Neighbour’s kid picked my daffodils

100% this. At 8 years she's not a little kid and should no better. It's stealing in my view.

I agree! ⬆️ I know 'it's only daffodils' BUT it's also theft & disrespectful. Life lesson to be learned.

And now the photo is under review argh!

There you go! Sorry meant to post lastnight! They are a great price - £2 per pot or 3 flowers for £5 x

We have private property signs up already as well as beware of the dogs. Honestly those in camper vans just don’t care, I won’t describe where they dump their chemical toilets 🤢

I agree, I’d want to know so I could talk to DD about it.

It would concern me if she was just waltzing into peoples gardens because firstly, “stranger danger” and secondly she should know to respect other peoples things at 8.

The child’s logic may well have been “pretty flowers” but there’s nothing wrong with having a polite chat and letting the mum know. I would then as a mum just address it with DD like “hey, I love that you wanted to do a nice thing for me but we’ve made the neighbour very sad by taking away her flowers. Let’s go to the garden centre and get neighbour some nice flowers to replace and replant the ones we’ve taken and in future we don’t take what doesn’t belong to us”.

This would be my imagining of the right outcome for the child, the mum and the OP. Lessons learnt and the world put right again.

There's a similar problem round our way. I now only buy cheap planters, weigh them down and inscribe the bottom with "Stolen from [number and postcode]."

I gave up buying clay pots - I can't afford to replace them all - and my age combined with a few medical complaints mean that it takes me too long to rectify damage done by thieves who take them to sell on or as to give to presents to others.

(I lost a beautifully planted arrangement - if I say so myself - close to Mother's Day one year. I just about gave up after that.)

Do you not think getting the police involved is more than a tad heavy handed?

A word with Mum or Dad is plenty at this stage.

8 yo is still at the stage were we want them to be able to build trust in the police. Want them to realise the police are there to help them.
Not scare the blinking shit out the poor kid.

A tree? 😮 Good grief.

I would be putting a sign up, regarding trespassing, private property and to beware of the dogs.
Unsupervised child picking flowers once can be dealt with by talking to the parents, but actively stopping and picking all your flowers with the adults is disgraceful.

Thank you! Well put.

Elsewhere, I told the story of how a boy handed me daffodils for my classroom. I displayed them - and then found out he'd picked them at the local cemetery. (I found out because he told me.)

I explained that he shouldn't do that. The thing is that - in his case - there was not only bad parenting, but an intellectual disability. However, it didn't happen again.

We live somewhere we get a lot of camper vans visiting especially from March onwards. We have a very long drive and the driveway and the gates to our house have daffodils on the verges, all planted lovingly by my parents when they were alive. There’s a tree just inside our gates that’s surrounded by snowdrops, crocus, daffodils and tulips, we called it the fairy circle when we were younger. Every bloody year vans stop, every bloody year people think it’s ok to let their little cherubs pick the flowers, they’ve opened the gates at the bottom of our drive before or have climbed the walls to get to the flowers. One family with 3 children picked every flower around the fairy circle last year which was caught on CCTV. It’s infuriating. This year I’m letting the dogs roam, let’s see how they like barking slobbery labs bound towards them.

You need to have a firm word with the parents OP especially as this child never touched the flowers in her own garden.

8 years of age?
Their own garden full of them?
I would be very very upset.

Have you a local community policeman that can call on your behalf?

I wouldn't engage directly with them unless you are very sure as to the type of people they are.

OP, I can't imagine any person not being very upset at this. Daffodils are here so briefly.

if they aren't old enough to understand they can't just pick any flowers that they want to then they aren't old enough to be out on their own.

Uh huh. So why didn’t she pick the daffodils in her own front garden?

It’s more than thoughtless to enter someone’s private property and strip every single one of their daffodils!

Of course it doesn't make it ok. It was a comment on how much awful behaviour is around these days. I had 3 little shrubs dug out of my front garden over a weekend. I was furious but people are just greedy and selfish. I have given up now.

Bloody hell

Also agree that this is not sweet at all. Especially since you’ve said they have daffodils in their OWN GARDEN. I’d be absolutely furious!

Hi OP!

Can I apologise on the child's behalf please? As I did the same at a similar age! My mother was not impressed!

I just think daffodils are so bright and striking and signs of spring... to be left with a just green front garden is such a shame.

And FWIW my DCs when they were 8 would not have had the nerve to wander into someone's garden and pick flowers!

The OP doesn't have to come over as angry but she should let the child know how upset she is.

There was a thread on here a few months ago where the OP’s MIL had mown their front “wildflower “ garden. MIL assumed they were weeds ( they possibly were to be fair)!!
The advice was to essentially go low contact with MIL.
This child is 8. Even if done gently, it should be explained to them that it is stealing. Likewise flowers in a public place are there for everyone to enjoy.
Surely one explains this concept to toddlers about protection of nature.

Stealing is sweet. OP clearly doesn't have enough to worry about etc. Some posters will excuse absolutely anything if it's done by a child. It's OK to assume the child did not know but how will she learn if she is not told. There is no need for an angry showdown but the child needs to know it's not OK.

The flowers were on private property. As an 8 year old I knew you did not go into another person's garden and pick their flowers. I knew this because my parents told me it was wrong and the flowers did not belong to me. Presumably I had been told this because at some point I had tried.

The suggestion that a child goes and knocks on random strangers doors to ask for permission to pick flowers is insane. Fine until someone with bad intentions tells them to come to the back garden where they have more/better flowers. What are we teaching children now? Don't speak to strangers unless you want to pick flowers from their garden?

There's another thread about people's bad behaviour in public these days and this thread just proves that.

OP you need to have a word with her parents and tell them she's stolen from your garden.