easy child?? gggrrrrr

JJJ

Active Member
Yesterday Piglet saw a iphone on the ground and instead of turning it in - SHE POCKETED IT.

She is horrible at lying and I caught her within 5 minutes of her getting home. She gets that she is in trouble but she doesn't think it is stealing because it was on the ground.

I'm so frustrated with her.
 

JJJ

Active Member
I've been looking through it and I've found

1. who owns it (and I was able to track down contact info)
2. games with high scores listed under Piglet's very unusual name dated DECEMBER 1 and 2
3. two porn pictures (NOT Piglet and clearly photoshopped)
4. a picture of a custom poster from Piglet's room (meaning she accessed the camera and likely saw the porn)

Clearly, we need to return this very expensive phone but now I am sick to my stomach over how long she may have had it.

Either it is sheer coincidence that her name is on the highscore list or it is date-stamped wrong. The phone says it has been 16 hours since its last full charge so either she really did only find it yesterday or she has somehow found a way to charge it.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
It could be that a friend let her play a game on it back in Dec. Even if the owner isn't a friend, a friend could have borrowed it and then let Piglet play it. I see a LOT of kids at the elem school playing with each ohters' phones and it is even worse at the middle school.

I hope she hasn't had it for long, but it is worrisome. Does she understand why it is wrong to keep it?
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Do you guys own anything such as an ipod/ipad? Chargers *seem* to be the same, from what I can tell.

Easy though - you found out who owns it, ask them how long it's been missing... If two plus months, no way did Piglet pick it up yesterday... Or it would have long since been ruined.

Also... Since she had to come clean about it... Are you sure it was picked up off the ground?

Sorry - do not trust kids... Onyxx would have made up a story about how a friend "gave" it to her. In fact she suddenly appeared with a BRAND NEW cell phone a few months back. Supposedly she gave it back - but if we find it in her room upon the next "cleaning"... Sigh.

on the other hand - you do have it now. So... {{{HUGS}}} I understand...

And then - a $1 or change on the ground anonymously? No problem. More than that? Turn it in... to someone.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Does she understand why it is wrong to keep it?

Nope, she doesn't seem to get it.

So far her punishments are:

Grounded from all things with screens: tv, computer, phone, ds

Write a research paper on why stealing is wrong and the legal consequences for keeping 'found' things.
 

JJJ

Active Member
Phone is owned by a 33 year old man. Not someone we know, but he's a coach in the same sports circles so he's on one of my phonelists from the league.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Phone is owned by a 33 year old man. Not someone we know, but he's a coach in the same sports circles so he's on one of my phonelists from the league.

He's a coach, of kid's teams - and he keeps porn on his phone? Ewwww...

Any chance he's let Piglet use his phone on a previous occassion and that's how she played the games?
 

JJJ

Active Member
It was pretty "simple" porn (think Penthouse-type magazine)-and clearly adults.

I cannot think of any way that Piglet would have met him. I'm going to try and talk to her again today before I call him to return the phone.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
That makes it very curious as to how her name would be on the phone unless either she had it or she actually got it from someone who stole or borrowed it from him. It is still possible that someone she knows let her play a game on it, but makes you wonder who that would be. If she cannot give you a name for that person, then you may need to assume she has had it this long. In which case, where has she been keeping it? What other stuff is hidden in her room or locker??

I think a thorough search of her room and having mom show up to go through her locker and backpack at school should be another of her consequences. It is unlikely that having experienced the thrill of acquiring something by stealing that she would have stopped. It is more probably that she owuld have stolen other things because she didn't get caught right away. So the search, esp with eh Dec game scores, is more than justified, in my opinion. If she is upset that you are "violating her privacy", remind her that at her age she is not able to legally enter a contract and a purchase is a contract between buyer and seller. Therefore, she legally owns NOTHING - you and husband own it ALL. Period. Plus, as a minor, YOU and husband are the guardians of all of "her" possessions and earnings. Period. It is a legal thing that teens HATE to be reminded of, but it IS the law. Plus you own the house, or rent or whatever. She does NOT.

Losing her door so she cannot hide anything she steals may be a consequence to think about or to give if you find other items of questionable ownership/provenance.

This IS a pretty typical teen issue, sadly. I HATED being a teen in my father's house, and hate sending my kids over there once they turn 12 because no matter how honest I was/they are, my father believes firmly that every single teen is a thief and will take anything portable if left alone for twenty seconds. Jessica is refusing to go over because she is tired of being accused. The last time my mother sent Jess into mom's bathroom to try something on. Twenty minutes later my dad came out and accused her of stealing $60 from under his computer. My mom was with her all but 5 seconds and it takes longer than that to go back to his desk. There is NO WAY she could have done it. My mom was furious because my father had given her the $$ an hour before Jess was over there but he still accused Jess.

I lived with those accusations every time anything went missing even though I had a job, allowance, and bothlunch and breakfast money - more than enough money to cover my expenses by quite a long shot. My brother would always blame me even when the money was found on his person or in his room - saying I hid it there. My dad was a jr high teacher and it warped his views on what "all" teens did. I have strong aspie traits and was told and shown that stealing was wrong and hurt people so I went WAY out of my way not to steal. Still do. I used to get laughed at by cashiers at the grocery when the kids were little. If they were hungry I would take 1 banana or an apple and pay for it so they could eat it while we shopped. I had store managers tell me to just let them eat it and nto worry about it a LOT of times, but I still paid for it. I was that way as a kid too - never even stole penny candy when all the other kdis did. I even would pay for the candy the other kids had - even if it meant I didn't get any because I couldn't buy mine and pay for what they were stealing. It was a problem with a gfgbro, Know what I mean??

