To think I shouldn’t have to feel like I need to lock my things up

[FedUpppp]

For some reason my possessions are a free for all and I’m sick of it

I’ve explained to the dc they can’t just help themselves to my things-yet they do. Repeatedly.
The consequences for this have been a telling off and having to replace items.

It happens with food (I’m vegan they aren’t yet they’ll eat my vegan chocolate and leave mine and not replace)
Make up will get taken from my room , used, not replaced.

Nobody asks to borrow ? They think it’s acceptable to go to someone else’s room / bag and take.

They’ve been taught about privacy and stealing yet this continues.

I dont see why I should now feel like I have to hide/lock things away ??
So I can’t have cold chocolate ss can’t leave it in the fridge.
Can’t leave my own things out in my own room.

I feel devalued almost as if they see me as a lesser person and they can take off me.
It’s only small items but I’ve had enough of it

[Macncheeseballs]

'I am not a person with my own rights with the same rights as you'?! What are you on about? My kids eating sweet treats does not diminish my rights in any way at all, we all just share

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

@RickOShay

But if there is a general feeling of happiness and mutual respect it wouldn’t be happening in the first place.
It’s a symptom of things not being quite right, which is why heaping anger and punishments on the dds is probably going to be counter productive.
They need to talk.

I’m not sure that you can make that generalisation, @RickOShay. I had three boys, all brought up the same - and I think they had a happy childhood, and there was mutual respect between all of us - but ds3 still took money from my purse, more than once.

He wasn’t short of money either - he had a daily paper round and a weekly one (and Dh and I helped all of them with their paper rounds when necessary).

He came through it, and has grown up into a thoroughly decent young man, who has worked hard for his degree, and has worked equally hard alongside that, in hospitality, to earn money for the extras he wanted. And he is a pleasure to have around. But there were a few years where I was not at all convinced that he and I would both survive his teenage years.

[RickOShay]

Teenage years are awful. The op is not going to stop what’s happening using extreme sanctions, if anything this will only exacerbate things.
Talking taking maybe a bit of shouting is the way through this.
How did you sort it out with your Ds @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius

[RickOShay]

I’m really only basing my assumption on the op’s reaction. I know only too well how happy childhoods and children can morph into life destroying monsters.

[SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius]

Basically we carried on doing what we were doing, didn’t accept his rudeness, and just hung on now came good.

One day he tidied his room and did his homework without being nagged, and gave me a hug and told me he loved me. I thought he had been kidnapped by aliens and this was a replicant.

[RickOShay]

So holding onto the rope?
Not taking off his bedroom door?

[Macncheeseballs]

They'll be gone soon then you can keep all your stuff to yourself