DD's in trouble, Been caught stealing at school :(

[bumpkinpumpkin]

Please don't shoot me down in flames....I just feel horrid about the whole situation.

So the school rang, got through to dh to tell us dd had been caught very publicly stealing from the canteen at school...she's nearly 13. Needless to say of course she has been brought up with the right morals and attitudes towards what's acceptable. Stealing is not acceptable what so ever. So she was called into student welfare and admited to them that she has been doing it for a couple of weeks. I suppose that was honest of her but, 2 weeks???

She will be home in an hour or so....this happened this morning and the call was this morning, so I haven't yet seen or spoken to her. Apparently she was too distressed by her own actions to go back into class this morning. Also the fact that this was done she did it so publicly a lot of other children know what shes' done. Our other son in same year group has been teased because of it. Obviously this is not his fault. To my knowledge the school have tried to sort the backlash out as much as possible.

To be honest i feel totally gutted by the whole thing.

Her reasoning was that she's hungary. Sometimes I pack the older ones lunches but sometimes they do it themselves. But there is always packed lunch food available to grab quickly in the morning. They leave early at 7.15 and are quite often in a rush. Obviously this time of year it's dark and harder to get up and motivated, I know but this is no excuse. I don't want to give her dinner money as I don't think it would necessarily go on proper lunch but sweets, so hence the packed lunch.

Her laptop and kindle have been taken away already. She is to write a letter of apology to the canteen and although the school have forgone the 2 week canteen bill, I think a donation to the school is in order.

I'm so dissappointed, embarressed and just plain sad. She's not usually naughty although has always lacked self esteam. Also food has always been a bit of an issue.

So what do you all think?

[QTPie]

I would out embarrassment aside and ask her (yourself) why she did it. Are there any other issues? Are there any social pressures? To steal? To fit in? To be naughty? To take risks? To eat canteen food instead of packed lunch?

If it is just because she was hungry, then I would start ensuring that thy select and assemble their packed lunch the evening before (and it is checked before bed).

Since she is not usually naughty, I would imagine that the whole business plus an apology letter would be enough to seriously ensure she doesn't do anything similar again....

.... What are her self esteem issues? How are you tackling them?