Am I unreasonable for how I am handling my daughter being accused of stealing?

[magsel]

I share a daughter with my ex wife. She lives with her mum about half the time. My ex also has a stepdaughter through her husband. The stepdaughter and my daughter do not get along.

Around a month ago the stepdaughter lost her Nintendo switch. She has blamed my daughter for stealing it to get back at her for calling her names. My ex has since searched all over her house and through our daughters things for to switch and has been unable to find it. She is now convinced that our daughter has hidden the switch in her bedroom at my house.

I am unconvinced because my daughter is a really bad liar. She has a lot of tells and breaks down very easily when caught lying. When I asked her about the switch she was very insistant that she does not know what happened to it. I did not see or hear any indication she was lying. So unless my 11 old daughter magically became the best actress in the world within the past couple days I sincerely doubt she stole the switch.

Still my ex is insisting that I let her search through our daughters room at my house or search the room myself. I however find that to be a massive invasion of privacy. I tend to think about it from the point of view of when I was a kid. I would have felt violating to have my things searched through. It’s not even like I hid anything suspicious or wrong I just wouldn’t have wanted my stuff rifled through. Based upon how upset my daughter was after her mom did it at her house I imagine she feels the same. I am of the personal opinion that it is only okay to go through my child’s things if I have reason to believe they could be doing something dangerous or if I have proof beyond shadow of a doubt that they did something wrong. Her stepsister simply saying she stole the switch is not enough proof in my opinion.

Things escalated from there and my ex then gave our daughters switch to her stepsister until hers showed back up. A few days later when I went to pick my daughter up she grabbed the switch and quickly got in my car (I didn’t know about this as she had it in her backpack). When I got home my ex called because they found out my daughter had taken her switch. My ex was irate and demanded I bring it back. After thinking about it I refused to because again she had nothing other than her stepdaughter word as “proof”. Therefore I found her punishment unwarranted. Since I was the one who paid for our daughters switch I saw no reason for my ex to demand it be given to her stepdaughter.

After that my ex started taking away our daughters allowance. We normally take turns giving her her allowance every other week. My ex decided that she would be taking away our daughter allowance on her weeks and giving it to her stepdaughter until she had enough to buy a new one. So in return I decided to give my daughter her double her allowance on my weeks.

My ex now says I am undermining her parenting by making decisions without her, but she is also making decisions without me and I think her punishment is unjust. Especially when her stepdaughter did not receive any punishment for teasing our daughter. Obviously things have gotten out of hand, but I’m not sure what else to do because my ex is absolutely convinced our daughter took the switch and is refusing to budge or talk about it. It’s quite odd because normally we coparent very well and rarely have any issue.

I agree with this. If she did take it, she's now playing you and your ex off against each other which -If is true- you need to stop for your daughters sake

regarding her own switch, I see why you would be not happy about it being given to your exes step daughter though considering you paid for it

😏eh? You say step daughter older than dd? So not your ex’s child then?

Why would she bother stealing her switch back and bringing it to your house if she had already got a stolen one stashed in her bedroom?
And why would she steal one if she had one anyway?
If she really doesn’t get on with the other child could the missing switch have been sabotaged/hidden?
I would search the room carefully to appease the ex but no way would I let her do it.
I would also ask why she is being accused in the first place?

It's his ex's stepdaughter, not his.

There's a lot going on for this little girl. Her parents are divorced and her life is now split between two homes. Then, her Mum gets married, step-dad and step-sis move in (or she moves into step-dad's home). She now has to share a bedroom with this step-sis. She's only 11 and her world seems volatile in terms of the amount of change going on. Her step sister calls her names. She either A) steals the Switch or B) doesn't steal the switch but either way, her own Mum believes her step sister and without any evidence, punishes her (pretty harshly too).

Her life seems chaotic. The OP seems to be the only one in her corner.

Even if she did steal the Switch, I think there seems to be a lot going on which would actually explain the behaviour. I'd be interested to know the answers to a few of the questions asked since your last post OP.

Wrt searching the room, most of us commenting here are mothers. MN is rife with woes about men in female spaces. If you can't grasp that it would be a clear violation of her personal space to search her room (with her present or not), then I hope you change your minds rapidly in relation to the men in female spaces. A man (even if it's your Dad) searching your room when you're 11 is wrong. If her mother was reasonable (which in this situation, she's not), I would possibly support the mother searching the room, but I would never condone a father searching a pre-teen girl's room. She'll have her bras and her underwear and possibly period products which can be very private to little girls.

The living situation at her Mum's house sounds disastrous and her mother's stance and punishments seem ridiculously biased towards the step-sis.

How long is your ex with this man?

To be fair, for the same reason she's bothered to steal ss's in the first place (if she did), to mess with ss's head. If she did steal the ss's switch it she wouldn't use it unless she's daft as it'll probably be detectable. More likely it's been sold/chucked

I'd also ask whether your daughter seems happy in herself? Has she ever expressed any views on the situation at her mother's house? Is she happy with the set-up?

more likely it's been sold

Wtf? She's not a crack head! She's an 11 year old lol

I don't think people are really understanding how Switches work to be saying 'why would she bother taking her own back if she knew she had the other hidden away to play?'

