Schoolfriend just asked my daughter to steal for her

[SundialShadow]

I am raging!

I just heard my daughter on the phone to the girl she walks home from school with.

Basically the other girl was telling her to go into school early and steal a scissors from the art room for this girl to use in maths later.

Apparently another 3rd girl lost the scissors after she borrowed them to open a stuck zip. They are special left-handed ones.so she cannot just use any other conventional pair as a replacement.

Scissor girl has a lot of form for turning up in lessons without the right books, pens and other equipment.

In the school they both go to, stealing is an excludable offence.

I have told my daughter in no uncertain terms to go nowhere near the art room and that real friends do not ask you to steal for them, no matter what.

There is another dynamic at work here in that she is finding it difficult to make the same sort of caring friendships she was used to before she went to primary school and is a little bit lonely so willing to take up with "friends" who are really not that at all.

What would you do? Complaining to the school or this girls parents seems a bit over the top.

Barbarian, because many schools don't allow kids to carry sharp objects such as scissors, pen knives or even pointed metal handed combs.

Scissor girl clearly understands it's stealing. That's why she's asked Ops daughter to do it, not herself.

This 'it's only school' attitude really bothers me. Stealing is stealing. This is what leads to so called petty theft being seen as ok.

Op, I think you've done the right thing.

Trifleorbust, I am shocked at your comment that taking school property without asking is not considered stealing.

Taking with the intention of keeping it is atealinf

white I guess you, like me, cut with your right hand and manipulate the paper with your left? Right handed scissors often don't work if you use your left hand as you push the blades apart rather than together or the moulding of the handle may be wrong. My ds can only cut with his left hand so needs left handed scissors even though I don't and we are both left-handed.

Sorry, stealing. Taking something to use it without permission is wrong but I wouldn't define it so harshly personally.

In my son's school there would be 2 issues - (1) taking the school's property without consent and (2) the fact that the scissors would come within the "blades" category. The children are not allowed to carry blades. (Leads to exclusion as per Worra's experience above.

I think it's helpful to tell your dd that in life generally you are often put under pressure to do things you disagree with. Learning to say no is a basic and unavoidable life skill. So here is an opportunity to practise it - it might be tough but there's no other way because the demands will not stop.

That's been my take with my own dd, and it's been useful.

Thanks for all the replies. I have been brooding on this all morning. I have decided to have another chat with my daughter when she comes in to reenforce the idea of saying no and the consequences of doing the wrong thing. Stealing is something I regard as wrong.

Slightly shocked that some people do not think that taking the property of another (in this case the school) is not stealing. How would you feel about people replenishing things that they have mislaid by stealing the contents of your house? I am guessing you would get pretty peeved pretty quickly.

What does it matter where the scissors will stay? If I take money out of a colleagues pocket and spend it in our work canteen - it is still in the building, this is stealing. If the scissors stay in the school or not, they have still been stolen.

With regards to "blades", all the pupils in DD's school carry a scissors as part of their pencil case kit. I had no idea this was not the norm.

I would be concerned that the girl asking your daughter to take the scissors could egg her on to steal outside of school.
The girl knows what she's doing, she doesn't want to take the risk of getting caught so gets someone else to do it.
I remember going to Woolworths with some school friends, I was a quiet kid with few friend so an invitation from the Queen bees was manna from Heaven for this nerdy kid. we were looking at the make up, just browsing, or so I thought.
We left the shop & on the bus on the way home one of them asked to check my pockets, puzzled, I do so and discovered a stash of lipsticks and nail polishes, mascara and eye shadows. I didn't realise that they'd been shoplifting, slipping the loot into my pockets, guess who'd have copped it if we'd been stopped by the store security.
I refused to have anything to do with them after that.
It explained why this group of girls suddenly befriended newcomers or loners, we were just used as fall guys.

blaeberry no, I cut left handed. Never had a problem, left handed scissors are a relatively new concept and people have always managed without them.

What does it matter where the scissors will stay? If I take money out of a colleagues pocket and spend it in our work canteen - it is still in the building, this is stealing. If the scissors stay in the school or not, they have still been stolen

It's to do with property and purpose. I think most pps have reasonably assumed that the scissors are the property of the school for the use of the pupils, in which case simply moving them to a different part of the school doesn't seem so bad (although I agree still definitely wrong!) You can't compare this to your example of taking money from a colleague and spending it.

So I think you should give your dd's friend a second chance before assuming she's bad news - she might have just not thought it through properly.

Take scissors out of my dept at school I will never see them again....and will be a pair short the next time I need them in class. It is stealing in that they were taken by someone who didn't own them.
OP yanbu and hope your daughter makes some good friends soon.

The cancer comment was pretty sick TBH any need?

Mn grades theft. It is OK from businesses and schools, and sometimes even from the country. However if mn gets burgled, they'd be straight on the phone to the police.

Depressing,isn't it.

Mn grades theft. It is OK from businesses and schools, and sometimes even from the country. However if mn gets burgled, they'd be straight on the phone to the police.

What a stupid thing to say, of course theft is graded, like all crime. That's why there are so many legal subdivisions of theft, all of which carry different maximum terms of imprisonment. If you honestly think that taking something from the school/office stationery cupboard is the same as burglary, you need to have a word with yourself.

I'm left handed and I've never been able to use right handed scissors. Most scissors these days are ambidextrous, though.

OP hope you managed to convince your DD to stay out of it.

To the posters who think taking something from school isn't stealing - if I find anyone in my classroom going through drawers or cupboards without permission then they will be reported. How am I to know what they are actually looking for? Not the first time a teachers purse has gone missing.

If I then find they are taking resources - please bare in mind how underfunded we are, then it is stealing.

How would you feel if I didn't bother teaching a part of the curriculum because pupils had taken the resources? You wouldn't be happy. And before anyone says it's only one pair of scissors, what if over the year more pairs are taken?

Thoughts on the "needs left handed scissors". First, yes they are different because the blades are linked the other way around; most left handers can get along with right handed scissors but you develop a technique that I think involves pushing out slightly with your thumb rather than pulling in which is the natural movement scissors are designed for. So you tend to be a less proficient cutter. Second - anything you are cutting in maths at highschool I would consider you should be able to cope with even if you're not super good with scissors. Third - this girl has probably been in trouble with her parents who spent good money on decent scissors for her ..

Fourth - how is your daughter going to find left-handed scissors in the art room to "borrow" anyway??

I don't know if pointing some of that out might help strengthen her resolve.

Of course it's stealing.

If your DD was to agree to this what would LHSG get her to do next?