Quick poll - Is this the right level of punishment?

[ChickenAndSpinachBalti]

Help MN jury. DS (nearly 9yo) took something of mine. Without asking. So he stole.

Just a cheapo, silver (ish) chain which was broken and in the kitchen-drawer-of-crap. Think it was there with a vague thought I may try and fix at some time. Been there for a while years probably. If he had asked I would have given it to him without a thought.

He was borrowing (and had asked nicely) some safety pins to make a pirate costume. I pointed him to the drawer of crap. He saw the necklace and thought it would be great "treasure" for their game. Took it. Didn't ask.

DD (11yo) came and told me later.

DS now currently sent to his room for an hour. Our neighbours boys are over so he can hear everyone still playing pirates without him.

He is already under caution (and had electronics taken away) for watching Minecraft videos when told not to. (broke trust/disobeyed direct request)

So I need a sanction for the stealing. It is his birthday at the weekend. We are going out with all of us/celebrating with DH/doing cakes etc on the Sunday as DH will be there and then on his actual birthday - Monday - DD/DS and I were planning on going to Harry Potter World (it is Inset day here).

Is it too harsh a punishment to cancel Harry Potter World? For stealing? He doesn't seem to get it when he has done wrong. Says sorry but just looks a bit sulky when he does so. I really want to get the message across that twice he has broken trust (videos and now stealing) and this is really bad.

Or am I overplaying it?

AM so cross right now I am not sure if IABU or even too soft cos I love him even if he has been a toe-rag

Thank you

OP - we have all made crappy parental decisions. All of us.

We didn't all have the confidence to ask the question about our decisions on MN.

Well done for making a U turn. That takes courage.

I have spent the last 19 years ( my daughter is almost 19) training myself not to be my mother ( who passed last October, bless her).

My mothering is ( I hope) filled with love understanding and compassion. Not control punishment and anger.

💕💕

A really good rule is natural, immediate consequences. If you spill; clean up. If you hit; friend goes home. Cancelling Harry Potter wasn't natural or immediate so not a good idea. There are a whole load of reasons why!

A good rule on MN is to ignore the very harshest and very kindest replies. They're outliers and can be discounted.

You've listened, thought and I think did try to make a positive change. Really, parenting classes are a great idea. And How to talk so kids will listen..." That book is in my toilet!

I do think that some of the flak that the DD has received is pretty mean. Telling tales on yoursibling isn't nice, but it is very normal. Plus it isn't always easy for a child to gauge what is important. A girl of the age of the OP's DD might have thought having a necklace broken/personal space invaded was pretty bad. If her little brother sometimes goes into her stuff she might regard him as being a nuisance in that way and have wanted to be vigilant about it. Whatever her motives what she did doesn't merit having her character run down by random adults on the Internet.

Plus dissuading her from telling her mother stuff could be a bad move. If, say, her younger brother had got online unsupervised it would be better for her to squeal than not to tell because she would be criticised for being a snitch. The difference in seriousness is obviously clear to most adults, but less so to children.

I've read the thread and I can see you've taken comments on board. I did wonder, why do you think he has not taken in what you tell him? Is it because he looks sulky? Many kids do. And if you make a very angry fuss then he's going to feel angry and sulky even if he agrees he shouldn't have done whatever it was. As for saying he "has form" - no he doesn't. That's the first time he took something out of the drawer, right? Making sweeping rules like "don't steal" doesn't help him judge every possible situation that you might think is stealing or not. He needs telling or reminding as these different situations come up. No need to get punitive. And even if he really did "have form" that is no reason to pile on more and more punishments. Consistency means the same punishment for the same behaviour, repeated as necessary.

As for the Minecraft videos. Keep your sense of proportion. That was not a huge breach of trust it was a minor bit of disobedience. You need to be realistic and practical - what exactly is the problem with him watching Minecraft videos? They are harmless. Should he have been doing something else? Then deal with that directly, make sure whatever-it-was gets done. Or have you decided to limit his screen time? If the latter then you need to put the temptation out of his way. You can't expect him to be on the computer and NOT watch Minecraft videos.

"How to Talk..." is a good book. You might also like Parent-Child Game which has a lot about how our own pasts affect our present parenting, and Incredible Years which is very no-nonsense (so your DH might like it too!) and explains when and how to use a wide assortment of parenting and discipline techniques (in theory it's for 3-8 year olds but it's pretty good for slightly older kids too) and it looks at some specific issues like TV addiction and stealing.

Good luck

I was harsh in my reply I was quite shocked by what I was reading.

I can understand the anxiety - need to control. Kids don't come with instruction manuals and we all feel out of our depth at times. But remember, your kids aren't going to go off the rails. Everything will be ok.

I think you've had some good advice from many posters.

The parenting board is also very good on here.

OMG - your poor children! He hardly took it from your personal jewellery box in a drawer in your bedroom. He simply took it from your drawer full of crap, so to him it had no more value than the safety pins. I think you seriously need to look into your parenting style!

Op, am really impressed by how you are now coming across. You've been amazingly flexible in the face of such a flaming. A u turn you can be proud of!
My closest friend thinks 9 is the hardest age, so take heart. You've learned loads, your heart is in the right place.

