just to say, we are not talking about stealing bread to feed a starving family here and thank you to those who read to the end and give their opinion.
my current husband has 2 daughters (one is a young adult and one nearly 16, lives with mum after stopping 50/50 last year as got tired of it) we have a very good relationship, I had 4 living children when I married her dad (I say living as my first son was stillborn at full term) and we had a baby together who is now 2.
my husband's ex partner (20+ years together never married) is from a different culture and quite challenging childhood so even when living in the uk with a decent salary used to steal stuff from shops (small things) but he was puzzled why she'd do that when they never wanted for anything.
the younger daughter generally is a bit sneaky and has taken stuff in the past even when aware it belonged to others (my expensive pen ended up in her bag, - oops it was just there so I took it) and I am not talking about one or two isolated incidents but nothing major.
the other day she came to the house and I noticed she was wearing a woven friendship type bracelet I made last year for my mum in law.(it was very wide and has Japanese beads snd it caught my eye.) I asked her where she got it from, she said oh it was just there so I took it (she visited her grandmother 2 weeks prior with dad) . I then told her it was made for her bday and did she ask her if she could take it? No, she just liked it and took it. She sort of smiled but didn't apologise or take it off.
I offered to make her one and suggested she apologised to her grandma and gives it back she said she would. Husband said he'd have a chat with her when alone. She was due to visit grandmother the day after.
apparently mum used to say "I took it" replacing the word steal that makes it ok in her eyes and daughter uses the same word.
husband and I decided he'd speak to her (he was a bit shocked she was so unashamed when caught out and that she did it at all)
when he came back after dropping her off and I asked how the talk went he said well I told her to apologise and that she should not have taken it. I asked why he didn't use the word steal and he got all defensive.
maybe I am being over the top and unreasonable but I always made sure my children knew that "taking" anything is not ok even by accident (we have left a shop a couple of times with soap in the pram cup holder or a toy in the pram basket (put there by toddler and unnoticed) and always went back and put it back straight away. My girls borrow each other's stuff and I make a point that they need to ask even if they want to take another's bag that's not used.
no one is perfect and it's not my child plus she is too old for me to discipline her)
I have said all I had to say to the girl, that she should not steal etc but it's my husband that I think is handling it a bit wrong. He was going on about it and then sort of made it into not that big a deal "don't take it" rather than "don't steal things"
to me stealing is stealing and is not ok. My children were there when I noticed the bracelet so don't want to send them the wrong message either
(my older children are 18, 14, 11 and 8 if that matters)
thanks to all who read this far