AITA for making my daughter sleep in the backyard after what she did to our housemaid?

A Redditor shares their controversial decision to make their 16-year-old daughter sleep in the backyard for falsely accusing their housemaid of theft. The punishment followed a string of disrespectful behavior, culminating in planting an iPhone in the housemaid’s bag to frame her.

Read the full story below to weigh in on whether the punishment fits the offense or went too far.

‘ AITA for making my daughter sleep in the backyard after what she did to our housemaid?’

My M46 daughter (16) is a highschool junior. I noticed recently that she’s been behaving in a bad manner constantly commenting on other people’s looks, belongings, calling them stuff that isn’t cool and just being insensitive.

It’s like she lost a filter or something because usually she’s polite but my wife suspected that our daughter’s sudden misbehavior occurred after she started hanging out with new girls from the school.

Basically the mean type and have picked on their behavior. I’ve sat with my daughter and had many discussions about how her behavior has been negatively affecting everyone around her.

Our housemaid is the person most affected here and my daughter has chosen her to be her target for hair, clothes, “etiquette” criticism.She has complained about our daughter calling her offensive names like filthy and gross for cleaning certain areas in our house.

I took a stand and explicitly told my daughter I’d punish her if she ever said stuff like that to our housemaid again.
Last week my daughter had a party to go to, earlier that day she called our housemaid “filthy” so I grounded her by not letting her go to the party. She threw a fit and called our housemaid a liar saying she never called her that.

That was the end of it. Days later my daughter came to me saying she couldn’t find her iPhone after looking everywhere. She asked me to call her number and I did.

My wife and I were stunned to discover that the iphone was ringing inside our housemaid’s bag. I had an confrontation with her immediately and she denied and cried saying she never touched the phone nor had any idea how it got there.

I noticed my daughter calling her theif repeatedly so I told her to stop and go to her room. I checked the indoor camera before continuing the argument and saw my daughter place her iphone inside our housemaid’s bag, I was livid.

I apologized to the housemaid and gave her the rest of the day off.
I then showed the video to my daughter and she was absolutely speechless. I said what she did was immoral and straight up offensive to tamper with that poor woman’s livelihood over a petty party she couldn’t go to.

I told her she was grounded and will have to spend the night in the backyard (she is a germaphobe) but she cried begging me to not make her sleep with the dirt, insects and hot temp. I refused to discuss it or I’d make it 2 nights.

My wife said I should go easy on her but I said calling people filthy and accusing them of stealing wasn’t ok in fact it was the absolute worst, I then went through with my punishment.

**The reason I chose this punishment was because of the fact that my daughter says she is a germaphobe and use this as excuse to insult others hygiene and appearance, our backyard has dirt and bugs in it and this kind of things get her uncomfortable but other than that the backyard is 100% safe**

**Question/ why doesn’t she clean up and do house chores as punishment instead?**.
**because I’ve already tried this punishment before and it didn’t work because she deliberately stopped eating for days to get out of it, and ended up in the emergency department for low blood pressure**

See what others had to share with OP:

MrGreggerGrMNTA,but you should give your housekeeper a week off with pay and make your daughter take her place unpaid

jonairl −  I’d make her do the housemaids job for two weeks but pay the housemaid for the work. You are NTA to come down hard on her though and knock it on the head

[Reddit User] −  NTA, you should pay the maid a week salary and make your daughter do ALL the housework for a week!

K-no-B −  NTA. Your daughter deserves a defcon-1 level punishment. That’s some fucked up s**t she did. That said, I’d probably pick something besides making her sleep in the back yard.

Too temporary, too unusual, too easy for her to make herself out to be the victim. It’s both too much and not enough.
Spend one weekend per month of her Grounded-Without-Phone Year picking up trash on the side of the road with her.

AdCool7681 −  Punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Make her do the work of the housemaid.

Maleficent-Signal295 −  NTA I’d sell her phone, and give the proceeds to the housemaid as well as an extra week salary which your daughter has to pay for by either working/doing chores around the house or paying back to the community
Buy her a Nokia brick if she needs a phone to keep in contact with her

La-Belle-Gigi −  NTA, but the punishment should fit the crimes.
No phone for a year, a month grounded doing all the housework on her own (pay your housekeeper the whole month, she deserves a vacation!), plus another month grounded to keep her away from those other girls..

EDIT: She deliberately stopped eating for days to get out of it, and ended up in the emergency department for low blood pressure
She’s a manipulative AH. Let her starve herself, she’ll stop once she realizes it’s not going to work. If she insists, mention you can have her hospitalized for anorexia, see how she likes *that* idea.

TheLoquatTree −  Personally think NTA, but the punishment here isn’t going to make your daughter’s behavior miraculously turn around. The fact that she lied and blamed the house maid and treats them like a subpar being points to bigger issues.. Parenting is rough. Best of luck.

AreYouFalconKidding −  ESH. Your daughter deserves to be severely punished. What she did is completely unacceptable and there should be serious consequences. But this is a really inappropriate way to punish her.

Especially since your wife disagreed and you overruled her (what gives you the right to make this choice without her?)
and kicked your daughter out. This is abusive behavior. You’re not going to teach your daughter not to be an AH by being an AH to her. You should be able to discipline your child without making her feel like she doesn’t have safe housing.

Especially since you mention she’s a germaphobe. You deliberately chose a punishment that would trigger her p**bia. Maybe she didn’t learn her bullying behavior at school….

Edit: Your edit doesn’t make this better. If your daughter gets so upset she starved herself and ends up in the ER she needs therapy. That’s not a normal thing kids do.

You choosing to make her feel like she doesn’t have safe housing isn’t going to fix this issue.
She’s already clearly struggling. What she did was awful but you’re the adult and I think you’re worse. You’ve ignored this situation until it got unbearable and then made her sleep in the dirt.

GrowlingAtTheWorld −  Sleeping outside seems a random punishment and a tad unsafe. A much more correlative punishment might be called for. Firstly she loses the phone for a month or if she needs it to contact you turn on parental controls, turn off her access to the internet and only allow her to access calling, texting and emailing you and your wife.

Then she loses the services of the maid. She now must wash her own clothes, wash her own dishes, clean her own toilet etc until you notice an improvement in her disposition to your staff.

Make her understand that the services of your staff is a luxury and she can lose it if she treats your staff badly.
And of course she must apologize to the maid and if daughter receives an allowance it should be used to purchase the maid a gift perhaps a nice dinner for two or a spa day to show appreciation for her services.

Was the backyard punishment an appropriate lesson in accountability, or did it cross a line? How would you handle such severe disrespect toward household staff and others? Share your opinions in the comments below!