that her dad has her back. Respects her wishes, and stands up in her place against bullies and the people that enable the bullies. Valuable lesson for her - and this bully learns the hard way that being a jerk has consequences."
A third user said: "The only 'lesson' that needs to be learned here is that treating people badly will get you excluded from things."
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