5-Year-Old Girl Packs Her Bags And Says She’s Running Away So Her Mom Says Bye And Watches Her Walk Down The Street
She told other parents to follow her for more parenting advice!
@mrsjonesyyy / TikTok A viral clip that has received over 4.5 million views shows a 5-year-old girl “running away” — but it doesn’t quite end up working in her favor.
It seems like everyone could relate to this. After all, we were all kids once, and part of being a kid is telling your parents you’re going to run away after they didn’t buy you that toy you wanted. While each parent chooses to deal with the situation differently, one mom showed what happened when she let her daughter go through with it.
The mom revealed what happened when her 5-year-old decided to run away.
“She packed the bags and she’s running away,” mom Amanda Chérie says in the video. In the clip, we can see the young girl carrying a backpack and lugging a suitcase behind her as she wanders up the street. “I said bye,” Chérie said.
Inside of the house, we can hear one of her brothers saying “I knew she’d come back,” while she seems to backtrack for a moment, unsure of which direction to walk.
Sure enough, however, she decided on a direction and made her way down the road as Amanda laughed the whole time, saying “Is she really going to call my bluff? She’s going to call my bluff, this little s--t,” but she said it all in gest.
She wasn’t truly angry with her daughter but was trying to use this as a teachable moment.
In the caption for the video, Amanda writes “My 5-year-old got mad at me for taking away her tablet so she decided to run away and I said, ‘Bye!’ Be sure to follow me for more parenting advice,” and her advice seems to get results!
About a minute-and-a-half into the clip, her daughter turns around and ends up back on her doorstep, where her mom asks her “you want to be a part of this family?” and she (reluctantly) nods that she does. She’s all smiles as she walks back into the house with promises of pizza, happy to be a part of her family again.
Experts say parents can use a child's threat to run away as a teachable moment for themselves as well.
In a 2004 column for the Seattle Times, Jan Faull, a specialist in child development and behavior, wrote that parents should reflect on "why the child was compelled" to run away. "When your child makes the claim to run away, let your child know that you won't allow him to do so, but consider tossing over more power and control, thus establishing a new balance between you and him," Faull wrote.
Most importantly, a child running away is a time for parents to "reaffirm" their love for their child.
People in the comments asked Amanda what her daughter packed to run away.
Although she eventually turned her comments off on the original video, she did make a follow-up video in response to one that asked, “I just wanna know what she packed.” With a suitcase and a backpack in tow, she was sure to have packed a lot, and so Amanda decided to show the world what her 5-year-old daughter ran away with.
She started with her daughter’s backpack, which actually had many sensible things in it. “In the front pocket of the book bag, we have some pants, more pants, a shirt, [and] some sunglasses. All right, all sensible stuff.” But inside the main pocket of the backpack is where she had the bulk of her goodies.
After her “emotional support unicorn” stuffed animal, she had stuffed her piggy bank that was filled to the brim with coins and bills. “Smart girl!” her mom exclaimed, before unearthing a bag of Doritos Chips, her soccer shin guards, an Eleven doll from Stranger Things, and a granola bar.
In her suitcase, staring right at Amanda, the first thing she saw when opening it was a cow “puppet” they made out of a paper bag, and the rest were clothes and a pen. “Not bad!” Amanda said, “Not bad for a 5-year-old, I think,” and the rest of the commenters agreed, with some even saying that she packed smarter than their husbands ever would.
All’s well that ends well, but with the way her 5-year-old packed, Amanda shouldn’t be surprised if her daughter decided to put her plan in motion for a second time — she may want to think twice before taking that tablet away!
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor for YourTango who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.