Is this a wind up thread. Surely no one could think this is stealing. Taking crap out of a crap drawer. Ok maybe he should have asked but it's not stealing in the normal sense.

Way to harsh!!!

You've been really open to reflecting on stuff and working out how to do it better next time. That's all anyone can do.

Something I've found is that when a child is in the dog house for ongoing types of behaviour it's really hard to deal with. I struggled myself with it before Xmas as DS is usually a very easy child (from a 'naughtiness' perspective anyway), and I had never encountered him doing stuff that I disliked so much as I couldn't get my head around him repeating it. Was horrible and so glad I'm not going through it again so far!

In retrospect, clamping down and asking a young child to 'rebuild trust' had the opposite effect.

Ramping up the expectations higher and higher just made the next naughtiness even more of a failure.

He didn't understand what to do or how to get out of the situation. He was not at the right stage of development to cope, even if he looked like he was.

It was a horrible cycle for everyone.

DS couldn't claw it back from there. No punishments were working and entering into an arms race of ever increasing punishments was never going to end well.

It was no good putting such a heavy weight of expectation on a child. The only person who could take control in this situation was ME. And

I took it back by:

• scrapping the 'building trust' bollocks! Too nebulous and too scary for a child to know how to handle it.
• I realised it was my job to take him out of situations in which 'the trust' was being failed, not to keep putting him in situations where he'd fail and where that failure would put stress on our relationship and his self esteem - no point in doing that at all!!!
• lowered my expectations a notch until he naturally showed he could do it again, which was a few weeks later, not the next day, so keeping the pressure up would have really hurt him and our daily life as a family. Think about it as a long journey, not an instant fix. Children learn slowly and by repetition, you have to go at their pace of they just cannot do it quicker (no matter how frustrating it is!).
• It is what it is. Don't judge and damn him on his failings today. He's a work in progress. He's not showing you he's an evil person with a crap moral compass (!)... all he's showing you is that he's struggling to balance instant gratification with longer term reward, or whatever is at the root of it. Work on the behaviour and don't ladder it up to morality just yet. That way madness lies ;)
• scrapping the escalating punishments. I Went back to punishing the behaviour in that moment and stopped myself doing mental arithmetic where I added this transgression to the previous in an escalating tally which he could never clear.
• Punish the behaviour. Move on. That's it. Make it clear through words and actions that he can mess up but once the episode is closed, it's gone. The danger if you keep carrying it over is that you'll settle into the belief that's he's inherently bad, and you have to pick on him for every tiny thing or 'he'll win'
• found lots of little things to praise him about... even if I invented them for the first couple of times (!), it was SO important to turn this situation on its head. Kids care a hell of a lot what we parents think of them, and if they've become 'the untrustworthy one', or 'the bad one' or whatever, that's what they believe and will act out. I had to do some rebuilding of love and affection in our everyday lives, as the badness had pushed that out. It was only a few days but the effect was massive.

By the way, I would suggest your DD saw the family dynamics and joined in with the new rules today. Don't think she was acting out of spite for no reason, just leaping to (wrong!) conclusions. It's probably a good warning signal to listen to, and adjust family life accordingly to avoid there being room for a scapegoat role.

In all, I'm not flaming you. I think you're doing well. It's so hard to parent when we've not had great parenting ourselves. Especially in ages/ stages that we didn't get to see done well on ourselves. But you're trying really hard not to recreate the past and for that reason, I think you're being a much better parent.

Good luck. Humans are tricky beasts aren't they?!

Thank you wellthisisshit (apt name for me today) - that has been really, really useful.

OP I find your attitude to property in the house quite extreme.

I can accept what you've said about the necklace being in "mummy's drawer", which is different from the "family drawer of crap" most of us have, however in our household if DC age 9 took something from Mummy's drawer the response would be "come on darling, you know you have to ask first. Promise me you'll ask next time?" or similar.

I just can't understand how a 9 year old taking something in that manner could be perceived as stealing!? Others on the thread have said this too, so perhaps you might want to consider that your perspective on this is very unusual?

So many better ways to deal with this than simply dishing out punishment. I think I would simply said

"DS, That's not what I said you could take, that's a bit precious to me, you have to ask before you take things."

and left it like that unless he repeated the offence

I might even have used it as a chance to teach responsibility and followed it up with.

"but do you think you can be really really careful with it and give me it back after?" ....

I have just read your whole thread OP and I applaud you for the way you have taken all the replies on board!

I do agree with the rest of the posters on here that it was too harsh etc etc but it seems you have explained and accepted that maybe next time not quite so extreme?

I would suggest maybe you could try the more positive parenting approach?

I do strongly believe most children don't need punishments but to be taught empathy and to work out consequences and how actions affect others/their relationships with others.

If you're interested there are plenty of books on positive parenting and a quick google search will help you find plenty of articles, blogs and forums about it.

I know child rearing is not a one size fits all thing but if you are feeling a little lost then it may be a good starting point for you.

