dd reckons it's not cool to wear a helmet, so she sets off from home with it on, but before she gets to the end of the road she takes it off. She says other kids point and laugh at her.
A relative of mine saw her without it twice and alerted us - on those occasions we read her the riot act, said how cool will you look lying on a mortuary slab? etc and she promised she would wear it all the way to and from school.
But dh has spied on her twice and both times she has not been wearing her helmet on the way home. When confronted about it she says she was just about to put it on at the very moment he saw her! Even though at that point she was more than half way home!
School is about 3 miles away, we can't afford the bus and it's too far to walk in a reasonable time even though she wants to walk. That would however mean an hour's walk each way which I think is unreasonable.
I have threatened to wait outside the school tonight and if I see her without it I will get out of the car and make her put it on. The choice is clear to me - she overcomes her fear of what her friends will think of her with a helmet on or I embarrass her in front of them.
Is this too harsh? How can I persuade her to keep it on?