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Daughter forced to wear shirt that says “Thief”

Posted at 5:37 PM, Mar 13, 2012
and last updated 2012-03-13 17:40:39-04

Louisiana (CNN)--Lately, a rash of parents determined to give their children some tough-love-discipline.

Aaroneisha Celestin, a 13-year-old New Orleans teen was caught stealing, and now she is getting a lesson in tough love from her mother.

Her mother says she simply wants to make sure her daughter never steals again. Now when he daughter leaves the house, she has to wear an unmistakable, neon green t-shirt.

The seventh grader's t-shirt reads: Hide your money. Hide your clothes. Hide everything 'cuz I’m a thief.

“I feel like if you're going to embarrass me by stealing, I’m gonna show you what it’s like to be embarrassed, everybody's gonna know that you stole,” said her mother Danaka Walker. “I work too hard for her to steal and I’m not gonna have no thief living with me.”

Walker made the t-shirt the day after Aaroneisha was arrested for shoplifting at an Oakwood center on the westbank. Walker says she was sick to her stomach picking her daughter up at the juvenile detention center.

“Even though it's her first offense I want to make sure it’s her last,” said Walker. “I don't want to ever go back and have to go pick up my child from jail.”

Aaroneisha says she's embarrassed, but she understands her punishment is all out of love.

“Sorry. Sorry for my mama and everybody else I hurt,” she said.

Aaroneisha's father was murdered back in 2006 -- and the single mother of four -- says she has no choice but to practice tough love.

"Every day you look at the news, somebody's getting killed," said the mom. "Somebody's going to jail."

"Even at schools now, it's always something," she added. "I don't want my children to be in that statistic."