Stealing
'Hi, just call me lolly. I'm having trouble with my fifteen year old daughter. She was always a good student and very athletic in middle school. She also was, and still is, very popular. She started smoking last year and gave up on her sports. One because she was seen smoking by a teacher. A couple years ago she was caught shoplifting but what her dad and I, and of course her, had to go through , we figured she had learned her lesson. She was very upset about the whole ordeal. Well a few other things have been showing up around the house that she says " so and so gave it to me ". Tonite though, we found out she stole a pager from one of her best friends friend. Of course we took her over to return it.We also had to give them $60.00 because they had bought a new one. But,looking back over this last year, and probably trusting her too much, I believe she has a real problem with this. Her grades have declined from A's and B,s to mostly D's and she has even had a couple F's. We don't have a lot of money to buy her the things that a lot of her friends have but this is no excuse for her actions. It's breaking my heart! If I can't find answers soon, I am so scared that she will do something that will end up having her taken away from us. We do the "grounding thing" and I try to talk to her about this but nothing is working right now. ' - lolly
Tips From Our Community:
'Hi ! I feel for you! I know that stealing is a big problem now that our society is so focused on the material things and some of the kids cannot get what they want other than steal. I have worked with girls(and still have girls) who have real problems with this. I hav found that making them make restitution on the items and make an apology really makes an impact. I make them write an apology as well as do this in person I also think this teaches them compassion-being in another persons shoes. I also do a lot of teaching about the fact that we cannot have everything that we want and that we hav to work for what we want. I also teach about what is necessary for life and what we just think we need. I have also allowed charges to be filed when nothing else worked, I hope this helped.' - WOODCOCK1
'At some point if the other methods suggested don't work, you might want to call in the police to help you deal with it. If the stealing is between friends they won't press charges, but a trip to the police station might frighten her out of it. I'm not sure if this is serious yet or not, but it could become serious. It all depends on why she is stealing! ' - showtalk
at the Parenting of Adolescents Site |
