• Strategy to deal with first time teen shoplifting?
• 17-year-old daughter needs help with stealing
• Good kid (15) who steals compulsively
• Daughter's friend is stealing her things
• Daughter, 12, won't stop stealing
• Stealing in Younger Kids

Strategy to deal with first time teen shoplifting?

Looking for any advice to deal with 16-year-old on first instance of shoplifting; appropriate consequences... is some sort of counseling warranted if no other evidence of potentially dangerous behavior? Have heard it is a fairly common thing and don't want to overreact but meanwhile want to be extremely clear about it being unacceptable and also try to understand if there is something else going on that would lead to the behavior in an otherwise non-problem child (good grades, study habits, friends, etc.). Also are there steps that should be taken to minimize any negative legal/record issues that might follow? How to emphasize to a teen the seriousness of the situation? Anonymous

Consequences? Several possibilities.

Shame and embarrassment are almost always enough. Do some research...make sure the friends are a good group. Have your kid write a letter to the store to apologize. And then show your kid you love and trust them.

Regarding legal stuff...let your kid know they are keeping track...and once might have been interesting/exciting...the second time would be stupid and totally not worth it.

I think a lot of us have done the same thing...at least once, whether its shoplifting, white lies returning an item, personal calls on work time, etc. Good luck. Yours Truly, Perfectly Human

First ask your child to tell you all the details of what happened. Assure your child that you will not involve other parents, the school or anyone else. Then,

1. Get the items which were lifted.

2. Call the retail establishment anonymously and ask a manager if they will arrest your child if you bring your child in to return the items. If they agree not to arrest or prosecute, set a time to bring your child in to return the items. Ask the manager to speak with your child about the seriousness of the issue and to tell your child that many places have cameras which catch such actions on film (these statements are true, by the way. And if you don't take the items back, you are an accessory to the crime!).

3. Take your child in to talk with the manager. Be prepared to leave quickly if the manager steps out of line. Leave the items with the manager or make your child pay the manager for the items.

4. Ground the child for one week to school, work and activities ONLY with friends whom you are certain are not the friends who pressured your child to do this. Otherwise restrict activities with any peers for a week.

5. Tell your child you forgive them, love them and know that they will not make the same mistake again.

Move on. ALL teenagers make mistakes. I imagine you did, too. My bet is that your child will move away quickly on his/her own from any peers involved. That's what our experience was. Anonymous

17-year-old daughter needs help with stealing

I am the Dad of a seventeen year old who is on the verge of a criminal life. She is a wonderful girl and widely liked by adults and has a group of close friends. Problem is since kindergarten, my daughter has had sticky fingers, and I even have a note from her kindergarten teacher, back east at a private school, about her taking things that did not belong to her.

My ex and I share 50-50 custody and my ex lives in shared housing, We have discovered that for 6 mos. my daughter had starting ordering jeans and shoes on line using the credit card number of one of the people who lives in the house. Without getting into details, this is not the first incident of calculated stealing and I know its a matter of time before she goes to prison. So we live in Albany and it would be great to find an excellent therapist for my child. in that general part of town. She is agreeably to going into therapy. She is very smart and needs someone who can hopefully do cognitive therapy. I almost think some people have chemical imbalances that predispose them to theft. I dunno since I can't explain why she does this and seems to feel compelled to steal.

Another issue is that her mum has paid the roomate the large amount of money spent on credit card fraud and is not requiring that my daughter pay her back- since where will she get the money- since her school work interfers with ability to work. When I mention consequences are necessary for this behavior, my ex accuses me of going negative and so guess who gets alienated and painted as the bad guy.Please any comments in addition to therapy referrals would be helpful. Her Dad

In addition to parenting, your daughter, at 17, is on the threshhold of leaving home, which marks another big change in your family structure and relationships. This inevitable and much anticipated milestone can increase anxiety in both teen and parent!

You also note that your daughter has had a history of stealing and wonder about compulsive behavior perhaps fueled by a chemical imbalance. I agree that these, too, would be very useful questions to explore. I recommend a ''multi-modal'' therapy -- meaning therapy that addresses parenting and parent-teen relationships; psychopharmacology; and also some form of group treatment or 12-step program (for example Stealers Anonymous). Debra

Good kid (15) who steals compulsively

I am co-parenting my little sister-in-law (age 15). She had a pretty rough childhood with a lot of losses. Anyway, although she's a great kid, she has always stolen, and then lied about it. When her mother started getting sick, and didn't seem to be able to help or even deal with her, she came to live with us. Since she's been with us, she's made major improvements, academically, socially, etc. I think the trick was getting an accurate diagnosis of a learning disability, which helped us all understand her better. Once she started having some success in her life, and feeling better about herself, most of the negative behavior went away. In fact, she's usually very trustworthy, and a hard worker.

