My daughter keeps stealing

[iamlost2026]

Hello. I am at a last resort to post here.
My daughter is 9, I have referred her for a possible adhd diagnosis.
The teacher she had last year noticed lots of fidgeting, can't sit still, always has to be on the go doing something, picking at the peeling skin on her hands

But for the last couple of months my daughter is stealing
Money from her dads wallet, to the tune of 50 pound, money from friends to the point she's now not allowed back in their house
And she has walked into the shop and stolen from there too.

She's stolen from classmates, usually lip gloss or hair bobbles. She's stolen from her teacher usually post it notes or a high lighter

A parent has just approached me to say she noticed her child's tooth fairy money is missing and my daughter was the last person in the childs room playing with them.
I am distraught and embarrassed

I genuinely do not know what to do here. She will be made to give the money back as always, but she doesn't seem to care. I can promise you now she will not be bothered.
Grounding her doesn't work as again she doesn't seem to care, she doesn't have a tablet to take off her. Shouting at her doesn't work, I cannot stress enough how unbothered she is about what she has gone. She will not show any emotion

My younger daughter is starting to copy this behaviour and steal from the shop and her classmates. I am genuinely very worried for them ending up in trouble with the police and or having no friends left

I have already spoken to the Additional support needs teachers within the school as they helped me to do the referal but they did admit its about a 50 month waiting list. I do not have money to go private. I know I can't excuse her behaviour as having adhd but I can't figure out why she is behaving like this.

Me and her dad are still together, we've been together almost 13 years so its not like she's got trauma from that, nobody in the family has passed away recently. I genuinely cannot explain what is going on

NC for this.

I stole for years, I’d say from 7ish, until getting caught at 8/9. I stole from family friends (not my friends) and it was random stuff - from things I coveted and did not have (badges, rubbers etc) to absolute nonsense I didn’t want (I’d sneak around and pocket something)

I would do this when we were at houses of acquaintances or people my parents knew when we would go for lunch at a weekend, and I got caught when I eventually stole something completely identifiable from closer family friends and tried to pass it off that I’d bought the items (a completely transparent lie- I had no means and no opportunity)

I can’t remember a time that I didn’t do this. I knew I shouldn’t but I felt almost compelled and almost out of body whilst doing it. I would be thrilled whilst doing it and at getting away with it. Afterwards there was always a sense of revulsion and shame.

When I got caught, there followed weeks of castigation, shunning, punishment, shame. No one asked me what was going on for me, there was a lot of ranting about my having shown my mother up, how ashamed of me she was, what her friends (the ones I got caught stealing from) must have thought of me, of her, of our family. It went on for weeks, there was no repite because it was school holidays and I would be periodically stood in front of her and berated again. Eventually I was asked why I did it but I had no idea and by that point I thought my parents hated me so I just stayed silent and wanted it to go away.

I am now in middle age, and have come to know I have ADHD. I don’t know what that why I did it for sure (I think it is highly likely)

I am posting all this because I would have loved my parents to have approached the discovery of my thieving with at least a modicum of intellectual curiosity and actually bothered to try and find out why and how I had been doing it rather than the weeks of ranting and approbium from my mother and the years of coldness that followed, with periodical listings of all the ways I had disgraced her from then on. It was a childhood turning point - pivot form a pretty uncomplicated and happy experience to years of misery and conflict which have caused me such pain and I have only recently come to understand more clearly. Times were different then but I had a lot of classic ADHD symptoms/hallmarks and perhaps if she’d wondered what had driven me to steal rather than focussing on the effect on her, I would have been diagnosed and helped earlier, rather than carrying decades of guilt and shame about something I didn’t understand at all.

I say this so your 9 year old DD doesn’t say this about you in 10/20/30 years. Please, please focus on whatever is going on for her rather than the exasperation/embarrassment you feel and help her. My parents threatened me with the age of criminal responsibility/being taken into care etc It terrified me but didn’t help me at all because I knew it was wrong and kept doing it anyway with zero understanding.

I wish you and your DD nothing but the best and I hope you can navigate this towards a positive outcome ❤️

Your daughter’s school should be able to arrange for her to have therapy/counselling. She has special needs and one of the teachers at the school would have responsibility for special needs children.

It's not as simple as 'go ballistic and the child will stop'. Especially in case of SEN children. Maybe put away that psychology degree from the Armchair Institute.

Watching with interest.

Slapping is horrible, it’s a type of humiliation that stays with you forever.

I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but I don’t see
the point in doing something so extreme that might cause much worse consequences.

Make her do chores in the house as a punishment.

do you think at that age you’d have been able to explain why it was happening though? I’m not saying what they did was right (obviously it wasn’t) but you said so yourself that you had a happy, uncomplicated childhood until that turning point.

She can't be trusted atm so no trips to shops alone, no visits to anyone unsupervised.
Lot's of chores/jobs in the house to repay the money she stole.
Perhaps finding a counsellor might help?
I was on the other end of this - my golden balls brother stole my savings (took my bank card)
My parents totally minimised his behaviour and paid me back, but resented having to.
Not unsurprisingly, my brother and I don't have a relationship.

