Monday, March 19, 2007

How do Others Deal with This?

We have kids who steal, and kids who don't.

We have a policy, therefore, in our house, that kids don't keep money in their rooms. They are supposed to let us handle all the money. If we get stolen from, then it is our responsibility.

But sometimes the kids forget to give it to us and then it gets stolen. And then they expect us to hunt down the money or stolen objects and determine who took it. I used to do this, but then I found myself trying to repossess stolen items from the known theives, only to discover that they were misplaced by those reporting them stolen and I had wasted lots of my time and energy for nothing.

So now I remind them that they should have given the money to us to hold on to and that hopefully this will help them learn. I explain that if I leave my wallet somewhere and there is money taken and I report that to the police, that the police don't reimburse my money, but they still want me to give them the money.

Am I missing something here? How do others handle it when siblings (supposedly) steal from siblings?

1 comment:

Amanda said...

This so sounds like my house. The kids can "bank" with Dad and if he losses the money he will pay it back, but if you did not "bank" it then the loss is just to bad!

Not very surprising that my teens have gotten very good at "banking" and now have actual bank accounts that Dad deposits into. Although he remains the "speedy withdrawl" person, I (mom) never has more than forty-nine cents:)

Amanda S