Cultured difficult child and the money....how do I respond?

[Shari]

Cultured difficult child's mom and grandma called last week, accusing me of taking cultured difficult child's birthday money. We had taken it. We took it and locked it up because she was dragging it to school, despite having been told by mom, grandma, and us not to.
***
When asked by mom and grandma where it was, instead of telling them it was at our house because she wasn't supposed to take it to school, she just told them we took it. When asked why, she didn't know. It was just gone.
***
Mom and grandma now know the rest of the story, but there will be no repurcussion for her actions with them. In fact, I doubt she is even aware that I know her part in this little fantasy. She will be here Wednesday and this weekend. On Wednesday, I think I will unlock the cabinet and show her the flippin' money, and then lock it back up.
***
I am angry with her deceitfulness, but do I just ignore it, like everyone else? Or stand my ground a bit with her? There is a beginner's mounted shooting clinic Saturday that I will be helping with. If there was space available, I had thought about enrolling her. Its $75 (that I would be paying out of my pocket, not hers) and she has to have a mentor (aka me), and I'd have to loan her my guns. I'll be right honest, I'm not feeling that charitable right now.
***
Thoughts?

 

[gcvmom]

I don't think you're obligated to do anything extra for her. Especially after the stunt she pulled. Is this event something she'd even WANT to do? If she does, I'd insist she pay with her own money.

 

[Shari]

Oh yes, she wants to. Very much so.

I hate to punish her by doing this sort of thing, but if I don't do anything, there will be NOTHING. And I don't give a rat's patoot (sorry Star*, I know rat's have cute patoots) how she treats other people (ok, I do, but I can't control any of it), but I feel like if I ignore this, too, I'm telling her its ok to walk on me when its convenient for her.

And since I've started picking up the phone and immediately calling teachers when she blames them for her shortcomings, amazingly, the teaching staff in her school has suddenly become competent and that BS has stopped.

 

[susiestar]

I would NOT be teaching her to shoot right now. With the level of deceit that she shows and the lack of support that you get from her mom and grandma, I would NOT be doing that. She shows very little responsibility, in my opinion. She also has just dragged you through a big conflama and accusations of theft all because she didn't want to get into trouble. She does not care about you getting into trouble with her mom and gma. In fact, she probably LIKES it because it deflects trouble from her. The more her mom is upset at you the less her mom and gma pay attention to what she is really doing. I would be willing to bet that if she lost the $ at school she still might have said you and husband "took" it. By the time they learned the truth, mom and gma would have lost their attention to the issue. So she uses you to get away with whatever she wants.

NO. WAY. does she show readiness to learn to shoot a gun.

She also does not deserve to spend the time doing something special with you. She needs to apologize to you and do something to EARN her way into your good graces before you do something this special with her.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Josie]

To me, this seems more a reflection of mom and grandma. A reasonable adult would know that you didn't steal her money. If she just said you took it and not that you stole it, I would be more angry with them if they thought you stole it. From her point of view, you did take it. Even if you were going to give it back, she didn't have it then.

I think it is great that you are calling the teachers and checking her stories.

Not that I think you have to pay for her this weekend.

 

[KTMom91]

I would stand my ground. Miss KT did (and still occasionally does) stuff like this, taking the attention off of her poor choices and placing it on me, getting my mother all fired up while she plays the professional victim of the horribly mean mom. I would also remove myself from the money issue by handing it back to mom and gma, and telling them it's no longer my problem, that they need to step up and put some controls in place if they don't want her taking it to school. You're going to be wrong no matter what you do, as far as they're concerned, so stand your ground and put it all back on them when they call to fuss at you.

 

[DaisyFace]

Shari--

I think you should do what's convenient for YOU for a change. You did a nice thing by protecting difficult child's money. difficult child pays you back by calling you a thief.

Why would you go out of your way to arrange something special for her? And how ironic that you saved difficult child $75 and now you want to GIVE her an extra $75 in the form of shooting lessons.

I'm not sure it's about "punishment" as much as it's about showing her that you can't treat people like dirt and still get them to do things for you. Spending time in a class with you is a special treat. She didn't earn it. She has done nothing that sounds like you owe her a "treat". If difficult child wants to particpate--let her pay for it herself by GIVING you the very same $75 that you prevented her from losing.

Otherwise, she can take the cash and throw it out the car window on the way home to BM for all you care. If she doesn't appreciate what you did for her...why try to do something else right away?

It's not fair to you.

 

[Shari]

Ironically, both mom and gma told me they had told her not to take it to school to begin with...yet I was the one being questioned and accused.

And this girl has stolen money that wasn't hers more than once (how low is this...? Her mom's hubby is seriously anti-Obama, partly because he doesn't want them to bring the troops home, so cultured difficult child takes a very loud stance on this, as well. When difficult child 1 was packing to go back to Cali after leave, she stole the pint jar of change he travels with to use in the vending machines...she told everyone she stole it from her mom til mom saw the picture of the jar and said it wasn't hers - but she even knew then...mom won't punish her...). And she's swiped money (both her money and other's money) from her mom's purse before, too. This is not the first time we've caught her with a lot of cash that she wasn't supposed to be carrying. Heck, she's stolen her game boy that her mom had taken away and "put up" because she got caught taking it to school from under her mom's nose and taken it to school again. If its not locked up, she'll swipe it. More from them than us, but doesn't experience teach them anything? But mom and grandma do nothing.

The money in my possession has already been spent and is now owed to grandma. Grandma was "kind enough" to not require me to make a special trip down there to give it to her, otherwise it would be LONG out of my hands.

