by Michelle Stein posted in Parenting

Some days it seems like I'm saying "no" to my kids an average of 100 times per hour. "No, you can't have ice cream for breakfast." "NO RUNNING IN THE HOUSE." "No, you may not bounce that ball off your sister's head." "No, we're not going to Chuck E. Cheese's today." "I said NO!!!"
Obviously, sometimes a big, fat "no" is warranted. But after reading one mom's viral Facebook post, I'm rethinking my knee-jerk reaction.
Mom-of-two Rachel Carpenter recently shared two photos of her daughter, Nevaeh, sporting bright pink hair with the biggest smile on her face. In the powerful Facebook post, Carpenter explained why she allowed her 10-year-old to dye her hair such an eccentric color. "Life is way to(o) short to say NO all of the time," she wrote. "This time last year she asked me if she could have pink hair and I said no. A few days later at a camp they were doing a demonstration involving fire and something went wrong and it caught her on fire."
Nevaeh ended up having terrible burns on more than 70 percent of her body. Her family wasn't even sure if she would live, initially. But this little fighter pulled through. In the past year, she has endured surgery and a long journey of healing and recovery.

"So this time when she asked me if she could have pink hair, I said yes," Carpenter wrote. "That experience taught me you never...