*Sneaky child* How to cope?

Sweet_Pea_2

My second daughter is 8 and is sneaky as well, and she drives me mad!
She sneaks food all the time - Im not too bothered about this as long as she eats her meals, it winds me up if I see her helping herself to something as Im dishing up for example.
She constantly goes into my room and helps herself to my things - yesterday it was my make-up, and nail varnish which she got all over the quilt cover.
(When I was growing up there was only me and my mum in the house - parents are divorced and I have no siblings, so I am not used to other people touching my stuff and I HATE it!)
She constantly does this to her sister as well, wonders in and helps herself to whatever catches her eye, if I have a clear out in her room, DD1 has to come and identify which of the stuff is hers.
She comes home from school constanlty with more money than she went with - she is amazing at spotting change dropped on the floor from miles away, the other day she came home with 60p. I questioned her as to where she had found it, I was worried in case she had stolen it tbh. She found it in various different places and freely admits that if the teachers knew she would be made to hand it in in case whoever lost it wants to reclaim it. She just says "finders keepers..."

There are other things, fairly minor and petty really, but when they are all added up and put together in one child it makes life very difficult!

I have gone over every possible thing I can think of as to why she is like this. She has a "difficult" personality tbh, DD1 is not like this at all, and I dont think we treat them any differently. Then I read something in a novel in which a physchiatrist said that modern parents always feel that they are to blame for their childrens faults, or are made to feel this way by teachers or other adults, and it doesnt seem to ever to occur to them that their child might have just been born this way.

I am trying to deal with DD2 without causing her to have any more problems and keeping my fingers crossed that she grows up into a decent and honest human being.

ailuro2

I agree with the best parenting in the world there are just some kids who were born to be wild- however, they are few and far between,thank goodness:p


I asked my daughter to go to school on Friday,have a good think about her recent behaviour, and please leave the sneaky A*****(her name) behind and bring back the Wonderful A***** we know and love.

and she did! :j :A

I've used this trick before when she has been having a bit of a phase,and it sometimes works! Telling her why we don't enjoy the behaviour,and the atmosphere it creates/stops us having fun together etc. It helps get things back to normal and draw a line under the boundary pushing phase.

Since Friday afternoon she has been my normal girly again and we had a great day together yesterday-even though we were clearing out her wardrobe-she found lots of long lost friends and a pair of 5-6yrs trousers:eek:

CharleneUK

Thanks again ladies! Some of your stories do really make me laugh! Kids! Who'd have 'em! LOL.

I don't want you all thinking I'm Mrs Meanie, seriously, Tesh gets surprises even if it's just an item of clothing I thought she may like, or something like that, and I don't always say no, depending on what it is, and the reason, I may tell her well if XYZ is finished you can do XYZ, know what I mean?

Conradmum thank you for your post, it does give me something to think about. Because Tesh is first born and now has two other sisters, plus her dad and I split up 7 years ago, I'm not going to deny things have been hard. I just want her to talk to me, that's why, although I'm not really in the mood, I'm going to take her out.... She loves harvester, just the two of us, and really try and work through things, because I don't want her to be unhappy, the thought of that really upsets me.

Hopefully things will turn around, just need to work through it all.

Mr_Urdd

CharleneUK wrote: »

This isn't money saving technically speaking, but it kinda is as well, so please read if you think you can help

My dd1 (10 years old, 11 in June) Is incredibly sneaky and it's getting on my last nerve to be frank.

My dd1 has done numerous things over a period of time, the condensed list are as follows:

*Stole slimfast from the cupboard and snuck them in her room (hubby found 4 cans hidden under her bed)

* Hubby also found 9 empty ice pole packs (so what I hear you say)

*A few weeks ago, her dinner money account was in debit, I queried this, as she'd had packed lunch for the last few weeks, it turns out after investigation she had school dinners behind my back for two days, which is why the account went into debit.

*I told her she cannot use the house phone, but if desperate, she can call landlines but MUST get permission first. Just came home, checked redial (as I know lots of her friends were calling her this evening) 6 mobile numbers on the redial, hubby and I use our contract phones for mobiles

Now, the icing on the cake, I gave her and other dd's a biscuit each, she asked if she could have another, I said no. Well, the last two custard creams are missing! I know you'll all :rotfl: at that, but it's the principle. I'm just sick of it all, I can't stand sneaky stuff it really irritates me.

