stealing

[sabrah]

Ok, my difficult child daughter stole $40 from me the other day and I discovered it today. I have added my profile and you will notice she is BiPolar (BP), but also Learning Disability (LD) and has major executive function problems. I am thinking this was more an exec function issue because... that $40 was all the money I had, noone without exec function difficulties would take ALL the money and not realize they would get caught. I know it was her because she was with my sister and her cousin for the night and my sis dropped by today and in the course of our conversation she asked me how my daughter had $40 ,(2 20s) , I said she did/should not, but my sis said she showed it to her when she offered to pay for the movies last night. By the way my daughter lost the stolen 40 before I even found out, so i cant get it back.
So I ask my daughter casually if she saw my $40 bucks and she says no (go figure), I pressed her a bit without accusing and she says daddy gave it to me, (uh, we are out of state and she had no money the other day). I had my sis talk to her cause she is real laid back about it and she gets her to admit it. I have not addressed it yet, she is supposed to come tell me tomorrow. Suggestions????please?
I am pretty ticked but know harshness will backfire, n she is way to lazy to thinkshe work it off as a debt repay.

 

[gcvmom]

I'm all ears on the answers you get here 'cuz I'm dealing with the same problem from time to time with my difficult child 1.

We were at the store night before last and he comes up to the checkout with this big Nerf dart gun (he already has a couple of these). I asked him if he has money to buy this (because we had not discussed the purchase and there was NO WAY I was going to buy him another one). He got a bit snippy and said yes, he was going to buy it with HIS money. I asked how much it was and he said something like $24 -- and I said "WHOA, WHERE did YOU get that much money?!!!" Because I knew for a fact that he'd just spent money at the movie theater on stuff, so there's no way he could still have that much left. PLUS, just 10 minutes prior, easy child had commented to me that she couldn't find the $20 that she's had in her wallet at home.

difficult child 1 started to get that look on his face like "Think FAST, think FAST!" So I knew right away that he took it from easy child. He mumbled something about having saved it. I calmly asked what he'd done to earn it (he's been very resistant to helping with chores lately), and he claimed to have helped his dad. When I said I wanted to be able to believe him, and was he SURE that's how he got the money, he replied, no, he didn't know and he couldn't remember where he got it from. So he gave it to easy child and said here, you take it. My guess is that he helped himself to easy child's wallet (which she is careless about leaving lying about) at a time when his ADHD medications where worn off. I'm concerned that he still tries to lie about things and that he still takes things that aren't his...

by the way, your easy child 2 sounds a lot like my easy child/difficult child 3... and has me worried too!

 

[sabrah]

what is really cool about your incident is that though he did not admit taking it he gave it back to the person he took it from, ON HIS OWN! That is a huge step forward, even if he had to get caught first.
I was still a little proud of my difficult child, for admiting it to auntie, who by the way is actually exactly like my difficult child, but finally changing her behavior at age 40. I actually called my difficult child little (stick my sis name here) for years.

Your difficult child/easy child 3, sweet as pie most the time but flies off the handle when upset ? My maybe difficult child 3 ; she is my most thoughtful besides the 4 year old, serves me, and is very easy to explain things to and reason with except when she has had enough. When she gets very upset she does not seem able to get herself together. If I put her in her room she pulls on the door (for hours if necessary), and if that does not work she will try to climb out the window (she is an expert climber). But these tantrums do not come that often, maybe I should be more worried about her than I am. Does that sound at all familiar?

 

[gcvmom]

My easy child/difficult child 3 has a horrible, horrible temper and it has really peaked this summer with the onset of difficult child 2's issues that are not yet resolved. Part of it is the fact that she is the youngest and she is also just sick of difficult child 2's behavior (get in line, sister) -- but she is scary sometimes when she gets mad. She has some anxiety issues, too. She started wetting the bed again after two years dry and it all coincided with difficult child 1 getting sick with his Crohn's a few years ago. She used to be scared to death of palm trees until she was about 6, too. So psychiatrist thought a low dose of Lexapro might help, and to a certain extent it has, but lately I'm starting to wonder because of the intensity of her anger.

She is VERY stubborn, and VERY smart (reading comprehension is about 5 to 6 grades higher). She has a sense of humor like a whip. She is VERY artistic and creative. She is starting to feel like she doesn't fit in at school because she says she is not interested in the typical things her friends are.

If she gets too hungry or too tired, her stubbornness and anger are magnified by about 100 and it takes a huge amount of finesse to get her out of her bad mood (husband is much better at this than I am), which can last for the better part of a day, sometimes into the next day. She is the kid who would cut off her nose to spite her face when she gets this way. Can't count how many times she has ruined an evening out at a restaurant or a family activity because she it wasn't where "she" wanted to go.

With all the mental health issues in her family tree, I will be surprised if she DOESN'T end up with a diagnosis of her very own

I know, I know, I need to read The Explosive Child again!

 

[sabrah]

interesting, my easy child/difficult child 3 also appears to have a very high comprehension level (though slightly dyslexic, actually the 2 usually pair up), and she was worst when her sister was out of control pre-medications. AS her sister calmed down she did too. She did the tantrum thing once in school bgut she spent half the year ignoringthe teachers (when her sis was out of control), she would literally disregard asnything they said, that seemed to improve also as her sis calmed down.
I wonder if the elevated comprehension makes them more aware and thus sensitive to the chaos created by the difficult children in thier lives. Tantrums seemedto have picked up again this summer but not to the level when her sis was acting up. Keeping a watchful eye but not ready yet to suspect actual bio issue, praying hard that is not the case.