Funny...cultured difficult child even told grandma that I was going to bring the money and leave it in her mailbox two weeks ago (I told her I'd drop it off "sometime". At that point, she hadn't bought anything with it.) Now really...if she has $100 cash, and we took it because she's not supposed to have it at school, do you really think I'm a big enough dumb donkey to put it in the rural mailbox at the end of a 1/4 mile driveway???? Really?


But I promise you that at no point will any of this fall on her for having taken it in the first place.

 

[Tiapet]

Good idea to call the teachers. My difficult child lies constantly and manipulates terribly everyone in her little world. We all have to be on same page and the one thing I have learned is to call her out on EVERY single lie she tells and confront her (even though she still doesn't seem to get it and continues). I will call the teachers, email them. I have even confronted her own friends when she has lied about them saying or giving stuff to her. It's the only way. It's tough. I would do the same with the Mom and Grma too in this case. Yup, they may still see you as the bad one but you say they already do. I'd still say to them "yes, I did take it from her but she was going to take it to school, where it could have gotten lost or stolen and I'm sure you didn't intend for that to happen and wanted her to be able to enjoy spending it". This puts a positive spin on it to "them". They HEAR it in the perspective that you care about THEM and what THEY would have wanted for her. The focus they probably will come off of you taking it away then. Just my thoughts.

As far as doing the weekend activity with her, if you want to do something out of kindness and it's a gift from the heart (no matter the occasion), you have to do it in that spirit because you "want" to do it, with no strings attached to behaviors. Gifts aren't meant to be "well I'll give you this but I expect that" from you. She absolutely needs to learn respect, which is so hard to get these kids to give (mine aren't learning it real well to me and SO but will give it to others). You can ask for an apology and you might get it. I don't know if it will be heartfelt or not, especially if it is tied to the weekend idea. An apology should be given when they mean it and know why they are giving it or it's truly meaningless in my opinion.

I hope whatever you decide to do it works out for you. Sometimes we just have to ignore the adults misbehaving in the matter as much as possible and concentrate on the things we can control in our own environment.


***update because I saw repost.

Sounds like grma might not have all faculties together and maybe that's also why she is able to pull the stuff over on them that she is able too? I mean if my difficult child (who steals too) told my mother what your's did, she would think twice and say no way to leaving it in a mailbox right then and there. Maybe that story isn't even true? Maybe difficult child never said you'd leave it in mailbox? Maybe she didn't even say you'd bring it down at all?

 

[busywend]

I would make sure she knows that you all have spoken and she did not get away with the manipulation. I would ask her why she did not tell her mom why I had the money. Call her out on this yourself!

 

[Shari]

Its not a gift, Tia. The horse was a gift. And is not impacted.

If she were in our home more, she'd have been made to fess up and tell the truth to everyone in front of everyone and probably had some other small punishment (she certainly wouldn't have been loaned money to buy an ipod), and the weekend event wouldn't be impacted. As it is, I will only see her for maybe an hour before the event - so the first thing she will see of me after having used me to avoid being in trouble with mom is me handing over cash and time for her to do something special with me. Its not a gift or special occassion, its to help her get started in mounted shooting because she wants to join this sport with me. But as with anyone, even tho its no strings attached, I don't want to be around her if she's going to treat me like that. Know what I mean?? There's strings, and then there's boundaries. And she's crossed this one more than once. To me, it seems to scream, 'you can walk on me, I don't mind.'

And I def will, Wend. I'll probably tell her that I told her mom some of the stories she's told us, too (some of the stuff she says mom does I'm 95% certain is true...like the saddle - I verified that with mom. But some is koi she makes up, too. Like she's not allowed to drink milk or eat fruit. Yeah, right....) and that I plan to continue.

 

[Shari]

I guess I just worry about expecting too much or being too hard on her. I don't want to treat her unfairly, but then again, as I told easy child 1 and difficult child 1 when they were teens, life isn't "fair", so get over it. They didn't treat me the same way, so I didn't respond and react to them the same way, either. Has nothing to do with "fair".
***
Things that are issues with cultured difficult child would be addressed entirely differently if she lived here. We're supposed to be parenting figures, but it seems next to impossible to play that role in situations like this. If easy child 1 or difficult child 1 or even Wee had done this, they'd have been marched front and center to fess up to all involved and the money in question would have been locked up for a long time - and if they'd already bought an Ipod on loan, as cultured difficult child has, it would be locked up for a period, too. And we'd go on about the weekend.
****
But we aren't in that position. So the next best thing I can see is the natural consequence that comes from treating someone that way in the real world. My nephew was drunk and hit a parked car. He told the people involved his name was easy child 1 before he took off. Guess what? Nephew was no longer welcome in our space for a long time (still isn't unless we are around.) Family or not, you don't do that koi. He used to like to fish and swim in our pond and ride the horses...and he lost that.
***
Thanks for the input, ladies. As usual.

 

[Marguerite]

In tis situation - cash confiscated would be put into a bank account. Money owed to someone would be transferred between bank accounts. This leaves a paper trail. And the kids aren't old enough to be able to do their own internet banking here, while under age. Parents have to do it for them. Although frankly, if a parent gives a kid the password, the kid can get into the internet banking and 'play', but then - a parent who discovers this happening (although it sounds like biomom and grandma wouldn't worry) could contact the bank and change passwords.

Marg

 

[helpme]

everyone offered great advice, all i can say is
that I am with susiestar-No Guns.

 

[witzend]

Susiestar's advice about guns is spot on. Marg's advice about bank accounts is also spot on. I would point blank with as little emotion as possible tell her that you deserve more respect and you don't think she's so stupid as to not know what happened with the money or that she didn't understand the trouble she would cause when she said she didn't know why you took it. You're going to avoid such future problems with the bank account. Who the heck gives a 14 year old $100 cash to walk around with, anyway?