I'd also say that your dd doesn't sound happy. Picking at her skin? Being unemotional? I know you say nothings changed, but something absolutely has for her.
Some charities offer blocks of counselling. Have you seen the gp? You can self refer for talking therapy.

It is not neglect. Year 5s (age 9-10) can walk to and from school alone and that is the case for a lot of the country. Children need to prepare for secondary school.

Do not go down the punishment route. Something is wrong.

I second this.

When I was a child, one of the punishments used for bad behaviour of any kind was “no sweets for a week.” Then when I started to gain weight, it was “no sweets”. Way to teach your 7 year old (me) that being fat is bad and something she should be punished for.

It doesn’t work. It just adds to something feeling ‘wrong’ for the child that they try to make up for with a temporarily coveted item/theft.

Mine walked to school at 9 (year 5). They were very sensible, walked with their same aged friends and never had any trouble at all. It absolutely isn’t ‘neglectful’, it’s entirely normal in a lot of areas.
However the OP’s daughter obviously can’t cope with the responsibility yet, as she’s acknowledged, so making alternative plans is a good idea for now.

Someone up thread mentioned giving her chores as a punishment. I think chores are a really good idea but not so much as a punishment but as being part of the household. Keeping her busy, doing things together if possible.

And another thing I thought of– sharing the reading of some good old-fashioned books – what Katy did, Anne of Green Gables, – reading to her or with her or having her read to you and getting focused on a story that she’ll want to read to the end.

Would isolation and boredom work as a punishment? If there is nothing else she cares about, perhaps she just has to sit alone in the bathroom for X minutes, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.
I suggest the bathroom as it is the room least likely to have anything to play with or interest her, and you don't want to put her in your bedroom. If you have a spare room that you can strip bare and empty that would be better. This is to mimic the kind of isolation that some secondary schools use: students sit in a little booth with bare walls and do worksheets, forbidden from even turning around to gaze around the room.

But of course finding an effective punishment / consequence / deterrent is only one half of the equation. The other half is finding the money to get her the professional help she needs.

She does not need punishing. You need to get to the bottom of what's happening and how she feels, and give her lots of love and attention

Id be making her life pretty much unbearable till the behaviour stops. No going to friends, no going to ANYWHERE unsupervised, no pocket money, no devices of any kind, if it’s not devices then take away whatever else she enjoys doing. There must be something she enjoys- jewellery making, crafts, clubs after school. This is ridiculous and there is no excuse for it.

Loads of kids go themselves. I cross kids on their own daily younger than 9.

At 9, I think you need a proper long discussion, don't accept a shrug!! You need to find out how she feels when she steals (if she has adhd then I suspect she gets a rush/dopamine from it) and then you need a long term behavioural plan to deal with it. You need a way to replace the feeling she is getting from it, hobbies, sports, praise for doing things - whatever works for her. I'd suggest a sticker chart for adhd, its instant and regular and then agree and write up consequences and rewards for stealing/not stealing.
Every time she does it, she needs to do something like write a very boring apology letter and return the item, she needs to do this herself - it's a logical consequence, removing an ipad from her isn't logical given the issue although I think you can also explain you're reducing her ability to go out without you and she is no longer allowed at the shop. I'd suggest much much closer supervision that she can earn reduction of once she stops stealing.
Importantly though, you need a much better dialogue with her, it's wild to me that you've asked why, she's shrugged and then you've just clicked back to shouting at her when she does it - something serious is going on inside here and you need to get to the bottom of it.

I thought this style of parenting went out fifty years ago.

So she can’t be allowed to walk to and from school on her own anymore and isn’t allowed in the shop on her own. You need to get very tough on her. Personally I would take her to the police station and get them to talk to her very firmly. Scare the shit out her that this is what happens when you steal! I have done this with one of my children and it worked

It did. This is why we have a world full of spoilt entitled arseholes who take what they want and do what they want!!!

Op, you could be describing me. As far back as I remember I used to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down (money from home, food from home, food from other kids’ lunchboxes, sweets and chocolate from shops, money and other items from friends and as I got older, clothes and jewellery from shops. I even stole my class hamster from primary school but my mum made me go and put it back). It continued into my twenties (I’m in my 40s now and wouldn’t dream of doing anything like this any more!) and was a symptom of all the shitty things I had going on in my life. I haven’t RTFT and it’s probably been suggested already but I would try and get a referral to CAMHS to see if they can help you unpick this. Good luck 💐.

Edited to add: shaming and humiliation didn’t work, whether by shopkeepers / school / others. And I was physically abused as a child, I can promise you that physical violence made no difference either. So please don’t go down that route.

Often children who steal have low self esteem / crave ( even negative) attention. Given she’s only a year away from the age of criminal responsibility, I’d be doing everything in my power to reverse this now. If ADHD, could also be the dopamine kick of risking getting caught. Can you set up some sort of system where positive feedback tots up to a reward she craves ? Possibly some high energy activities? ( trampolining lessons, parkour, skateboarding, climbing?) Agree with preventing her going to the shops alone. With your permission/ request school can also usually call in community youth offender police to have an either private word or generally aim at the class. Whatever you do , ensure she knows it’s the actions and behaviour you deplore and despise, not the child. Good luck , sounds v stressful!