Am at a loss to how to deal with 13 yo stealing

[applebananagraphs]

My dd2 is 13 and I have no clue how to deal with her. I have tried everything, reminding her, telling her off, explaining to her why its not right, all to no effect. Grounding is nothing because she rarely goes out with friends, and its impossible to remove her phone.

She is really rude, like insulting and hurling personal attacks at her 16yo sister and me. Every night when we have dinner I get called a useless cook and she criticises everything I cook and refuses to finish her food.

The thing that bothers us most is she has the habit of stealing from her sister and I. She uses dd1's perfume without permission and she messes with her stuff. I strongly suspect she has stolen my money before and she definitely steals my skin care and make up from my wardrobe. I have no clue how to deal with her

I did read the link. Amazed that is all you got from it. It’s presented as a last resort if you feel you are in immediate danger and threatened and lists many other things a parent should try and do first.

Your post implies the first and only thing one should do is call the police every time your 13yo girl decides to scream and break a few things.

Oh give over.

OP has clearly been trying her best, and things are still escalating. It's not going to get better until she takes action, and that sometimes means doing serious things. This is a serious situation.

It does sounds like unhappy behaviour, possibly hormonal. While she might be choosing to be on her phone a lot we as adults know that a 13 year old spending her time like that and not seeing friends is not at all good for her mental health.

I would try to step outside of the current dynamic and try to view how she is behaving as communication. I wonder what is going on for her.

If you don’t want to get her counselling - and she may refuse anyway - think how you can try connect with her yourself.

Can you lure her away from the phone and spend some time together? I’d have a go at getting her away from the phone by being busy with other things initially. Something you can do together so it doesn’t seem like a punishment.

i wouldn’t go straight in for a deep and meaningful conversation, just start to connect and talk more.

You realise « hit her where it hurts » is being used figuratively, right?
‘This behaviour would drive me mad and I would go cold turkey on the phone. Cancel the contract

She needs support, boundaries, and consequences.

Does she have an iPhone? Parental co trolls allow you to shut it down from your phone. No fighting for ownership of the actual device. She smashes it frustration. You don’t replace with another good phone, a brick for calling you in an emergency. She takes her sisters things, she loses pocket money / something she desires.

But don’t just punish without conversation and support. When she’s not in the overwhelm phase / angry / lashing out talk to her. Why is she behaving like this. She needs to know she is supported and loved and you want to be there for her.

My daughter had a phase of bad behaviour. Turns out she felt that we treated her completely unfairly to her brother. She talked to me about what that looked like to her and actually, I could see why she felt that way, even if I didn’t fully agree, but we made some changes that worked for us as a family and things improved over time and with consistency.

you’re the grown up here. You need to put the boundaries in place and help her through this. She sounds very angry and upset.

I thought you meant stealing from shops and such. She sounds miserable. I think a good sense of humour and having fun together could help your relationship. It seems like that’s what you might need, to connect. Once you have a good relationship with her the respect will grow and she’ll listen to you. When you speak to her about things, be mindful of how it sounds and remember how you would have felt as a teenager. Even when you’re not feeling it it’s important to make her feel good about herself and show her love. I come from an overly strict family. It didn’t work. There was no joy in our house. We give our kids so much respect and it comes back to us ten fold. They’re still monkeys sometimes but I pick my battles. Good luck.

Yeah, ok, and you know for a fact that the one and only thing the OP has not tried yet is calling the police? So your advice is totally #1 best option and won’t further escalate things and absolutely could not cause a 13yo to go further off the rails.

There are many actions OP can take without involving the police. The police are only going to hang about until everyone is calm anyway. They aren’t going to arrest a 13yo child. Then the police leave and OP will have the fallout of her DD going, really mum, I can never trust you as you called the police on me. Her friends will back her up on this. Your option is last resort, not first port of call.

Figurative hurt, is still hurtful. You are still advising actions that will further alienate DD13 from her mum. That is the opposite of what is needed to repair the break.

Do you do anything nice together? What are her strengths?

We do sometimes talk nicely together and she takes part in co-curricular a lot.

What?? She is expressing it by not listening, being aggressive, being angry.

I agree she needs support.

Using other people's things is quite common in teens, so don't overreact to the behaviour but try to find out what is underneath. It is not acceptable, but neither is it a sign of lifelong delinquency.

Get a lock for the 16yo's door until things improve.

Don't assume they would arrest her.

Violence has consequences. If this behaviour gets worse without being addressed, the police may well end up involved beyond OPs control. The police can help signpost to appropriate services and referrals.

I want to be able to access 16 yos room so lock is out of the cards.

You’re going to have to address this now urgently. You need to talk to her calmly and say what needs to stop. She gets to explain why she’s doing it , and there might be a reason that you can address. If the behaviour does not improve, the phone contract will end. If she gets violent, the police must be called. No one should hold the house to ransom in this way.

What you’re describing sounds like a response to some sense of unfairness about who has what - even though you say she has what her older sister in terms of goods.

As your DH is often away and has little engagement with her - he gets little say. Stop deferring to him. You need to take charge now.

I know a family where something similar was going on but between boys. The parents did little. It only ended when violence erupted - when the 16 year old punched the 14 year old. Not great.

What she like at school? If you involve them they could refer you as a family to Early Help. They sit somewhere between CAMHS and social services and were absolutely brilliant at helping us with a very troubled, though non violent teen. You may be able to get to them yourself via the single point of access for CAMHS.. Google it for your area. As for the phone. Natural consequences. You are using the money it costs every month to replace the items she took so there's no service for X months. Alternatively, you take it when she's asleep, install a parenting control app like Google family or whatever the apple equivalent is and enforce limits without the need for physical interaction. You just lock it from your phone. I also think you need to get your DH inside here. She needs a united front.

Could you not use a keypad style lock that you and dd1 have the code for?

Do they share a bedroom?
If not get your DD1 a lock for her bedroom.
And do the same for yours.

This is really worrying from your DH. This attitude presumably manifests in other ways and might be part of the reason your DD is unhappy.

Your idea of good parenting looks to me very much like weak and ineffective parenting. Up to the OP I suppose, to judge whether she should go your route, or be more decisive.

Parenting begins with showing who the parent actually is. It doesn’t seem to be the dad…

You have a key obviously, or a key pad.

You need to resolve this, it is unfair to both the kids to just allow it to continue.

Google Dr Becky Kennedy. I've listened to her interview on the Huberman Lab podcast and I found her approach really interesting.

My sister used to steal everything so we all had to install locks on our doors.

What would you like to happen because every single suggestion you’ve had, there is an excuse not to do it.

Finance is the problem here as I am a stay at home mum and I don't want to make dh mad as he provides for us by going to counselling or calling the police, and it also costs money to install lock. I did help dd1 hide her perfumes though

She is literally screaming for help and attention @applebananagraphs please do something! With all due respect…FUCK your husbands opinion on counselling! If you don’t try it you’ll never know! How often does he work away? What else happened at age 11 that started this??