To shop my 7 year old?

[Tillylils]

My daughter is 7 and cane home from school today with a pack of stock cubes in her bag. I haven't spoken to her about this yet as I only found out once she was asleep.

I think they have come from the harvest festival table in school although I may be wrong and there may be a legitimate reason for them being in her bag.

I was going to take her into school tomorrow and make her give them back and say sorry. I'm worried though about how horrible she's going to feel and I don't want anyone to think bad of her. Am I being too harsh?

My Mum did this to me and it was dreadful. I never stole again. Looking back, it was a formative experience. The fact is that the horrible feeling is what stops us doing the wrong thing. She should feel that if it is warranted. You could just think of it as natural consequences. It is not actually a punishment, just facing up to what she did.

I think that you should do that. She will feel a bit ashamed, but that's how she should feel - she has done something that (I assume) she knows is wrong, but the school will be as kind as possible about it.

Talk to her calmly first, don't get too angry (sure you won't) and say she can make amends by apologising and not doing it again. I don't think it's necessarily helpful to use emotive words like stealing though.

Please talk to her first about it though! I saved my pocket money for a month to have a midnight feast once, and when Mum saw that I had more sweets than I could afford with my week's pocket money, she assumed I'd stolen them from the sweet shop and took them back rather unimpressed that the sweet shop didn't say "No, she bought them" given it was a small village

Obviously 20 years down the line I don't still hold it against her much but I was very angry about it at the time because of being believed to have stolen something, and also because I was out of a month's worty of pocket money.

If when you do talk to her you find they aren't hers, then that sounds fair.

Thank you for the replies. I'll have a chat with her in the morning. There might be a good reason. She goes to school and back on the school bus and she and the other children often "share" their things and then give them back the next day so maybe she has been given this by one of the others.

Thank you for the replies. I'll have a chat with her in the morning. There might be a good reason. She goes to school and back on the school bus and she and the other children often "share" their things and then give them back the next day so maybe she has been given this by one of the others.