Texas mom forces daughter to clean road while wearing a message as a form of discipline

Tricia Conner is a single mom in Santa Fe who decided to teach her ungrateful 11-year-old a valuable lesson by having her pick up trash on the side of the road Sunday while wearing a sign that read "I have an attitude and I'm disrespectful." less Tricia Conner is a single mom in Santa Fe who decided to teach her ungrateful 11-year-old a valuable lesson by having her pick up trash on the side of the road Sunday while wearing a sign that read "I have an ... more Photo: Tricia Conner Photo: Tricia Conner Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Texas mom forces daughter to clean road while wearing a message as a form of discipline 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Residents driving along CR 159 on Sunday may have seen an 11-year-old girl wearing a sign of contrition while picking up trash. It was her mother's way of teaching her a lesson in humility.

Tricia Conner, of Santa Fe, was fed up with her daughter after she was "ungrateful" for an invitation she had received to visit Dave & Buster's.

"(She) had an opportunity for a night out and was ungrateful, disrespectful, and just had a general attitude of self-entitlement and I had absolutely had it," Conner told Chron.com Monday evening on Facebook. "She's a good kid, makes straight A's and has had perfect attendance for four years in a row, but the attitude was becoming too much and I've tried everything."

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The girl's punishment was to pick up trash on the side of road Sunday while wearing a sign on her back that read "I have an attitude and I'm disrespectful."

Conner posted photos and a video of her daughter on the side of the road on Facebook where they've been shared more than 1,600 times.

"Thank you Paul Daniels for the safety vest and the support! And to all the passerby's that gave us a 'thumbs up'! And the elderly gentleman that stopped and made her turn around so he could read her sign, then gave her $20 for cleaning up the road. Which she did NOT get to keep!' Conner wrote on Facebook.

Conner insists that the punishment was not a way to publicly shame her daughter but instead to teach her a valuable lesson.

"With everything going on with kids these days, just trying to get mine to be thankful for what she has," Conner said.

Fernando Alfonso III is a digital reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @fernalfonso.