Re: 13 year old stealing money
Hmmm. I raised 3 girls and a son. It is a given that a parent will face a situation as tough as this, or worse. Here is how I handled serious misbehavior.<br /><br />"You are a wonderful person. Your Mom and I love you so much we would gladly die for you if need be. But we have a very tough job, helping you grow up to be a successful and respected member of the community."<br /><br />"This is one of those tough things we have to do. We need to know what you did and why you did it. Then we three need to decide how to make the reasons you did it to go away and be replaced by reasons that you wont ever do it again."<br /><br />Why did she do it? The most common reason children and adolescents steal is insecurity, fear that they aren't valued. The most common reason they do other serious crimes is perceived peer pressure, seeking acceptance among their friends by doing the same, or worse misbehavior.<br /><br />Did it disappoint you or hurt you? Probably, but that is not relevant so none of this, "How can you do this to us?" stuff. She is doing it to herself, not you.<br /><br />A little discussion about behavior and consequences. People, even children, do things that they expect to make them feel better about something, most often themselves. Those "good" consequences need to be valid or they need to be replaced by unpleasant and undesirable consequences. The behavior needs to be replaced by behavior that will generate valid good feelings.<br /><br />Then the closer: "What consequences of what you did do you think will be undesirable enough to ensure that you don't ever want to do it again?" and, "What do we, your Mom and I, need to do to remove the reasons that you did it in the first place?"<br /><br />Handing this responsibility to her should defuse any rebellious hostility and put her in charge of herself and what happens to her, with your support. That will do serious damage to any feelings of helplessness and insecurity.<br /><br />This approach worked very well for us, but we had to accept partial responsibility for her actions by changing whatever we were doing that contributed to her reasons for misbehavior.<br /><br />No yelling, no whining about how disappointed you are, no "punishing" other than the consequences she assigns to herself (with us this was usually more harsh than anything we would have done). She is the only one allowed to be angry, what you and her Mom need to do is calmly exercise leadership.<br /><br />Good luck, T2F. Parenting is a tough job.
