How do we feel about the note about kindness this woman left some teen girls at Starbucks?

When author, mom, and parenting expert Michelle Icard was working at a local Starbucks in North Carolina on Sunday, she couldn’t help but overhear some girls at the table next to her saying things about other kids that made Michelle “crawl out of her skin”. . . so she decided to take some action.

First, she took to Facebook to vent her frustration, explaining that the “very pretty, very boisterous, horribly behaved” teens have been laughing about a girl who wrote a song about being lonely for the talent show, the crappy presents their friends have got them, and about how “Catherine wanted to be the lead singer but we took a vote and everyone wanted me instead, so sorry Catherine you can be manager.”

One of her friends suggested she write the teenagers a note. So after Michelle went grocery shopping and saw the girls still at Starbucks on her way home, she stopped to give them a hand-written letter.

“I ordered three mini Frappuccinos on my mobile app and headed back up to Starbucks. . . I walked up to them and said, ‘Hi [g]irls. You don’t know me but it looks like you’re here studying and I wrote you a note of encouragement,’” Michelle wrote in a follow-up Facebook post. “I handed them the card and walked away.”

The letter read:

Various people have commented on Michelle’s Facebook posts, telling her that her note was a “graceful way to point out behavior in a non-confrontational way” and that it “takes a village.”

It’s important to note, though, that it can be considered inappropriate for an adult who’s a stranger to be chastising teenaged girls. Michelle didn’t know these young women (unlike a teacher or a youth group leader) and some parents may have objected to her weighing in. While she could not have helped but hear their chatter at Starbucks, most of us don’t weigh in on other people’s private conversations if we hear something we don’t like.

However, we all have witnessed cruel and bullying behavior from teens and we can understand her impulse to try to help these girls. Surely a lot of us as teens were not too self-aware of our behavior — that’s practically the job description of being a teenager. We hope Michelle’s note helped these girls to realize that their actions can have hurtful consequences. Let’s not make Mean Girls real life, shall we?

What do you think of Michelle Icard’s note to the teen girls at Starbucks? Let us know in the comments.