to be fucking beyond furious with my ten year old daughter

[ovaryhill]

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

Good to hear, OP.

FWIW, I think you've handled this well.

I'm sure dd will grow up to be a fine upstanding citizen, despite you not selling her dolls

She might even have a good relationship with as an adult.

Goldenbear I guess you failed to notice where I posted after correcting my mistake.

Chanel45 I'm not a girl.

Totally agree SGB and Northern amongst others.

Discipline is part of loving your child and guiding them, moulding them.

It should never include physical or cruel emotional punishments.

Getting a child to sort through their toys and sell them against their will is sickening.

Op has made a good decision here.

I'm completely baffled by the "my parents came down on me like a tonne of bricks and now I'm a hard-working, honest and law abiding citizen" because my parents punished me but were fair and kind. Surprisingly enough I'm also a hard-working, honest and law abiding citizen.

The child in question behaved in a devious, poor way (nobody is refuting that). However, what are you teaching her by responding in a vindictive manner? Some of you seem to be saying' "you took my money/possessions, I'm taking yours." Some of you have repeatedly stated that she's considered the age of criminal responsibility, yet your responses are incredibly immature. Punishment is for them to learn, not for you to get one over on your kid.

You can bring it home to a child that they've done wrong without being vindictive and aggressive.

Following with interest. I'm going to be such a lax parent I'd be all "her impulse control isnt fully developed yet" I can't punish too much sigh.

??? kissingfish how am I calling you a girl, what on earth are you on about.

The only girls I refer to are the ones OP DD had in her room encouraging her to use the debit card if that's what you might be referring to.

As for my punishment in this situation, the second I would find out I would bellow so hard and loud at my DD so that the walls would shake and she would be hiding under the bed in her room if she could fit under it.

I can assure you she would think twice for trying a stunt like this again.

It wouldn't occur to me to be so mean as to sell her precious sylvanian collection or cancel Christmas, I love it too much if anything

I would ban internet use until I decide otherwise.

And we would have a good long in depth talk about it all

Alice - appreciating that the brains of kids work differently to adults and that the brains of teens work differently to EVERYBODY is part of being a good parent not a 'lax' one

So it's OK to scare the shit out of your child but it's going to damage them if you sell their toys?
MN logic.

Possessions = more important than anything, and selling them is abusive and damaging.
Yelling until the walls shake = totally not abusive or damaging.

Oh here we go

*My DD has always saved every penny she's been given so even at 10 would have had the money to repay

Sorry, I know this was posted some time ago by Lobster and it's not directly relevant to the thread, but - seriously? She's nearly 18 and she's never bought anyone a present?*

Yes, she has bought presents. She doesn't spend any on herself is what I really meant - and has always saved birthday/Christmas money. If we go on holiday, she insists on paying half (or as much as I will allow her to pay) and if a large bill arrives, she wants to contribute. It's a slightly odd set-up as her father has never paid maintenance, so her paternal grandmother sends her a fair amount of money and DD wants to use that to pay for household stuff. I do feel quite guilty about the ant rather than grasshopper nature of her frugality, because I must have passed it down to her but I did give an incorrect impression when I said she saves every penny (true) and never spends (untrue).

I think it's crazy how adamant some posters are on this thread when no one other than the OP can know what is the best way of dealing with her daughter.
I get that posters are being helpful when they 'suggest' what they think she should do but i find the posters who are trying to dictate to the OP exactly what she MUST do a bit much.

No one on this thread can know whether or not it's appropriate to sell the dolls. Some 10 year olds wouldn't be that bothered while others would be traumatised by it. One of my DC would have been far, far more bothered by being banned from 'screen time' than any other punishment. You have to fit the punishment to the kid and the situation.

I think the bun fighting on this thread is a bit OTT.

All this 'punishment' talk is definitely a crude american import

There is a lot of ridiculous commentary on this thread and this is among the most ridiculous. So British parents get the idea of punishing their children from Americans? It's an American import. Surely you are not serious.

Also, no US state executes juveniles. The Supreme Court ruled that it is cruel and unusual punishment and therefore violates the Constitution. No one can be executed for a crime they committed before they were 18.

OP, FWIW, I think you are taking the right approach. I would only add that I would tell your DD that you are not selling the dolls if you haven't already told her.

