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AIBU?

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Original poster

to be fucking beyond furious with my ten year old daughter

541 replies

ovaryhill · 07/09/2015 19:23

Had a call from fraud prevention at my bank today
Daughter has been playing Movistar Planet and has taken my bank acard nd spent £266 over the past couple of months!!!
I'm so upset I could cry

OP posts:
Hellocampers · 08/09/2015 14:29

Last post from me on this as op seems to have it sorted.

Making her do chores, apologising and banning computer time all sensible coupled with a strict telling off.

Selling her toys and cancelling Christmas is unhinged. In my view.

ceyes03 · 08/09/2015 14:29

I presume everyone who's being all "she committed a crime!" "she's just as culpable as an adult!" "she's criminally responsible!" are totally down with states in the US that execute minors? I mean, hey, they committed serious crimes, they may only be 12 but they deserve their punishment, right?

Congratulations, leedy here's your biscuit; you win the prize for the most hilariously ludicrous counter-argument on the internet today :)

I also think there's a very very big difference between the people who are saying "My child did this - they didn't realise they were buying things when they clicked the button because of the way the app worked" and what this girl did, which was to deliberately steal her mother's debit card on multiple occasions and buy things.

The first, I can easily see how that could happen without the child's knowledge, although the parents are clearly partly to blame for not having set the app up properly in the first place or for having their card details stored with no security. The second? No. Nope. Theft and very deliberate deceit.

LoveChickens · 08/09/2015 14:31

Well fuck me sideways, what happened here.

KissingFish · 08/09/2015 14:33

Hellocampers I don't think anyone has said Christmas should be cancelled for quite some time now. In face I think it was only 1 possibly 2 people who said that right at the beginning.

Dancergirl · 08/09/2015 14:39

That's true kissing but there is still this drive for selling the dolls.

leedy · 08/09/2015 14:39

"The second? No. Nope. Theft and very deliberate deceit."

I don't think anyone is saying it wasn't done deliberately or that she didn't know it was a wrong thing to do, I would still argue that it shouldn't be treated exactly the same as if, say, an adult stole your credit card and bought a washing machine with it - for various reasons, but mainly because she is a child with a child's level of impulse control/comprehension of the severity of what she's done/comprehension of just how much money that was (and no, I don't think she needs to have £266 worth of things taken away from her to comprehend this). Certainly I don't think it should be without consequences, I just think they need to be appropriate consequences for a child, as the OP seems to be delivering.

Frequency · 08/09/2015 14:42

OP are you sure she fully understood what she was doing?

I ask because one of my DC does not understand debit/credit cards or online payments and she's not much younger than 10.

Last week she asked me to replace her worn out trainers, I told her I had money and she'd have to wait her reply was "Well use your card money then or transport some money off your card"

I'm sure she knew it was wrong, but did she realise how wrong? Did she realise that you do not have unlimited amount of 'card money' or that card money is earned and not just given to you by the card fairies or whatever.

Stormtreader · 08/09/2015 14:45

ovaryhill Thank you for taking a considered approach to this, you've said that you'll do exactly what I was going to ask you to consider.
Collections are special because they can be irreplacable - lose your phone, you can buy another phone later and theres no real difference, but lose your childhood teddy bear and theres no way to get that back.

Annapurnacircuit · 08/09/2015 14:48

Oh Leedy you got one of ceyes biscuits too Grin.

Hellocampers unhinged was the description that popped into my head for a moment earlier on too.

All this 'committing a crime' crap fgs.

TenForward82 · 08/09/2015 14:49

leedy: I don't think anyone is saying it wasn't done deliberately or that she didn't know it was a wrong thing to do

frequency: OP are you sure she fully understood what she was doing?

Grin
Frequency · 08/09/2015 14:51

No I am sure she knew it was wrong and that it was deliberate, but is this particular 10yo mature enough to fully understand the consequences of what she was doing?

My eldest would have been at that age, my youngest, not so much.

Frequency · 08/09/2015 14:54

Eg. My youngest would never take change from my purse, not even coppers, she knows it wrong, that's physical money that she can see and touch and she knows it's mine.

She spent £7 of her sister's itunes vouchers on games for herself. She didn't see it as real money.

differentnameforthis · 08/09/2015 14:54

One instance of nicking mums card & she is suddenly a career criminal...heard it all now!

Does op not have to take some responsibility in this? My kids have tablets, they have access to the play store, yet cannot purchase anything without a password. Not even in game purchases. Has it not been explained to her that she doesn't need to spend money on games, or that spending money on games is a waste of money, because in time, you get bored of that game, or they upgrade it, or they charge you more for the same stuff after a while?

Where was the education that is essential when kids start using computers of any kind?

Oh & 2nd hand monster high dolls fetch nothing. They are too new still.

Oh (semantics) & theft is taking property without the persons permission, with intent to deprive the rightful owner of said property. That isn't what she did. She didn't purposefully MEAN to deprive her mother of the money, she wanted to buy stuff with it.

I do understand that what she did was wrong, but I think some of the things said here are pretty harsh to a 10yr old who, by the sounds of it, hasn't been properly educated wrt online gaming.

