Posted on 07/09/2016 9:08:41 PM PDT by MFOSGO
My daughter was a thief. And what she stole was cold, hard cash.
It began with money from a parent’s wallet. Then, from another parent’s wallet. It moved on to a twenty from her big brother’s desk drawer. And then singles from the babysitter’s purse.
This happened a dozen times over. It was a pattern. It was serious, not incidental or of opportunity.
The piece de resistance was pinching thirty dollars from a school mate’s back pack – she got wind that the wad was in there for a donation.
Oh, and my daughter is seven.
I freaked out. Explained to her that if she kept up like this she would never be trusted by anyone and one day these actions might land her jail. I was cold, hard and blunt in the details.
But shockingly, she was not deterred. It happened again.
So, we took her to the police station.
We called our neighborhood precinct. Told them what had been happening and asked if we could bring her in for a talking to, as we were at a loss.
They said yes, sure.
My husband brought her in. She was hysterical. Hyperventilating, crying. She kept asking if she could say goodbye to assorted people and if she was going to die in jail.
It was heartbreaking. But the stealing had to stop.
He drove her there. And marched her inside the station as she mumbled, bracing herself, “I’m gonna be brave!”
The sergeant came over to wide-glassy-eyed-catatonic her. He gave her a pencil. And kindly and patiently explained the difference between giving and taking.
Then, as if I had paid him to be there, a half-drunk derelict in handcuffs reeled around the lobby squaring off at little her, “don’t ever go to jail! It sucks!
The sergeant took her back to the holding cell and showed her the ominous, metal bars and lock up.
Quietly and intensely he told my daughter that he knew she was a good girl and that she didn’t want to end up in there. He was sure she was never going to steal again!
She gave him a cracked half-smile. Tears spilled down her cheeks. He patted her on the head.
She came home and passed out.
That cop, with his busy station and important real-life business, took the time to help us solve a big problem. He was kind and generous. He could have easily told us to deal with it ourselves and not waste his time.
I think of this today as officers around this country are getting a completely false and bad wrap.
The real statistics:
Of the 990 arrest-related deaths in 2015, 38 were black and unarmed.
Thus far in 2016 of the 505 shot dead during arrests, 37 people were unarmed. 13 of them were black.
We sent 6 pizzas to that police station yesterday. And called them to voice our support. They were overtly grateful.
At a recent neighborhood festival, my daughter recognized one of the officers from the station. “That policeman was there when I was arrested” she said.
Good thing she got off that time. Because she never stole again.
Holey psychobabble!
No wonder the millennials are such tender snowflakes when there are folks that take what was posted seriously.
Wow, the denial and hyper-sensitivity is strong in this one.
Life is hard. It’s even harder if... you know the rest.
“Rigid shaming” is a powerful and useful TOOL. You do wrong, you SHOULD be shamed, HARDCORE! You will be less likely to do that or many other wrongs afterwards.
The key to the shaming is genuine forgiveness after the lesson is learned.
To NOT discipline the child does far more damage. Look at what years of lax discipline has done for our society.
Well said.
Some of the most messed up people I’ve known were the children of psychologists and ministers.
Yogi Berra famously said, “There is no difference between theory and practice but, in practice, there is.”
Many have pointed out that even in a single family the outcomes diverge from kid to kid starting with Cain and Abel.
Parents run the gamut from loving and giving to cold and strict to uncaring and indifferent. At some point it is the kid who must decide what kind of person to be and stop blaming his “situation”.
"...with all due respect." LOL!!
Thank you for your post; now I understand more where you are coming from but I do not share your analysis in some points.
Children need to function in both the family and in society. Those are different pools. In many case what is accepted or allowed in the family is not allowed outside; sometimes the reverse is true.
When a young child steals it is generally not about acting out or rebelling or looking for attention. Certainly those cases exist but normal well adjusted children test the world by taking what is not theirs and parents work to help them understand why this is wrong. The strength of the child’s wants or desires vs the strength of the parental imprinted moral code is at issue. Furthermore in addition to and separate from the individual’s familial moral code there is society’s code of consequences to contend with.
I raised my children to take heed of the fact that they lived in a larger world than our family with consequences that we as their parents could not control. If they broke society’s rules they would pay society’s price. This is a separate lesson from lessons about morality and honor. There are many things that are not against the law that are still dishonorable. Those areas of morality are covered by parental conduct, discussions and by pointing out the issues as they arise.
In this context I think the OP did exactly the right thing by drawing aside the curtain slightly, enough to show his/her daughter that there is an authority outside the parents with consequences for certain behaviors. Giving children information like that makes them better able to control their actions themselves. When the urge to take the money, glittery object, gum unpaid for, they will have knowledge of the weight of consequences to set against the urge and help them make the right decision.
Your FRname fits well... (And, that’s not a compliment.)
Would this work for goats?
Mine steal anything they consider to be edible.
The box the nails are in, the napkin that just was blown off the picnic table, the mail you just laid on the tractor seat for a second or two...
It could have been worse...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/17/justice/georgia-student-handcuffed/index.html
First and only post? Let me guess, elementary school writing homework?
Good story, thanks.
I never stole anything as a young child but I did once as a young teen. A friend invited me to go to the record shop with her. After we listened to a few records, she put a couple of 45’s down in the front of her pants.
She urged me to do the same, I was shocked but I did it.
I felt so guilty that as soon as I got away from her I threw my record away. I hadn’t even looked at which one I stole. I never stole another thing in my life and I am 76 now.
Good story, thanks.
I never stole anything as a young child but I did once as a young teen. A friend invited me to go to the record shop with her. After we listened to a few records, she put a couple of 45’s down in the front of her pants.
She urged me to do the same, I was shocked but I did it.
I felt so guilty that as soon as I got away from her I threw my record away. I hadn’t even looked at which one I stole. I never stole another thing in my life and I am 76 now.
Divorce your wife and get a young hottie.
Great...
Uh...
...she WANTED to?
this was so long ago, I forgot. She did not steal from me. I don’t care.
She is probably in prison now.
paper must be tasty, but nails are hard to digest...mine liked to eat pine tree’s and strip the bark off.....dead trees no nails....hope you had a great summer.....granny.
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