Has anyone had any BTDT experience? And to simply say "That's what kids do" isn't cool, because I didn't do anything like this as a child. Any ideas on how to cope with this?

Sounds like a jail sentence rather than a family home.

CharleneUK

*A 10 year old needs permission to use the house phone - thought this was standard

*Tesh TOLD ME her account was in debit when it shouldn't have been, obviously it needs to be checked out

*I checked redial to make sure she hadn't been using the phone as she had lots of calls come through, so wanted to ensure she wasn't calling mobile phones. I pay the bills, my right don't you agree?

You're obviously entitled to your own opinion, however it would have been nice to add some suggestions as well. Never mind, thanks for posting

Mr_Urdd

CharleneUK wrote: »

*A 10 year old needs permission to use the house phone - thought this was standard

*Tesh TOLD ME her account was in debit when it shouldn't have been, obviously it needs to be checked out

*I checked redial to make sure she hadn't been using the phone as she had lots of calls come through, so wanted to ensure she wasn't calling mobile phones. I pay the bills, my right don't you agree?

You're obviously entitled to your own opinion, however it would have been nice to add some suggestions as well. Never mind, thanks for posting

many parents make the mistake of getting very hung up on small things, chillaxe. Life should not be a boot camp, be thankful that your children have their health and love them for who they are, stop counting the bleeding biscuits and learn that you cannot exercise so much control without falling on your a$$.

Peace.

katym79

i think Mr Urdd is to be ignored - i'm with you on this. Though it may not sound a big deal, being lied to would drive me insane. At this age i'm afraid to say both me and my sister did similar sneaky things (me it was food, biscuits, later cigs!! - was 15 by then tho - hope that doesn't happen!!) Basically, its puberty that does it. it is, IMO just greed and wanting what we don't have - we all have it to a certain extent. i was otherwise a good kid and was a fairly trouble free teen. Sis on the other hand is now 24, and sadly still has a sneaky streak about her! Like some others have said, depends on the kid - we were brought up in exactly the same way! Hasn't stopped us from being pleasant adults and lovely individuals :rotfl:

ailuro2

It's like money, you look after the pennies and the pounds take care of themselves.

If you look after the small things like taking biscuits/make up without asking NOW then I believe you're less likely to come home one day and find they took the CD player to Cash Generator to get money to go clubbing.:p

Yes, I agree, sometimes it is good to surprise them and not punish them for breaking the rules,it keeps it less predictable.


If anyone does have any spare biscuits lying around then please do not feed the trolls;) .

Savvy_Sue

CharleneUK wrote: »

I don't want you all thinking I'm Mrs Meanie, seriously, Tesh gets surprises even if it's just an item of clothing I thought she may like, or something like that, and I don't always say no, depending on what it is, and the reason, I may tell her well if XYZ is finished you can do XYZ, know what I mean?

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you were Mrs Meanie, just that if she's convinced it's not worth asking because you will only say no, then it may help to make sure you have a good stock of reminders about times when you DIDN'T say no. She may be one of those hard done by children (like my eldest) for whom whatever you do is not enough, it's still grossly unfair, and nothing would ever make things fair. That's OK: Life's Not Fair, Deal With It!

Also, of course, as she gets older it will be important to establish WHY you're saying no - to me it's blindingly obvious that 12 year olds don't go to all night parties where the parents are away on a school night, but to the 12 year old at the "Everyone else's parents let them" stage it's not so clear cut.

May be worth pointing out to her that if you can trust her now, it will be easier to trust her later; if you can't trust her now, her life will be a lot harder later!

It is worth working out which House Rules matter and which you're prepared to relax a bit. I agree about using the phone: call me an interfering old bat if you like, but I like to know who mine are calling, and who's calling them. I've given up worrying about raiding the biscuit tin, but food debris in the bedrooms is a no-no! But mine are older than yours. And boys, if it makes a difference.

dee_mum_of_3

As a mum of 3 hungry boys aged 13 11 and 6,I wonder where is her place in the family my middle son does annoying stuff and its really just attention seeking and testing boundaries no matter what has happened he feels hard done by this did worry me a lot but apparently its normal and most families have similar phases ..........