So being accused of theft by my dad really hurt - a LOT. But it is something many "normal" teens go through. Just ask the people at school or the cops.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I think that if this phone was lost or stolen in December, that it would have been deactivated by now because the owner would have called the carrier and reported it lost. The phone wouldnt still be working. I am assuming when you say she can play these games then it is connecting to the internet. If the phone is deactivated, then I would assume it has been missing awhile. It took me a week to report my phone lost when we lost Tony's phone the week my dad died. I might have done it sooner if we hadnt been out of town though.
 

JJJ

Active Member
I sat her down for a talk after school. The phone has no contacts, no missed calls, just an e-mail in-box and a bunch of games. It is an older model (2007) phone. If it wasn't for the porn shots, I'd say that it was a kids itouch.

She swears she found it yesterday. It was capable of connecting to the Internet last night but not this morning. That leads me to believe that she only found it last night -- or it would have been shut off long before that.

husband is going to take it back to the RecPlex tonight and I'm going to call the guy and tell him we found it and that it is there.

I think she was feeling guilty. As soon as our 'talk' was over and she admitted that she knew it was wrong but took it impulsively, she fell sound asleep -- oh my can she snore!!

I did search her room while she was at school. (Sadly, after Kanga, my PTSD insists that I search all of their rooms randomly just to be sure I am not missing anything. So far the worst I have found is some dusty cookies.) Her room had been completely searched (i mean cleaned) over the winter break cause she got a new dresser and we needed to weed out everything to get it to fit.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I do think she probably only just found it. It is highly likely she only wanted to look at it, keep it for a while to explore what iPhones can really do. Obviously wrong, but to her mind she had no intention of stealing it, it was just there so she picked it up.

We had a similar thing with difficult child 1 - he found a watch on the ground. He wanted to give it to his girlfriend, I said that was not right because it was not his to give. But he couldn't afford to buy her anything, he whined. This of course was because he had been stealing cash from me about six months earlier and had lost his allowance until it was paid back.

So what we did - I went with him to hand the watch in to police. I stayed present while difficult child 1 explained where he found it, when, gave all details. I was confident he was being truthful, because I've generally known when he was lying. The policeman then explained to difficult child 1 that he had done a good thing ini handing it in, and if nobody reported it missing or claimed the watch after three months, they would give it to him.

And they did. Three months later we got a phone call; could we come by and pick up the watch?

difficult child 1 was very happy - he had done the right thing after all, and he did give it to his girlfriend. But when he did, it was his to give at last.

It was a very valuable lesson.

I wouldn't punish her too hard (other than loss of your trust), just involve her in the process of returning the iPhone. Have her either make the phone call, or sit with you while you do it. Have her hand it over to the owner. If he realises she accessed porn on his phone - good! Serves him right for keeping porn on his iPhone when he works with kids.

Any embarrassment etc - she has to wear it. Don't YOU worry about your daughter's reputation here, other than how other people see her. It's got nothing to do with how people see you. Anyone who doesn't get that - their opinion doesn't matter.

The aim is to prevent a recurrence. Better yet, to teach her by example and modelling, the right way to behave in this situation. Teach. Not punish into teaching. You could even ask her, if you feel she needs to be punished, what she feels an appropriate punishment would be. But frankly, getting caught and having to follow through and hand it back in person will be particularly galling, especially since she beat his high score on the game when she only had the phone a few hours. Her high score will be on his phone and he will know. And she will know he knows. She has to live with that - she left a trail on his phone. That also will be embarrassing for her. Good. If she had come to you right away and worked with you to find the owner, she would not be embarrassed. She might even be up for a reward!

by the way, if he offers her a reward, let him. It will make her feel even more uncomfortable. Coach her to refuse the reward because she GOT her reward - playing the game. But if he knows this and insists - let him. Then quietly tell her later, "You would be enjoying the reward a whole lot more, you would feel a lot better about it, if you had done the right thing to begin with. Next time, you know what to do."

This could be a very valuable lesson on so many fronts, if you involve her in doing the right thing. She would probably prefer the punishments!

Marg
 
JJJ,

What a frustrating situation, especially after all you have been though with Kanga. I too have reactions which some may consider over the top but make complete sense according to my experience with gfg17. Usually they serve me well -- can't be too careful is my motto.

Just want to mentioned that Piglet probably didn't realize the consequences of her impulsivity (as you already know) and then got stuck with the problem-solving part (executive functions, etc). I too think it will be a vivid, in real life learning experience for her. Maybe she can problem solve what to do if a similar situation occurs in the future.

Just my 2cents. been there done that with both my boys -- seemingly inexplicable little incidents along the way, but somehow make more sense within the framework of EF deficits. Doesn't make it any easier for the moms, unfortunately.


Good luck. And hugs.

Jo
 

wethreepeeps

New Member
Here is how her name could be on a high score from December:

If it is a game that you have to sign up and log in, she could have played it online on your easy child, her DS, etc, and had saved scores, and then when she logged into the same game from the Iphone, it showed her saved history of previous scores.
 

JJJ

Active Member
husband gave the phone to the main desk at the Rex Plex. They said he had left his name yesterday looking for it. So, confirmed it was only picked up yesterday - whew.

And - remember her sports meltdown from last week, the goalie coach worked with her today on processing what happened and moving past it.

She is still grounded until she writes a paper about why keeping someone's lost property is wrong. She seems happy that everything is fixed. (Marg and Jo - I think you nailed it! - an impulsive act to see what an iphone was like and then EF issues in fixing it.)
 
Top