Canadian Mother Ready to Use Her 'Mom Voice' When a Man Approached Her Daughter at a Skate Park Found Herself Surprised — Here's Her Now-Viral Open Letter

When a Canadian mom and her 6-year-old daughter walked up to a skateboard park, girl was intimidated.

"[I]t was full of teenaged boys who were smoking and swearing, she immediately wanted to turn around and go home," Jeanean Thomas of Cambridge in Ontario wrote in an open letter to an unnamed teenage boy, which she posted to Twitter and later shared with a local newspaper earlier this month.

"I secretly wanted to go too because I didn’t want to have to put on my mom voice and exchange words with you," this mother wrote to the boy. "I also didn’t want my daughter to feel like she had to be scared of anyone, or that she wasn’t entitled to that skate park just as much as you were.

"So when she said, “Mom it’s full of older boys,” I calmly said, “So what, they don’t own the skate park.”

Dear teenage boy at the skate park... pic.twitter.com/78ry5esoTa

— Jeanean Thomas (@JeaneanThomas)

October 11, 2015

"She proceeded to go down the ramp in spite of you and your friends flying past her and grinding rails beside her," Thomas continued in her post, which has gone viral since it's posting.

When this person to whom the letter is speaking approached her daughter, Thomas was ready to play defense, but she found herself surprised instead.

"She only had two or three runs in before you approached her and said Hey, excuse me ...'. I immediately prepared to deliver my 'She’s allowed to use this park just as much as you guys' speech when I heard you say, 'Your feet are wrong. Can I help you?'"

A mom's letter that's going viral: Thx for helping my daughter despite being laughed at https://t.co/vJP9H3P6WT pic.twitter.com/daZONMTQ0y

— Hamilton Spectator (@TheSpec) October 21, 2015

Thomas went on to say that this person, who she estimated to be about 15 years old, spent about an hour teaching her daughter how to skateboard. Just as surprising to her was that her daughter listened, "a feat not attained by most adults," Thomas quipped.

Dear teenage boy at the skate park... pic.twitter.com/78ry5esoTa

— Jeanean Thomas (@JeaneanThomas) October 11, 2015

"I want you to know that I am proud that you are part of my community, and I want to thank you for being kind to my daughter, even though your friends made fun of you for it," she wrote, crediting the teen with giving her daughter a pride and "confidence that she can do anything."

The Cambridge Times managed to track down this man, Ryan Carney, who is actually 20 years old.

“I could tell that she had no idea how to properly stand on the board,” he told the Times this week. “Right before she went, I went up to her and said, ‘Put your feet here and bend your knees – this is how you balance.'"

Carney went on to say that he spent about 30 minutes teaching the girl, Peyton, before sending her off on her own, but said he kept an eye on her afterward.

Of Thomas' now viral letter and his actions, he told the Times, "I don’t really know why it’s a big deal.”

“I went up there just simply to be nice. If I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, and I was in a place that could be intimidating at that age, I’d want someone to help me," Carney told the newspaper.

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Front page image via Shutterstock.