WINSTON-SALEM, NC -- A North Carolina single mother at her wits end has gone on strike to protest her two teenage daughters’ extreme actions.
"I walk until my knees hurt, then I sit down,” Naasira Muhammad told WFMY as she walked up and down the street outside her home on Waughtown Street.
"I walk until my knees hurt, then I sit down,” Naasira Muhammad told WFMY as she walked up and down the street outside her home on Waughtown Street.
Muhammad said her daughters’ outrageous behavior is out of control, so she has gone on strike.
"My kids have everything they want and need, yet still they're disrespectful -- they're rude. They think I'm the meanest mom in the world,” she said. “They think they can survive without me, so I said you know what, ‘That's fine. This mom is on strike.’"
Naasira Muhammad
Muhammad said that conventional discipline methods like timeout do not work with teens. The final straw was when one of her daughters keyed her new minivan.
"I'm just frustrated and this is the only solution I could think of other than getting rid of my children,” she said. “I didn't want to go that extreme."
However, the girls’ aunt forced them to make their own signs, which read "Thank you Mom for providing for me, caring for me, and loving me.
Dr. Nannette Funderburk, a psychotherapist who specializes in working with children, said that when parenting gets tough, moms and dads need a support system of their own.
"You need someone to talk to and bounce ideas off of because kids don't come with a manual," Funderburk explained.
Funderburk said of whether Muhammad’s message to her daughters will work depends on if she is consistent with her actions.
Naasira Muhammad
But for Muhammad, she’s at a loss about what else she can do.
“Right now, I’m through,” Muhammad said. “I threw my hands up in the air, I prayed about it, I’m through -- I’m really through. I’m a Mom on strike, I don’t care how long it takes.”