TenForward82 · 08/09/2015 14:55

She didn't purposefully MEAN to deprive her mother of the money, she wanted to buy stuff with it.

This thread is actually getting really funny, in a tragic way Grin

Hellocampers · 08/09/2015 14:57

Oh dear yes still the eagerness to sort through and forcably sell treasured toys.

No not unhinged at all is it?Hmm agree Anna Smile

Mumsnet does sometimes bring out the hang em high brigade.

Either that or allow then to get the tube and train for 20 miles alone aged 5 or you risk raising a wuss.

Hellocampers · 08/09/2015 15:00

My laugh out loud moment was the comment what if she had done this at 20? hilarious.

differentnameforthis · 08/09/2015 15:00

OH & wrt the dolls...If I found out that my family/friends had sold off gifts that I chose & gifted to their children, in order to 'make a point', I would be pretty pissed off.

I buy things for people so they get pleasure from them, not so they can be used as leverage/punishment. Selling her toys that her parents haven't purchased isn't on.

There are ways to make her pay this back, that isn't one, imo.

Annapurnacircuit · 08/09/2015 15:00

I totally agree with differentname in that she didn't mean to deprive her mother of the money - there is a huge difference that clearly some of the more radical posters on here just cannot understand.

Never mind though, sledge hammer to crack a nut n all that Hmm.

KissingFish · 08/09/2015 15:08

She didn't purposefully MEAN to deprive her mother of the money, she wanted to buy stuff with it.

Ohhhh, well that's OK then Hmm

Frequency · 08/09/2015 15:08

I think this is a little girl who hasn't been fully educated on finances and online payments and probably didn't realise the total she'd spent or the true value of the money or that it might have been needed for essentials.

She's not a master criminal. She is a child.

At the end of the day she should have been supervised. Moviestar planet, at least when my kids were bugging me for it last year, is hardly a whiter than white fluffy kids forum. Mine weren't allowed it at all even with supervision. Could have changed though, I guess.

I'm not saying she should not be punished, but selling her dolls is too harsh.

Confiscate them, by all means, but give her the opportunity to earn them back via good behaviour and extra chores and teach her about money.

MrsGentlyBenevolent · 08/09/2015 15:28

I think this is a little girl who hasn't been fully educated on finances and online payments and probably didn't realise the total she'd spent or the true value of the money or that it might have been needed for essentials

As fair a point as that may be, it still doesn't change the fact that she more than once went into her mother's purse, and knowingly stole money. Two complete separate issues - not knowing the value of money and thieving from your mum.

I know the situation has been resolved, but just taking the toys isn't OK (but selling them probably isn't either, unless in desperate need of the money back). To teach the value, there needs to be a comparison. So, for example, the op should take all the daughters toys and electronics. Seperate them into groups, each representing the value of the stolen money (so, let's say 5 dolls and an computer tablet, for example, in one group). The daughter can then chose which 'group' she has to live without for a while. She can obviously earn them back, let's say within a month or by half term. That way, she has learned the hurt of losing something/having something taken away, as well as seeing physically how expensive things are. I'd also delete all 'money apps' off the tablet/computer, and of course now doubly password protect/keep a closer eye.

jorahmormont · 08/09/2015 15:53

Clearly if OP doesn't sell all of her Monster High toys and cancel Christmas (now, are we cancelling Christmas entirely, or does she just sit in her bedroom all day while her older brother has Christmas?), her DD will grow up to rob banks and murder people.

TenForward82 · 08/09/2015 15:58

That's a massive exaggeration, but do you really think the people who break the law just wake up one day at age (say) 17 and decide to start acting irresponsibly? It has to start somewhere. There are plenty of posters on Mumsnet in the teens section going "What do I do? He's 13 and I can't control him?" "DD 17 and hits me." "14 yo won't go to school". Doing your best to prevent that is being a parent.

Oh god, I got sucked into the madness again. Thank god I'm going out in a bit Grin

leedy · 08/09/2015 16:07

"but do you really think the people who break the law just wake up one day at age (say) 17 and decide to start acting irresponsibly? "

No, but at the same time I don't think that all children who act irresponsibly are going to grow up to be uncontrollable criminals unless they're harshly punished enough to set them on the straight and narrow. I did a variety of irresponsible/stupid/deceitful things as a child (highlights included eating the entire back of a very fancy Easter egg my mother had got as a present in the hope that she wouldn't notice any of it was missing), and my main memory of being found out on such occasions was the horrible feeling of shame and remorse because I knew I shouldn't have done it and the clearly-conveyed sense that I had disappointed my parents. No uber-draconian punishment required (other than the aforementioned bollocking and some removal of privileges, which I think was appropriate), and I did not end up as a criminal, or an adult who didn't know right from wrong.

Itsalldramarama · 08/09/2015 16:17

Haven't read every post but some games blur the lines between game money and in app purchases , last yeAr my then 6 year old managed to spend ??3600 in a weekend on clash of clans !! My fault for him knowing the pass word but he would normally ask if he could have a 69p game !! He was devastated , I was more furious with bank ! They alerted me at ??400 but let the rest go through ! I did get a refund from iTunes after 6 hard weeks