in wanting to thrash dd to within an inch of her life?

[Elasticwoman]

I caught her in the act of stealing from my purse. It is not the first time. Am incandescent with rage.

Can any one suggest non-violent but effective remedy to correcting lightfingered and economical with the actualite dd? (She is almost as big as me so might thrash me back.)

Like Orangekatie's suggestion re the clothing allowance, that worked well for me too at that sort of age (bit older probably).
My mother was pretty strict about sweets when we were young up and it did make them the forbidden fruit, but I do understand your stance on the healthy eating front. But searching your daughter is probably making her feel a bit resentful.
Also it might be that she is stealing to get your attention. Apparently I used to steal small things (I was bit younger than your DD) and this was when my mother was very ill and I was desperate for attention. Just a thought?

The concept that a child can steal food from their own home is ridiculous. No court in the land would agree with you.

have you tried talking to her about house rules and why you have them and agreeing a set of rules with her? As your children get older they need to have more say in what happens and more control over their lives. If she can control other things she may grow out of her problem with food, because the hiding it away does sound dangerous. It sounds like she steals to buy sweets, if you can work out a way to cope with that the stealing may disappear anyway.

Mine are allowed to buy what they please with their own money - they splurge sometimes ( Christmas and Easter ) but most of the time are pretty responsible. They do have to brush their teeth regularly, if they get slack on that it becomes something they have to do to earn their pocket money. They are also expected to exercise - maybe you could agree to relax your rules on sweets if she cleans her teeth regularly and exercises? Any exercise she likes - dancing, aerobics, swimming, skating, trampolining, tennis? Do you have a dog she can walk or could she earn money walking someone else's pet? Can she walk part of the way home from school?

If you know anyone with bad teeth/ a weight problem pointing that out may be the most helpful way to discourage your children. We have a friend with black teeth and he has been a great help in getting health messages over.

Just a thought re the clothing allowance idea - perhaps put straight onto a gift card/voucher from her favourite shop so it can't be used on anything else. I think distraction from the junk food and sweets would have worked best for me at that age. Although obviously a period of her not having everything she wants so she realises stealing is unacceptable first (but it sounds like she's had some of that now). Hope it gets better for you

Hm - to be honest, I think that would change the point of the exercise. If you want it to demonstrate that she's beginning to grow up, and should be able to begin to manage parts of her life herself, you need to genuinely cede that control to her and not put so many limits on it that everyone realises that it's just a pretence of doing so.

You probably also have to be prepared for it to go wrong at some point - there probably will be a month when she spends it all on something stupid, or even on sweeties. But the important thing is to let her experience the consequences of that herself, and not go on and on about how she shouldn't have made the choices she did - she'll know that fine without you rubbing it in and making a guilty moral lesson out of it.

Might be a good idea to limit it in other ways, like saying it's just for fun clothes rather than school uniform & shoes (which could be much more expensive, and where it'll really matter if she messes things up)?

Please can I add another problem to this thread?
I came on here this morning ready to start a thread about DS1 (13). Last night I caught him taking a pound from my purse. Am amazed to see that this thread had already started!
Questioning him has revealed that he has been taking a pound or two a week for a couple of months. He says that it is to supplement his lunch money at school.
We give him five pounds a week for lunch money. School canteen charges around 30p for some pasta, 50p for a filled roll, etc. However, he has started going down into the town with mates so is spending more money - hence the stealing.
He denied at first, which to me made it all worse.
I have removed his mobile phone and we have yet to decide how he will pay me back.
He is 13. He is given lunch money and makes his own decisions about how to spend it.
I have read all the advice on this thread. Does anyone have any more for the slightly older child?

Libra - I give dd, 13, £10 a week lunch money, which she spends at school (not allowed out at lunchtime).
It doesn't go far, especially if she wants a snack or a drink at break, too.

you could make him suffer the indignity of taking a packed lunch into school for a bit?

yes dd1 is 15 and i give her 10 a week for lunch

So we are not giving him enough money?
This is probably true and we will have to increase it next year. Since we only have a few days left this year maybe I will insist that he takes in a packed lunch for the rest of the term as punishment.

