12yo took money from my purse without asking and I am fuming. How would you deal with it?

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She and a friend walked to the shops this morning to buy some sweets that they didn't need having eaten half a ton of the things at a birthday party yesterday.

Anyway, despite having plenty of her own money, she took £5 from my purse and paid with that, then when confronted said she'd put £5 worth of change in my purse, which she clearly hadn't. Her "excuse" is laughably pathetic.

DH has confiscated her piggy bank, but that could well backfire as now she has no money. I am fuming at her, goodness knows how many times she's done this before. I'm so cross I can't think clearly. How best should I deal with this? She's driving me up the wall all the moment with this sort of disrespectful, what-can-I-get-away-with behaviour and I really need to sort it out before it gets out of hand

[ilove]

My son did this. After the nth time I told him if he did it again I would ring the police. He did, so I did. He came home from school to two 6'6" brick outhouse policemen and a black mariah waiting for him. They gave him a right bollocking and told himif he did it again they WOULD take him down to the station and put him in a cell. (They had already checked with me on the phone that I was ok with them threatening this)

My view was that he needed a real shock to stop him...and it worked. He was absolutely petrified and has never, ever done it since.

BTW I had already checked the not being bullied bit and spoken to school and removed priviledges and rewarded good behaviour...the police were the final straw and they were brilliant. Said they wished more parents would do it at that stage so they dealt with less hard nosed teenage theives at a later stage...

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Blimey ilove, that is radical! How old was he?

[ilove]

He was 12

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I don't think we're quite at that stage with DD, but I do need to get her to realise that some of her recent behaviour is not on.

Most of the time she is fine, conscientious at school, helpful when asked, good with her pets etc. But she does lack a bit of respect for others and their property. How do you teach respect? I'd like to think we set a decent example, but it doesn't seem to be enough.