tessaturtle
New Member
difficult child escalated with his stealing by opening SO's wallet yesterday and taking $20 from it. difficult child did this while SO was outside working on his car on his day off from work. difficult child was the only one in the house and decided to help himself! We discovered the theft only after he and daughter were picked up by their bio-mom, SO's ex, for their weekend with her - so SO texted difficult child, who at first pretended as if he didn't know what SO was talking about. In between, SO was trying to text & call the ex to have her get the $ back from difficult child. SO got difficult child to confess via texting. Once we finally got a hold of the ex, she at first didn't believe until SO told her about the texted confession - she then said "oh my god...that's not good." Yay she gets it :/
She texted later to let us know that she got the $ back from difficult child. She also said she hopes SO is thinking up a good consequence since, she reported, difficult child didn't care that he got caught or that he took the $ and showed no remorse at all. I texted her back that we have noticed that before, this is nothing new to us, and that he appears to have no empathy for people. She said she is disturbed by this (welcome to the club) - but good news is that for the moment, she now sees the reality of difficult child.
difficult child has stolen before - for years - from little toys from peers at school or after-school programs/camps, to money from peers, his sister, and my mother. He is the king of denial and even when its obvious, he will spin so many stories he can't keep a single on straight (I think he really believes the lies he tells). We have called the local pd on him before for various things, including the stealing $ from his sister, but they have done little to nothing. He is very disrespectful to the police officers who do come over and seems to have no respectful fear of them as most kids would. Of course he has been grounded before for these types of things too.
Going through his dad's wallet to purposefully take money hits a whole new lever. We are hurt, angry, stunned, etc. Now we have to decide what would be the appropriate consequence - we can't just ignore it, we can't go overboard (as much as we feel we want to, but that's the anger), but it definitely needs much more than a grounding for a few days....And of course this comes after he got so many things for Christmas and before CHristmas (signed up for the school snowboarding program, new skateboard & helmet, new video games, video camera, etc.)
Any thoughts? ANyone been through the same thing? PLease help bring perspective to us...
She texted later to let us know that she got the $ back from difficult child. She also said she hopes SO is thinking up a good consequence since, she reported, difficult child didn't care that he got caught or that he took the $ and showed no remorse at all. I texted her back that we have noticed that before, this is nothing new to us, and that he appears to have no empathy for people. She said she is disturbed by this (welcome to the club) - but good news is that for the moment, she now sees the reality of difficult child.
difficult child has stolen before - for years - from little toys from peers at school or after-school programs/camps, to money from peers, his sister, and my mother. He is the king of denial and even when its obvious, he will spin so many stories he can't keep a single on straight (I think he really believes the lies he tells). We have called the local pd on him before for various things, including the stealing $ from his sister, but they have done little to nothing. He is very disrespectful to the police officers who do come over and seems to have no respectful fear of them as most kids would. Of course he has been grounded before for these types of things too.
Going through his dad's wallet to purposefully take money hits a whole new lever. We are hurt, angry, stunned, etc. Now we have to decide what would be the appropriate consequence - we can't just ignore it, we can't go overboard (as much as we feel we want to, but that's the anger), but it definitely needs much more than a grounding for a few days....And of course this comes after he got so many things for Christmas and before CHristmas (signed up for the school snowboarding program, new skateboard & helmet, new video games, video camera, etc.)
Any thoughts? ANyone been through the same thing? PLease help bring perspective to us...