Punishment in the sense of actively seeking a way to cause someone pain/emotional distress is not only counterproductive but the sign of an unpleasant and dysfunctional individual. All that vengeful, spiteful behaviour achieves is to make a child decide to a) pay you back later and b) not get caught again.

I don't think I really punish my children, often if at all. I talk to them. It doesn't seem to have turned them into delinquents as yet.

DC1 isn't really naughty, she's not perfect, by any means, but she is generally well behaved and honest.

DC2 has ADHD, so is slightly different, she has poor impulse control, so punishing her would be pointless a lot of the time, she's not doing what she is doing to be naughty, she doesn't know why she does some of the things she does and usually instantly regrets it, but again I just talk to her and explain why what she has done is wrong, ask her what she thinks she should do differently next time and what reparations she thinks she should make eg. buying DC1 a new itunes voucher from her pocket money and then it's forgotten about.

For an incident like this, I'd do the same with DC2, talk to her, as calmly as I could manage and ask how she/we should pay back the money and probably stop her pocket money for the foreseeable future.

DC1 has a better understanding of finances so would be 'punished' more as I would see it as 'naughtier' than if it was DC2, iyswim? I still wouldn't sell her things, shout at her or make her cry, I would explain that I was dissapointed in her actions and expect better from her. I'd take away her laptop for x amount of weeks and stop her pocket money, along with explaining the possible consequences of her actions (missed bill payments, no food shopping etc)

I don't see the point in draconian punishments and shouting. It doesn't really teach children anything useful, imo.

I stole once. When I was about 9 or 10. From a shop. I was with a friend. We both got into a lot of trouble. I was grounded for a month. No pocket money for a month. I had to apologise to the shopkeeper.

My friend was given the belt and had most of her toys removed from her. I saw the bruises on her backside that week at swimming lessons.

She went on to become a problematic child, teenager, got into trouble a lot.

I went to university, got a degree. Never Stole Again. The disappointment that my mum had in me was Enough to never want her to feel that way about me again.

I now work deep within the criminal justice system with the 'little shits' who grew up to become 'big shits'. They are very largely not from mostly well adjusted families with 'soft bamby pamby' parenting who stole at 10 and were allowed to get away with it with a stern telling off, being made to pay it back and toys confiscated for a while. They are very often/mostly from deeply deprived, damaged, fractioned families that have been broken from the moment they were born. Up to 70% of those I work with have a personality disorder (diagnosed or otherwise) which is largely a result of significant trauma as a child/adolescent, often over a period of time. Such as, as an example, having fucking horrible punishments from parents with no attachment.

So ceyes and others who agree. You talk a load of shit with no evidence.

So, what I am saying OP is that I think you are doing the right thing, as many others are here. I think your disappointment in her, anger, and the punishments put in place will be enough for her to learn from this and not be scarred. She doesn't need to punished so she becomes scarred. She needs to look back at this as a learning curve in growing up, not a traumatic life experience. And she also needs to know that with effort she can win your trust back. At 10 years old, the words we use in anger, in haste and with no thought, can impact on them forever.

Making sure your kids know that you are 'dissapointed' in them is a punishment.

I guess it very much depends on what outcome you want from it. Do you want them to learn, to develop and grow, or do you want retribution? Punishment needs to have a purpose. And it likely needs to vary from individual child to child to suit. I certainly didn't need much more than being grounded, losing pocket money, being made to apologise and my mother being disappointed to learn my lesson. and the worst for me in terms of affect was how I upset my mum. It meant I worked hard to show her that person was not really me, I didn't want to be someone who stole and made people upset.

But selling special toys, reducing birthday presents, anger that drags on and on, thinking of your children as little shits, looking for the worst possible things to be done to the children as punishment, what will it do. It will break their hearts and damage parental relationships. It will cause fear from the child. It's abhorrent to be honest.

For ??266? Is the money worth that much.

But, most of it's been said already, and I want my child to be guided through life with positive lessons and the strength to recognise mistakes and work through them, not to hide things out of fear.

SGB you said it more quickly than me

We'll said pavlov bloody well said.

And I have always agreed with solid since mumsnetting years ago.

chanel45 do you think you dd would talk completely honestly with you after you have scared the living shit out of her to the point of her hiding under her bed? Or do you think she will might agree with you, say whatever she thinks you want to hear, out of absolute terror of upsetting you even more?