What 1 Stranger Did After This Girl Lost a Carnival Game Will Hit You Like a Ton of Bricks

It's a lesson that we all have to teach our kids at one point or another: that we can't win every time, that we need to find grace and acceptance in losing. It's a lesson Brea Schmidt was ready to teach her 5-year-old daughter after she inevitably lost a carnival game, but then something surprising happened.

"Last night my girl was playing a game at the church festival in my hometown, trying desperately to win a Poppy doll by buying three-for-$1 tickets that she would open and find out whether or not she was a winner," Brea wrote on her Facebook page. "Every time we tried, we lost."

When it came time for the girl to play her last dollar, she lost again.

"Despite her efforts to hold it in, she fell into my arms in tears," wrote the mom of three, who started the Thinking Branch blog to share her stories about parenthood. "I held on to that sobbing hug for a while. . . . Then, with another dollar burning a hole in my pocket, I thought about the memories I had as a kid when it was me who couldn't win the carnival game with the prize I wanted . . . and considered helping her avoid that sadness by standing at the dang booth and paying whatever I needed to until until my daughter won."

But Brea knew that wasn't the answer.

"I knew I had to keep that dollar bill in my pocket and give her the life lesson speech," she said.

Just as she was about to speak, she heard the voice of a stranger say, "You know what, honey, I have a dollar and I'm going to give it another try for you."

And just like that, this fellow mom paid a dollar from her wallet and opened a winning ticket.

"The look on my daughter's face was the absolute best," Brea wrote. "Nothing but pure, 5-year-old thrill shining through the leftover tears and snot on her face."

So the stranger threw a wrench in Brea's planned "you don't always get what you want" speech that night, but she made sure her little girl learned this surprise lesson, which was just as important:

It's a good reminder that in parenting, there's no shortage of moments that can lead to profound discovery and to lifelong lessons. Like Brea concluded, we can only hope that our children remember these experiences when they find themselves in a similar situation: "If one of those situations lands her in a spot where she sees a fellow classmate feeling sad, maybe she'll remember the woman at the Poppy booth and reach into her heart to find a way to help her friend feel better."