What would you do?

[Amythestmama]

:think At curves the other day, one of the ladies was talking about her 8yr old dd. She said that the dd had stolen her older brother's wallet and lied about it. She finally confessed after several days and returned the wallet and money that was in it. M said she knew she had to punish her for it and said that her dd agreed. The dd said she'd give up her cellphone and her priveleges of calling riends. M said no that wasn't good b/c she could talk to her friends at school and didn't really call them that much anyway. The dd said she'd give up TV for a week again M said no b/c that 'wasn't enough'. She said she thought about it and decided that her dd couldn't sleep with her stuffed puppies that she's had since she was 2. Of course the dd was in hysterics she said, but she made it happen. :mad I was shocked but I didn't know what to say. I did say that that seemed awfully harsh to me but M said that her dd 'had to learn somehow'and 'hat would I do?' :mad I just let it go b/c I didn't know what i would do. So what would a person do in a situation like that? I doubt that the dd learned anything and the night was miserable for everyone b/c she was crying most of the night. Anyway. I know sooner or later I will have to deal with lying and in the past I would have had a pat answer of "give them a good old fashioned whipping and they'll learn." But I won't do that now so what would I do? TIA

[CelticJourney]

You can turn the conversation on a dime with the question "when you sat down and talked to try and understand why she did that, what did you discover was in her heart?"

[Soliloquy]

I would simply go with the natural consequences. Older brother will likely now want a locked drawer or chest for his belongings. He will not want to allow her near his things and this should be enforced. DD will need to be supervised when she's around other people's valuables. For awhile, her statements will need to be verified. I would also tell her that she needs to pay him interest on the money since she had it.

Before I allowed any of this to happen, though, I would sit with her for a long time and talk about WHY she did this. Is she jealous of his money? Does she feel slighted in the family budget? Did he do something cruel to her? This didn't happen out of nowhere and it will happen again if the reason isn't found. It has to be an open, gentle conversation where she REALLY knows that you're trying to help her otherwise she'll simply say what she thinks you want to hear.

[ArmsOfLove]

actually, I would consider it that my dd wronged my ds and would have him select something for her to do to make things right. She already returned the wallet and confessed and apologized

[mammal_mama]

I know sooner or later I will have to deal with lying...

Why are you assuming this? I'm not saying for sure that your children will never lie ... but I think the motivation for lying is embedded in the fear of punishment, or the fear of losing parental love and approval (which is actually a deeper kind of punishment).

If your response to misbehavior is listening to find out the "why" (touched on by LisaM), what motivation will your children have to lie? Also, if you want to go a step further, you can take Alfie Kohn's suggestion of sometimes encouraging your children to pretend they're their sibling, and asking them to tell about incidents/conflicts from the other person's perspective. We can also model empathy for our kids by trying to put ourselves into the shoes (and, as Kohn points out, also the FEET) of the people who wrong and hurt us, rather than immediately reacting with anger and judgement.

I like Crystal's suggestion of having the wronged child share what he feels needs to happen for things to be made right between them -- but only if it's NOT in the sense of him assigning a punishment in order for his anger to be assauged. After all, what can anyone add to Christ's finished work on the cross? Before the wronged child states what he feels needs to happen, it might help to ask him to pretend HE'S the one who did wrong, and speculate about what might have been going through his sibling's mind at the time, as well as how his sibling might be thinking/feeling at the present moment.

After all, since the girl came forward and confessed her actions, she's obviously gone through a transformation in her attitude already and is probably eager to learn how to restore right relationships -- a valuable skill we ALL need to develop as we're fallible and, even as adults, frequently find our words, attitudes, or actions have caused pain to someone else. And the child who was wronged also desperately needs to learn, in his own way, how to move forward/forgive after being hurt by unfair treatment: imposing punishments on the other child may momentarily gratify the wronged child's anger -- but this may also set our kids up for "tit for tat" relationships in the future.

[mammal_mama]

Subbing.