However, it pains me to say that we just found out she is still stealing. She stole some money from us (I don't think she has yet graduated to shoplifting, but I wouldn't put it past her to steal from anyone else (i.e., a guest) in the house, if the opportunity arose). We feel so betrayed, sad, hurt and angry, but my strongest feeling is fear and concern for her future. Although I love my in-laws, I wish she had come to live with us at a younger age; we are dealing now with her first 12 years of punitive, shaming discipline and corporal punishment, coupled with inconsistency, lack of structure and not a lot of demonstrations of affection.

I can't even begin to describe the different ways we've tried to approach this. She was in therapy ("talk" therapy) for a year, the first year she lived with us, but that is all. So one thing I am asking for advice on is what TYPE of therapy might be good for helping her with this issue, which seems like a compulsion. It's clear that it's not about the money, that there are underlying emotional issues that she needs help dealing with. She's a little distant emotionally, and doesn't like to express sadness or anger. She also doesn't like to be touched, hugged, anything. I don't think it's like full-blown attachment disorder, but I do think she has some real issues in that department, probably stemming from a traumatic birth and early infancy and compounded by the way she was raised. Anyway, I'M not the therapist here: I can't figure out how to help her, and I feel so desperate! So, again, if anyone has ideas about what type of therapy might help her develop some self-control, get at the underlying issues, etc., it would be very helpful. I suspect she needs something other than "talk therapy" to get past her (well-developed) defenses.

My second request for advice is if anyone knows any particular therapists and/or groups that they think might be good. We have Kaiser, so anyone at any Kaiser in the bay area would be great (we'll go anywhere!). However, our primary concern is to get her skilled help, so we are willing to pay out of pocket for a private therapist. Moreover, I think it's really important to find someone who is culturally competent, especially with urban teens and families, and women of color. She's not a "defiant" kid, or really "hard," and she doesn't have ADD, so those types of groups would be inappropriate.

My third request for advice is simply for ANYTHING folks can think of that might be helpful! Like I said earlier, it's too much to try to describe everything we've done in the past and everything we are doing now, but I will say that we are VERY STRUCTURED. Rather, we have been fairly structured, and then have given her more independence and trust when she seems to be proving trustworthy, and now feel the need to "clamp down" on her again. So, any commiseration and recommendations would be much appreciated!

Sincerely,
Desperate "quasi-parent"

Although my daughter has been in therapy for many years, recently she has initiated a change to a less frequent and more intense therapy. It is helping her steady her life in general but I am not sure it is addressing underlying issues per se. Seems sometimes kids can't do that - they need help coping with the present. My experience is that letting the consequences fall hard for the destructive behaviors -- no rescuing ! -- helps (even somewhat dispassionately -- in our case I tried to respond with minimal drama -- she had to pay reparations to the store, go to youth court, will have to do community service, has to go with me to the drug ed class and submit to random testing -- i.e. consequence that are imposed not just by me but that have institutional support from the outside - youth court, etc -- its is a response from the real world, not just a parent thing). This helps, while at the same time continuing to be loving, structured, and trying hard not to take the episodes of this kind of behavior personally or emotionally -- all this does help.

A very hard thing is to fully accept the complexity of the situation -- which you seem to have already done -- that the kid IS wonderful, one does love them and they love back and STILL can act in ways one finds outrageous (and which can indeed be dangerous to them) because of their past wounds. I have been told that stealing is not at all uncommon for older adoption kids and they often take from the people they love. Youth court does have a "stealing education class" -- I don't know much more about it but it was mentioned at our preliminary youth court hearing. I can try to get more information about it when we go back for the formal hearing later this week and post the info for you here. But if it is anything like the drug ed class we have been doing it might be helpful -- the drug awareness class is very helpful - even if one already "knows" the information -- the experience of going over it with other people ( other adolescents and their families) can be very moving and productive. Finally, seek support from other parents dealing with kids who have had these tough early experiences - because it is just different, in some ways, from normal parenting. I hope some of this might be helpful -- good luck and courage.

