A mother has divided other parents after revealing she allows her child to take one day off school each month without being sick.
Noella Palmento, a single mother from the US, took to TikTok to share the unusual parenting technique, which sees her daughter, Giada, six, taking a day off school every four weeks.
The time off, which others have dubbed a ‘mental health day’, can be spent as Giada desires, with one clip showing the six-year-old spending the day shopping.
The influencer, who described herself as ‘not a regular mom’, told others to ‘mind their own business,’ but the concept has received floods of support from viewers.
Her clip, which has attracted over five million views, has left others inspired by the idea, with one branding it ‘super important’.
Noella Palmento (pictured left), from the US, allows her daughter Giada (pictured right), six, to take one day off school each month to spend as she pleases
Noella explained: ‘I told my daughter she can pick one day each month to stay home from school without being sick.’
The clip showed Giada spending the day with her mother, playing with toys outside and enjoyed time at the shopping mall.
Perhaps anticipating backlash, the mother-of-one captioned the clip: ‘Mind your business.’
However, Noella, who aims to ‘inspire’, received an almost entirely positive reception, with many taking notes on the idea for when they have children of their own.
Over 3,000 viewers shared their thoughts on the idea. One said: ‘Mental health day as my mom called it.’
A second added: ‘A mental health day off would have done so much good for my hurting brain and heart when I was growing up. This is amazing!’
A third said: ‘I’m a teacher and I’m not even mad about it. Especially if she’s so little!! Mental health days are super important and let kids be kids!’
A fourth added: ‘That’s so smart I’m totally doing this with my future kids.’
In the clip, Giada can be seen spending her day off, which others have called a ‘mental health day’, at the shopping mall
Users flocked to the comment section to share their thoughts on Noella’s idea, and one branded it ‘super important’
Despite many viewers offering their support for the concept, others have taken a more critical approach and pointed to the potentially harmful side effects.
One said: ‘One every month is a lil wild just bc she’ll expect it as she gets older, but I grew up knowing I could ask for a mental health day whenever I needed!!’
Another added: ‘Til you get an email about truancy.’
A third said: ‘One day a month is a lot.’
A fourth questioned: ‘Why not just do this on the weekend?’
Some users took a different approach to the idea, with one questioning why they can’t wait until the weekend to unwind
It comes after a major study predicted that the world’s population could have mental health conditions such as depression of anxiety by the age 75.
Researchers drew on two decades’ worth of World Health Organization surveys representing over 156,000 adults from 29 countries to look for trends in diagnoses.
They projected that one in two people could have at least one mental health disorder by the time they reach old age, a stark increase from the 2019 estimate of one in every eight.
The overall risk of developing a mental illness during one’s lifetime was 46 percent for male participants and a slightly increased 53 percent for females.
And women were at the greatest risk for post-traumatic stress disorder specifically, while men were more likely to abuse alcohol.
Mental illness rates in the US are on the rise, having worsened over the past few years, during which time the number of suicides spiked from 45,900 to more than 48,000
The team’s findings were published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry.