Mum defends giving her daughters a time out in the supermarket

A mum has defended making her misbehaving daughters sit on the floor in Tesco after her parenting tactic divided social media.

Mum-of-three Louise Palai, 35, made Alisa, six, and Ebony, seven, sit in silence in the vegetable aisle because they were running around and making too much noise.

After pictures of the girls were posted on Facebook, they quickly went viral and while Louise received plenty of support from other parents praising her move, other parents believed she took things too far.

Speaking about her disciplinary measure Louise explained: “They were running around and in high spirits. I’d told them to calm down a couple of times but they didn’t listen.”

Louise was forced to intervene when Ebony almost got hit by a woman’s shopping trolley.

“I didn’t lose my temper but I couldn’t have them behaving like that in public,” she said. “Very quietly I went up to them, took them to a quieter area of the shop in the fruit and veg aisle and told them to sit down.”

“They looked at each other but they didn’t argue. They sat cross-legged facing the shelves with their heads down. I got a few funny looks from people but an old man who’d seen everything gave me a nod as if to say ‘good for you’.

Louise said she took a picture of them on the floor to remind them what happens if they mess about in public.

“I just did it to calm them down. It’s a tactic I’ve used before and it works.”

After her daughters had calmed down, the mum explained to them why I made them sit down.

“I always explain why they are being punished. They both understood and said sorry and then gave me a hug – so they learned their lesson and we carried on shopping. I told a friend of mine what I did and she thought it was great – she put the picture up on Facebook and its gone viral since.”

Louise says that the mixed feedback on her parenting tactic hasn’t bothered her and she maintains she’ll stick with her discipline trick.

“I think that if your child is being naughty then they should be punished there and then – because if do it when you get home you might forget or the child could forget what they did wrong,” she said.

“I was brought up in the 80s and parenting was a lot stricter back then. I don’t really use this method very often – only when the kids are being really naughty or have done something wrong. I’ve done it before and it worked, so it’s a good method – I find it better than shouting at them or hitting them, I would never do that.”

And many others on social media agreed that nipping bad behaviour in the bud is a good stance to adopt.

“Better than letting the kids run riot as so many do in shopping centres. Enforcing discipline seems to be a thing of the past!!” one man tweeted.

“Her children her rules. Good on her,” added another.

But other parents thought the mum might have taken things a stage too far.

“Humiliating your children like this is just wrong. Treating your kids like prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is not good parents, it’s immoral,” one Facebook user wrote.

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