I am the single parent of a young teen. In the last six months or so, my daughter has noticed that a friend of hers "happens" to have a lot of identical clothing and other personal items, concurrent with my daughter noticing the items absent. None of these items is expensive (makeup, clothing, stickers), and when my daughter mentions to the girl how "odd" it is that she has the same things, the girl is not defensive at all in explaining how she came to have the same things. But the items are uncommon enough that it is very unlikely that she could have gotten the exact same things. She even went so far as to tell a mutual friend that my daughter gives her the makeup my daughter doesn't want. Outside of the obvious problem, the girl's mother is a friend and we carpool, etc. and I don't want to offend the family by bringing this to their attention. Anybody have any suggestions?

I'd start off my saying: "I have something to say to you that its difficult for me to talk to you about but I think you should know - its about your daughter - I'm telling you this because I care.. Then just say what you said in the posting - too many coincidences and in fact admissions.

On another note: why does your daughter still hang out with a "friend" who's stealing from her? Doesn't sound like much of a friend and I think your daughter should stand up for herself and NOT be friends (or at least seriously evaluate the friendship) with someone who has betrayed her trust and who is being a thief and a liar - at best the "friend" is using her (sounds harsh but its true). If the "friend" has "issues" (self esteem, wants material things that her family can't afford, etc.) then her family needs to deal with it and your daughter needs to think about the friendship. Is the friend doing other things like shoplifting? What if your daughter was with her at the time? Karen

Once Oliver's problems became obvious, I sharply restricted what they could do together and never allowed Oliver in the house when I was away - I still don't. In middle school I would not allow my son to go with Oliver to the nearby shops, though he was allowed to go with other friends, because Oliver had been caught shoplifting at the local toy store and I didn't want my son to be there when he did it the next time. My son didn't like this, but I think he understood my position. I have spoken with the parents many times over the years. It is not very effective to talk to the parents in this case. They are well aware of the problems their kid has, have tried various strategies over the years (therapy, meds, changing schools, even moving). They have heard it so often, they are somewhat defensive, maybe in an effort to protect their troubled kid. Also their approach to parenting is to require their kids to always take responsibility no matter what, even in cases where the parent ought to be taking responsibility, and the penalties they impose are quite harsh in my opinion. For example, they once called off a special Iceland birthday party the morning of, disappointing all the invitees, because Oliver broke a minor family rule. (The 10-year-old Oliver was required to phone all the kids - we parents were not informed.) Or cancelling Halloween trick-or-treating at the last minute because Oliver called his sister a name. So I only phone them in extreme cases (i.e., police coming to my house to ask about Oliver's next-door-neighbor's broken window - my son was there when it happened so Oliver told the police to talk to him.)

When it became clear that toys (and even money) had disappeared from our house during the time Oliver was there, I did not call his parents, but I did confront him. This was when he was in his early teens. He denied it very vigorously. I told him that I like him, and I want him to stay friends with my son, but we can't have things taken from the house and I will have to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening. I also had a talk with my son. He defended his friend and was upset that I might stop them from seeing each other, but he also acknowledged that his friend was stealing and had always had this stealing problem. Initially this seemed to work, Oliver seemed to appreciate that I was dealing directly with him, and things of ours stopped disappearing. But then another friend had some very special collectables taken when my son and Oliver were visiting his house. This other kid wasn't friends with Oliver - my son took Oliver over there, so I felt somewhat responsible. When the collectables turned up later at Oliver's house, my son told me. I phoned Oliver and very earnestly tried to convince him to return them. He denied he had taken them. So I phoned the other friend's mother. She had to go to Oliver's house to collect them, had to insist to be taken to Oliver's bedroom to prove to Oliver's parents that he had taken them.

So I guess my advice is to do what you can to protect your things, and make sure your own child understands what the problem is and takes similar protective steps. Calling the parents might not work if they have been receiving reports from years from lots of other people.

Daughter, 12, won't stop stealing

I just found out that my middle daughter (sixth grade) who will be tweleve next month has been stealing money from my purse. I am so upset. She has been stealing since she was in second grade. She stole a CD from her dance teacher, she has stolen pencil boxes from her class mates. She takes things from her sisters (ages 13 and 8). She steals candy in the house etc. So far I have made her write pages and pages of lines saying she knows it is wrong to steal, she won't steal again etc. I have taken away activities she likes to do etc. I thought I was handling the problem properly. Now I am devastated. I don't know what to do. I cleaned out her room and took away all her things, except her clothes. I found her diary and read it. She seems to be completely normal, her diary did not reveal she is having any problems at all. She is a honor role student who had math anxiety a couple of years ago. I spent a huge amount of money getting her tutored, and now she gets A's in math. I am aware of the middle child syndrome and always make sure she does not feel insecure. She is a little overweight, whereas her sister are not. When I ask what makes her steal, she says she does not know. What can I do? Anon