Teenager Stealing

Have you considered hiring a lawyer to go with you to try to keep things calm when you go? I would talk to a lawyer with a good personality who could explain to the business the child is sorry and being punished for her behavior - including paying his bill. Most smart lawyers won't try to intimidate the business they will try to make amends for the behavior without involving the police.

I would definately make her work off the lawyer bill. It will cost more than a teenager can imagine and give her a taste of the price of giving into the impulse to take things that do not belong to you.

As a business owner if I met a parent who meant business in punishing their child, I would be willing to forgo the police and let the parent take charge.

Good Luck

have her return the money with a long letter of apology-but mostly itll be up to the ppl she stold the money from...good luck

I wouldn't contact a lawyer or police just yet... I would have your daughter return the money and see what the reaction is from the owner of the business. If he wants to press charges then I would contact a lawyer and then of course the law gets into it. Take the simpliest way first and then see what happens. I would make sure the punishment fits the crime, a day for each dollar? that is a bit extreme to me but what about community service for a month for so many hours a day, that would be something that a court would probably give her since this is her first offense.

I would have a really hard time to turn my child into the police. Go back to the business, return it, and see what they do. Have a plan of how you are going to handle it, her to present to the company. Hopefully they will let you handle it. If they do choose to call the police, that is when you call a lawyer.

Chances are this is not the first time she has done anything like this. This is just the first time she got caught. Starting out at taking $300 is a pretty large step. I would look around her room to see if she has been shoplifting, before setting you set her punishment. She might have a large problem then you thought.

I hope everything works out for you.

When I stole in Omaha when I was a teenager (I only stole 40 dollars worth of stuff) I had to do something I can't remember the name but basically had to reimburse the state or something. So even though I had to pay the store the 40 I also had to pay the state. I didn't understand why but that is what I had to do. I also had to go to this program called diversion. Had to be in that for a year and it met once a week. Then I had to do a bunch of community service an hour for every dollar I stole. So 40.

That is what I had to do. I learned my lesson and my parents made me get a job to do all the reimbursing myself.

Oh and this was a first offense, I was punished by my parents and they told the judge the punishment, he wanted to know what it was and I was grounded for 6 months. Oh and I was a straight A student. So don't just assume a first offense good kid is going to get it better. All the kids in my diversion class had similar offenses except one had pot charges. Anyways they all chose diversion over anything else. It wiped my record clean but if I did anything else it will appear on my record as well. So it was basically a one time free card for being stupid.

So it might be something like that. Good luck. This offense was worse than mine so the punishment might be more. I was told by our lawyer (I had to pay that bill as well and he was worthless) that it could be way worse but it wasn't.

I really don't know what to say. When my parents owned a business and they caught one of their employees stealing they had him arrested and prosecuted. Don't know what happened to the guy. He was like 17 at the time and we thought he was a friend of the family. I'd have to ask my mother.

But don't just assume if they call the police this will go nicely. It just might not and she might have this on her record forever. I, and maybe I'm a horrible mom for saying this, would mail this money back anonymously and punish the HECK out of her yourself. I'll tell you shelving books at the local library for hours and hours on end STUNK BIG TIME

I'm pretty sure that most police would not want to prosecute a teenager for a first-time offense. Same with whatever business she stole from.

Police are there to protect and serve. When they see parents trying to help a child back on the straight and narrow, often the police will have a "serious talk" (e.g Scared Straight) with your daughter. They know that their badge and presence alone have a profound effect that your daughter will remember.

300-day grounding! Wow. Now you have to stick to it. Good luck! That's worse than what the cops would do. If you change your mind on having a sullen teenager stuck in the house with you, I would go the community service route.

I would also have her do community service and let the business know what you are doing and hope that they will not press charges. You can also call the local police station and speak to an officer in a hypothetical way then proceed. Being grounded is easy having to do restitution for doing something wrong is much harder. Call your local YMCA,or community center, nursing home, church All of these places need help doing odd jobs and caring for others. Good Luck.
J.

I know you have decided on a day per dollar punishment, but I think in this case an hour of community service per dollar taken would have a much more profound effect, and you don't have to deal with a sullen teenager around the house for 300 days.