Fuzzy at first I read your post and thought, of FFS can we just leave it please. But you are right. It was a total overreaction to the DS's action. I wasn't going to bother to explain the ins and outs of it but here goes:

1. When DD asked where DS had got the necklace from he said to her "from Mummy's cupboard". She thought that meant the cupboard in my bedroom where my jewellery box is. The proper "my special stuff" place. This is what DD told me. (DS later confirmed this is what he said as to him cupboard=drawer=whatevs) I thought the same as DD - it was from my jewellery box.
2. My initial reaction was to the fact he has been to my jewellery box. Fuck. Could not work out why but that is really odd behaviour. And wrong. Worse (as I hope all will agree) than something from the kitchen drawer.
3. I sent him to his room and then went to chat to him a couple of mins later (I had power tools out in the garden and other people's children over so could not/did not want to just leave the power tools lying about without making safe). Whilst making safe the whole time my mind whirling.
4. One of my friends has just been having issues with teenage son stealing (money from purse, cash card) so it is an issue on my radar. Hence before going up to talk to DS the whole thing had mushroomed into something bigger. The where he found it (at that point I thought my jewellery box) and friends recent experience all compounded to have fatalistically doomed my DS to a life of crime and prison
5. Went up to talk to DS, Found out was necklace from drawer but my initial "argh, stealing, nip this in the bud" reaction was still beating through me. I did not re-adjust my reaction when finding out the reality. I feel bad for this. Really bad. I have explained and apologised to DS.

So there we are. Long, boring but hopefully will reassure some of you handwringers about my reactions and the fate of my poor son.

I overreacted due to some mis-information and did not readjust my reaction accordingly. I think we have all done it. My only saving grace is I came onto MN to get a sanity check. You gave it to me. Some of my sanity check took longer than the other bits.

On the whole I think (and partly down to MN) the overall outcome of the whole incident is a positive one.

Watched/read some of AHA parenting last night and was very interesting. Signed up for weekly emails. Spoke to DH last night about changing approach with DS a bit - and he agreed. DS lives in a lovely, wibbly wobbly world of his own. He doesn't think through the consequences (of anything). Which is partly what makes him so adorable and who he is - but can be frustrating as anything too. DH and I need to model stuff a bit more. "We would like you to go to the shop on your own. This is what going to the shop safely looks like. If you can shows us this we can think about you going to the park/library etc". DH and I assume he "gets" more than he does I think. And so we are disappointed by our unrealistic expectations - not by DS.

Anyway. Leaving this now. for all the constructive advice.

Show me a parent on this thread who has never made a parenting fuck up, and I'll show you a liar.

I admire you not running away from this thread though OP. I just wanted to say that this:

"DS, DD and I sat down and talked about it all at tea-time this evening. DD is mortified at what she did. And apologised to DS. I apologised to DS for over reacting. DS apologised not thinking through taking something from my drawer."

Sounds like a barrel of laughs in your house Seriously, I mean this kindly and gently, but do you think you regularly over think things? I am the first to hold my hands up and say parenting is the most difficult thing you'll ever do, and we all do it differently, but you seem to be making a rod for everyone's back here. Do you have older children too? The stakes get so much higher as they get older that you have to actively choose to let some stuff go, IMHO. Someone on MN told me the phrase "is this the hill you want to die on?" and I regularly say it in my head usually when surveying my teens' bedroom floors.

It should be more fun for all of you, it sounds like. You've have some good advice here and you seem open to it so I hope this thread will be helpful albeit painful to start with!

Show me a parent on this thread who has never made a parenting fuck up, and I'll show you a liar.

This! And sorry, but several people on this thread are showing off their abilities to vastly over-react too. Glass houses...

That's why many of us said we apologise to our children when we get it wrong.
Because we do make mistakes. :)

chicken, I have just sat and read the whole thread and I'm impressed at your soul searching. Being reflective is a really awesome trait. And yesterday you taught your children that you are human, you make mistakes and you apologise. This is really good modelling and it seems they have picked that up too.

With the 'thinking through consequences' bit with DS, it is something which will develop over time. All the more so if you can start to use consequences rather than punishments.

Do sort out the drawer - boundaries on family stuff vs personal stuff are important. You all need to keep it clear in your heads what is owned by an individual (eg mums make up) and what is up for grabs (eg colouring pencils). I teach secondary, so a bit older than your DS, but the kids are really clear that they don't touch the stuff on my desk unless specifically told to. Anything else in the room they can help themselves as long as it is put back.

With the snitching, it is good that DD admitted she was being mean and apologised. My rule is - if it is dangerous, illegal or someone is upset I was to know. Otherwise sort it out yourselves.

OP

I overreacted due to some mis-information and did not readjust my reaction accordingly. I think we have all done it.

God yes, we have all done it. Having read your longer explanation I can totally see the contributing factors that led to that over reaction!

I think OP that in your OP you had a lot of us worried, but the more you've talked the more you've come across as a very humble, sensible, open minded, loving parent who is desperate to do the best for her kids. I applaud you for it! stop me before I do something very unMumsnetty like offering you a hug

I am helpful

(Well, you've got to grab praise while you can!)

Hope you're doing ok today.