Good Girl, Big Mistake
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| Sun, 11-20-2005 - 8:51am |
My 16yo DD is a good girl. Decent grades, but could do better. Hangs with a nice group. Never in any trouble. On Friday she went on a school trip for the weekend. Friday evening, we got a phone call from a store security department that she and her friend were picked up for shoplifting. I am horrified and embarrassed!!!! We had to pick her up from the trip that night (a 2-hour drive each way). Monday morning we have to meet with the principal to determine how many days she will be suspended.
I know that this was just bad *teenage* judgement. DH and I have been discussing what kind of punishment there should be in addition to the suspension and we really don't know what to do. She is very upset and remorseful. She was in a cell at the store until one of the chaperones picked her up. She was embarrassed that the kids at the school saw her leave with her parents. Everyone at school will know and she will


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sk,
Ya know,
of course you are not going to use every form of punishment for a single incident. that is not what i meant. but i think that YOU - her parents - need to let her know, that *this* is really bad.
"We need to allow her to move past this very bad lack of judgement and have faith that she has learned from her mistake."
Good for you. IMHO you are using excellent judgement.
I feel for your daughter, and I think that she's lucky to have you. Since this seems to be an isolated incident, I think it's a great idea to let her move on and give her credit for learning from what happened. She has a brain, she is aware of the seriousness of her actions, now let her learn & get past it.
I'm going to chime in here with the others: from your comments about giving her money stress it sounds like you are trying to justify her action or put some of the blame on yourself. This was her choice and blaming yourself or trying to find a way to justify it doesn't help her or excuse what she did.
If having money stress justified stealing then all of the poor people and much of the middle class would be stealing on a regular basis!
IMO one of our jobs as parents is to try to instill financial sense in our kids. By asking for the change you let them know that every penny counts; by letting her know that a particular coat is too expensive she learns that there is a budget and their are reasonable and unreasonable amounts to spend on certain items. If there are a lot of school related expenses you can sit down with her to discuss them in terms of wants and needs, see if any can be eliminated or postponed etc. and at what point she could be contributing towards "frivolous" expenses. If this is stressful for her, well that's life, things will be a lot more stressful when she is supporting herself and realizes that she can't afford the expensive coat etc.
If you did your best to raise her with good values then it is not your fault or a reflection on you when your teen does something like this. The more that you let her live with the consequences instead of trying to soften them, the more she will come to understand WHY you taught her as you did and how she ought to behave in the future.
I don't mean to sound harsh to you, and I'm really sorry that you are going through this. I hope that your dd learns a lot about peer pressure and herself and her values from all of this. Best of luck.
Your advice is so right and being a parent means making hard decisions. My DS was arrested for a crime and had to go to court. He was the driver of a run down 10 yr old van that his friends stole 2 days earlier when DS was away with us for a family weekend. Our lawyer advised us to submit not guilty as this was a 1st offense and he felt he could get DS off. I refused (even though my heart was breaking) and insisted on submitting guilty. We went to court 3 times before our lawyer was ready to proceed with the case and I was sick for the 4 mths. The judge sentenced DS to community service but also stated that due to his parental support and taking responsibility for his actions, DS's record would be cleared once the community service work was completed.
This was the hardest decision I ever made. I was embarrassed for & about my son's actions. I was frightened for my DS but I also realized that the decision he made was made to fit in with his friends. They all had their own cars, this was just for fun. They were involved but were never caught and he has never admitted who they were. We live in a very rich town where most of the kids get BMWs (or similar) cars for there 16th birthday. There is too much money & too little responsibility with DS & his peers. We realized this problem and quickly changed our views to ensure DS knew the value of money & how to be responsible. DS has had a harder time accepting that he was going to be different from his peers. We have refused to buy cars for our kids (we pay the insurance for them to drive our cars), we insist on p/t jobs and we limit our purchases of "wants" vs "must have" items. Don't get the wrong idea, DS has more than the average child because we can afford it but he has a lot less than his peers. DS grew up & learned from his experience. He doesn't make unreasonable requests for money and he has been known to spend a Sat night at home because he knows his friends are doing something he shouldn't be doing. DS is very popular and his friends respect his decision not to follow them into harmful activities now. Dee
Well, it only keeps getting *better*. We just got a letter from an attorney. Even though the store didn't press charges, we have to pay a civil fine of $180!!! Oh no!!
That seems odd-I would expect that just like a traffic ticket, there would have to be a court date set first before any fine could be imposed
innocent until proven guilty, etc
Sorry to hear about the fine, but also glad to hear they're not pressing charges.
Hang in there!!
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