Donna Cooper was equally embarrassed and furious when she learned about her 16-year-old son’s terrible behavior. Nick Cooper had been placed on a “restricted timetable,” which banned him from the school premises for three days a week.
Donna wasn’t about to reward such behavior with an easy day off at home. On Facebook she wrote,
This is my son Nick Cooper.
He’s 16yrs old… and has been put on a restricted timetable at school due, may I say to my shame, behaviour within school.
Out of school he is polite and good hearted, school just doesn’t agree with him, therefore he is only at school Monday and Tuesday.
So here’s the deal, and the reason for this post…
I’m a hard working mum, and I refuse to have my son at home while I am out working, so if anyone has any use for him for a few hours a day, farm work, labouring, he’s yours… FOR FREE
Donna’s post immediately got results. A local cafe owner asked the working mother for her son’s services and said that he could start immediately. “I walked in from work and told him he had a shift at a café the next day,” Donna told the Hull Daily Mail. “I was so angry with him I knew I had to find him something to do.”
When asked what her son thought about the job, Donna said, “He wasn’t too impressed but he got on with it and the owner of the café couldn’t have been happier with him. Some kids expect jobs to fall on their laps. Nick complained about the café work at first but he went on to do a brilliant job. He now has a great reference to be able to find other work.”
The cafe owner wasn’t the only person to take Donna up on her offer. After using Nick as an emergency driver, one woman wrote “This young lad picked me up and took me home. I had had a horrific fall and if it hadn’t been for Nick I probably would have died so thank you. A lovely young man.”
It turns out Donna’s punishment worked and Nick managed to learn something in the process. “I wanted him to gain an education in life and now thanks to the post he has been offered a two week trial for a joinery apprenticeship in Leven. I wanted to teach him that you need to put yourself out there. I got the number of the apprenticeship company for him but I left him to it after that. He managed to organise an interview for himself while we were at work, and now he has a trial doing a job he has always wanted to do.”
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