I have ds 14 and dd 10. They get £6.00 and £3.00 pocket money (the £6.00 has to cover bus fares too). They can add to this by cutting grass, washing kitchen floor, washing cars at any time. We pay them for things like that, although not unloading dishwasher, etc.
There has always been a jamjar of cash in the kitchen- usually £5-£10. It is for anyone who needs it. Is topped up when I remember and it is NEVER counted.

That's how we manage and so far it has worked.

How would you make him repay the money he has stolen though?

Clean car? (Inside and out rates £5.00 here).

make him do chores he hates

He enjoys cleaning the car (ie playing with water). I want something he doesn't enjoy.

Yes but vauuming the inside is horrible!
Cut grass (£2.00)
Wash kitchen floor properly (£2.00)

May be I will take it in babysitting. Should get a good few nights out from him for free.

maybe pay it back through chores? and if he refuses to do them remove another privilege for a while eg no tv for a few days each time he refuses. I think it's important that any punishment is consistent and has an end date because an open ended punishment feels totally unfair and doesn't seem to have the same effect. A friend of my sisters was grounded indefinitely at 15 - the first few weeks she was sorry and had learned her lesson but after that she began to resent her parents using it to police her, plus they used to make exceptions to her grounding when it suited them and it seemed to have no effect. Also, he may say well it's only 3 days to get through or whatever, but several lots of 3 days soon adds up!

I think you are right about the punishment not being open ended. I have told him that I have taken his mobile away until the end of term, which gives him a week without it.
I think that one of the reasons we were not giving him more than £5 is because he rarely eats lunch. He prefers to save the money instead. Until recently this was for a better mobile phone, which he saved up for in record time because of this. Now it is for an electric guitar (God help us). This means that I feel that I am subsidising his savings rather than providing money for a healthy lunch.

i stole as a teenager..my mum used to make all our sweet stuff...but i wanted 'brand named sweets like my mates did. (there was nothing more embarrasing for me than taking a home made cake into school) so yes i stole so as to buy the 'proper' stuff! i think lots of teenagers go through this anyway regardless of home life. im lucky in respect of my two teenagers as ive never caught them...and stress ive never caught them!! but grounding teenages (especially as the nights are lighter at the mo) works wonders for me!

I am really surprised at all the confessions about taking money from parents as teenagers!! I was obviously a complete wimp because I never did this. Although DH (wild teenager in druggy 70s) says he didn't either (or at least he can't remember ). Am I over-reacting because this is not something I did myself? It's the lying that has upset me more, really. I thought we had a good relationship, but perhaps I need to wake up, smell the coffee, and realise that teenagers will lie and steal if they have the opportunity?

My Mum also gave us healthy food when I was at school, I found he home made wholemeal sanwiches v embarassing! It is an issue of fittng in with other kids too and am sure your daughter feels this Elasticwoman.
Now I am grateful we ate well but back then it was not so appreciated...

As the daughter of a mother with a very similar attitude to food as you OP I would just like to add that I did frequently buy and conceal sweets / crisps etc as I hated being told they were bad for me, but I have reached the grand old age of 30 without any sort of eating disorder and a size 10 at 5'6" (apart from my recent pregnancy-induced expansion! I am now thoroughly grateful to my mother for the good habits she instilled in me (and the fact that she taught me to cook properly) as I do genuinely actively prefer healthy food (and still enjoy the odd bag of crisps and strawberry bootlace!). It was certainly a phase for me - and I was encouraged to do lots of after school exercise so I am now more inclined to exercise more than eat less.

I am hoping I will manage to achieve the same result with my children and your attitude sounds highly sensible to me...

Thanks FCH.

I am amazed by the many hostile responses on here: my daughter steals from me, ergo it's my fault for not giving her enough sweets.

All the things people are suggesting, like more access to hard cash, are things she's had in the past and abused. I do not want to seem to reward bad behaviour and in any case, clothes are not the issue.

A mother's place is in the wrong, it seems.

The frisking was something of a one-off so keep your hair on those people who were so shocked. She certainly deserved the indignity after repeatedly stealing from me, secreting food upstairs and hiding the debris unhygienically in her room. I make no apology for it and suspect that the oh so shocked people have not experienced repeated thieving from their children.

I think some of the responses (not hostile particularly just not in agreement with you) are to do with the strength of your language.

"Stealing" rather than "taking"
"Abused" rather than "learning how to manage money"

My 10.5 daughter really still doesn't understand properly about money