Some toddlers have serious problems – like being afraid of the toilet. Luckily, a stranger’s surprising act of kindness helped resolve this fear for one little girl.
On one family’s way home from a basketball game, mother Tiffany Miller, her husband, and three kids stopped at a McDonald’s in Salina, Kentucky for a snack and a bathroom break. While Miller’s
husband and son grabbed a couple of drinks, Miller took her two daughters to the ladies’ room. There, Miller realized that her 3-year-old, Ainsley, was too afraid of the automatic flushing toilets to actually use the restroom.
In an interview with the local news channel, Miller said, “Ainsley looked in there and said, ‘No mommy, I don’t need to go.’” Miller tried to reason with her daughter as best as an adult can reason with a 3-year-old, but it got her nowhere.
Miller recalled the event in her Facebook post which she hopes the kind stranger who bartered with her daughter will see.
“You heard me tell her we had a long drive home and she needed to use the potty,” she wrote to the stranger. “You heard her tell me she was scared the toilet would flush while she w
as sitting on it. I couldn’t convince her I would block the sensor and keep that from happening. She promised she could hold it and wouldn’t pee in the car.”
While the two were wrapped in their discussion, a stranger decided to intervene to try to help the mother get her daughter to do her business. Miller said, “This lady that was standing at the sink said, ‘Hey, if you go potty for your mommy, I will give you this bracelet,’” and the stranger held up her bracelet.
That moment changed everything for Ainsley. She immediately agreed that using the toilet was in everyone’s best interest, and Miller seized the opportunity to get what she had been arguing for all along.
“I turned to quickly put her on the potty (before she changed her mind),” wrote Miller in her Facebook post which has been seen by over 22,000 people, “You told her the bracelet would be waiting outside the stall for her.”
The stranger set the bracelet by the sink and left the ladies’ room before Miller or her daughter had the chance to thank her. They went out to the lobby and looked for the woman, but she had seemingly disappeared. It was clear that the woman wasn’t looking for praise; she was looking to help someone for the sake of having a positive impact on the people around her.
Miller hopes that sharing the woman’s act of kindness inspires others to be kind as well. “It just reminds people to be kind and pay if forward,” she said.
Moreover, it’s a reminder that in everyday life people are already paying it forward, treating others with kindness, and doing what they can to make a difference. Even though the kind act was a small moment in time, it made all the difference to Miller and her daughter that evening, and it demonstrated to Miller’s daughters the kindness that they should show to others.
Not to mention it cured a toddler’s fear of the toilet.
Featured Image by Mike Mozart on Flickr
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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