Switches are not like a tablet where you just do whatever, they will have different games installed, be at different levels, have different profiles on games, linked up with friends etc. DD would still want her own rather than to just play someone else's - it's like losing your phone but just using any other...not the same.

Not saying she's definitely done it! But just that she would still likely want her own even if she had squirrelled away SD's somewhere.

In your shoes I would offer your daughter to come and live with you if you can. Her mum's priorities are clearly in the wrong place. Irrespective of the Switch.. She forced her daughter to share a room with the strange girl she clearly doesn't like. In her own home she now has no privacy. She has her own Switch so she has no material reason to steal another one so stepdaughter might be lying. If she did indeed take her switch given she doesn't need one her mother should have tried to investigate what is causing this behaviour. Instead she is trying to bulldozer over her daughter's interests to prove the point she is extra nice to the new stepdaughter.
If you can't move her in, at least fight your daughter's corner.

100% agreed.

Exactly. She's 11 not 5. She understands exactly how money works and is more than old enough to be capable of being devious and manipulative to get her way, as I'm sure is her ss. You clearly don't know teens very well if you think she needs to be a crackhead to sell something/bin it lol

I'm pretty sure there's a racketeering ring of crim crims in the 11 year old's class. All sorts of stolen goods being handled and bought/sold. Lol.

I'll know who to call the next time I want to buy something on the black market. 😂

Your ex needs to nip this in the bud early on because these kids are sisters, not enemies.

No, they aren’t. They are 2 strangers forced to live together in the same room.

My dad remarried and she has a DD. She’s not my sister.

You say your DD is 11, and the other girl is in the year above. She could be up to nearly 2 years older than your DD. A 12/13 year old is way more streetwise and savvy than an 11 year old. I’d be very concerned about what this older girl was saying to my DD. That could be some very damaging stuff. Some teens can be really nasty. I’d be asking your DD to stay at yours TBH till her mum wakes up.

I had privacy as a child but if I was accused of stealing something my parents would absolutely check my room with me, that is just normal parenting. Why are you being so ridiculous about looking in her room for it? Just look with her it’s very simple.

If you’re daughter was accused of sending nasty texts messages would you not check her phone?

You say she lies about silly things so just cross this possibility off the list.

I would also think twice about undermining your ex the way you are doing as well, I’m sure it probably feels good to be the good cop parent but you’ll be causing a whole new raft of problems with trust and honesty between you three and sending a very real message to your daughter that she can easily pay her parents off against each other.

Seems like both of you as parents are doubling down on what you think is right without a decent conversation between you both. Really silly of the pair of you, reads quite immature to be honest.

I think at 11yrs old there is nothing wrong with going through her bedroom, to sort, you dont have to let her know nor d o you have to tell the ex you have, but then you will then know for sure its not there. Just imagine if she has taken it, and you did nothing, what sort of message will you have given her. After all kids are better at lying and manipulating then we give them credit for. As a parent of kids in their 30;s I have been caught out several times.

Not exactly money but my brother got conned out of giving up an entire pack of collectable toys by a friend when they were half this age. And kids at my school learned to sell sweets etc from the local shop at break times to their mates from junior school age. I'm not saying she or the ss have sold it but to categorically deny that they're capable of this is incredibly naieve IMHO. They absolutely understand monitery value by age 11

This is exactly what I was going to write. She wouldn't need her switch back if she had the other one.

There's also the possibility that she took it to 'teach a lesson', instinctively without thinking of the consequences and it then got out of control and is now too scared to hand it back, so can it deny it. If she'd desperate for it all to go away, she could convince herself that she really hasn't taken it, hence appearing honest.

I'd want to know why mum is convinced she did it. I would expect to be more to it than just 'ss said so'.

In my case, my youngest has taken her brother's Switch and hidden it when she was annoyed with him. She's also hidden the TV remote control. Kids fight all the time. It's not a big deal. I just go and look through her drawers and find it. I think she actually forgets where she hides it sometimes.

I agree that the real problem is the daughter seems to be becoming the family scapegoat at her mum's and that is a much bigger problem. I don't think the OP can interfere with mum's parenting, but they can certainly provide more support for her.

I agree with what a PP poster wrote. Different Switches have different games, data, etc. If she hid her step-sister's Switch, she probably wouldn't want to play it. She would want to play her own games with her own data.

This. Good advice. Stop playing games and behave like an adult. Do what needs to be done to sort this out and then both you and your ex need to focus on how you can support your daughter through what's bound to be a difficult situation.

The issue isn't searching the room or not it's that even if that is done the mother still isn't going to draw a line under it, she'll accuse the dd of binning it or something instead.

The op has asked his ex, she has no reason other than believing the sd. The op can not sort this, all he can do is be a support and a safe space for his dd until her mother comes to her senses. Searching her room in secret is not going to help.

This is a real possibility.

sometimes as a parent you just know, which could explain the Mum’s stance. (Equally though the op may be correct)

One of mine got themselves into a situation where they denied something and then it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and they felt they had no way of coming clean without it being the end of the world (10 year olds can be dramatic!).

The parents just standing firm and not communicating isn’t helping resolve the situation either way. Each needs to accept the other may be right and they need to work together and sort the situation out.