Another sad day... this time for me.
I found out last night that my 16 year old daughter has been stealing.
A pair of pants, a shirt, two pairs of earings and three purses over the last two months that I know of.
She was turned in to us by her older sister, who had known for some time now, after she took $15.00 from her purse to buy a concert ticket and then refused to own up to it. Before that she had taken about the same amount from her 8 year old brother which we discovered and dumbly assumed was an isolated incident.
What bothers me the most is the web of lies that has been woven in the interim to cover her trail. And her desire to keep the ill gotten goods when told to hand them over. I am afraid we have a lot of work to do to set her straight.
So far the plan involves an amount of volunteer work comensurate with the value of the stolen items at below minimum wage. The stolen items are going to be given to charity (not sure about this yet though) and grounding for an as yet indefinate period (not to be less than till the first of the year).
She has always been a little materialistic but I had no idea that it had become this sociopathic.
I feel like an idiot/bad dad for not being more on top of this eariler.
If anyone has any experience/ideas... I'm all ears.
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