Kid flips off dad telling him to 'shut up' after he tells her to 'harden up'

Watch this adorable video of little four-year-old Nia Matangi showing her sassy side with her father, after he teases her a little over a rugby game.

Ilai Matangi, her father, whose TikTok account focused on his family, nearly four million likes, explained what happened.

“We just finished lunch and we were down at the rugby field just letting the kids kick the footy around and get some fresh air.

“Nia was playing rugby with her older sisters and she had sneakingly tackled her older sister.

"Her sister retaliated, hence why she was crying.”

Ilai jokingly tells his little girl to “harden up” to which she responds by immediately proving to him that she doesn’t need to.

“Harden up? Shuddup!” she responds, with a stony face, gives him the finger and goes straight back to crying, to which Ilai responds with deep belly laughs.

This kind of playful interaction is clearly an important part of Ilai’s relationship with his family.

You can see this in the videos he posts, the next one on his feed is a video of him giving Nia a fright, with the caption “if you didn’t like the last video, you will hate this one.”

What might seem to most as playful banter between a parent and a child ignited much controversy in the comments, with multiple users lambasting Ilai on his lax discipline.

“Yeah no. My fingers would be broken. Cute parenting,” said one commenter.

“... ur child is not even supposed to flip u off but u allowed her to disrespect u like that,” said another.