Advice needed on dealing with kids stealing things...

ubarose wrote:
That's essentially what leveraging the fucked up chick social hierarchy achieves. An 11 year old girl’s primary group is their social group. To include, exclude, ”forgive” or “allow to return” the group must come to consensus and act as a group. The difficult part is that anyone who would steal from someone within her own group, is unlikely to willing admit it and will not be above turning the tables and claiming that her accuser is a liar. If the girls are equally liked and equally trusted, the accuser is at as much risk of being expelled from the group for lying as the accused is of being expelled from the group for stealing. Furthermore, there is the risk that the group will divide into two opposing groups, or that both girls may be excluded from the group simply to maintain the peace within the group. Therefore, before going public, a girl needs to be reasonably sure that she will have majority support. To do this a girl needs to forge an alliance with a girl or girls whose influence combined with her own will pull in majority support. The most efficient way to do this is to go as high up the food chain as you can. Girls at the top of the chain have a vested interest in keeping the social group intact, because if the group divides girls at the top lose a portion of their power base within the larger social group of the class/school/neighborhood. Therefore just the possible threat of “going public” with the situation gives a girl lower down the chain leverage with girls higher up. Higher up girls typically handle situations privately, involving as few members of the group as possible, using threats and promises of bringing the majority to bear upon the issue. This is usually adequate to get the offender to acquiesce without involving the entire group, thus maintaining the social order and the peace.

This is why chicks write the best vampire novels.

S.

Geez, Uba

Now when I look at my one and a half year old daughter and single tear rolls down my cheek and my wife asks what's wrong I'll just talk about how I'll miss this fun time without going into detail...

One month ago I would have called uba's post utter nonsense, but since then I've had one woman and former co-worker try and expel me from a group of mutual friends and co-workers for untruthful reasons the woman made up in order to cover up her own mistakes which I but hardly anybody else had witnessed.

Looks like I need to emphasise that the first line of my post, the police impersonation, was not meant to be taken seriously.

The second paragraph, approaching the parents (no kids involved) to return the 'borrowed' items, was serious.

Msample wrote: If you are going to talk to the parents, do it FTF. If you call up and then they confront the kid w/o you there, then the little shit might be able to talk her way out of it and then they in turn may either believe her, or she may confess but they'll deny it to you anyway.

I think it is best that the parents confront their daughter without Pete there actually.

Cut off a hand, and then her tongue if she lies about it.

"Looks like I need to emphasise that the first line of my post, the police impersonation, was not meant to be taken seriously."
That the police thing was taken seriously is the unintentionally funniest thing in this thread.

Pete, go see the damn people already!

Alternative: maybe this thread could run all year, just snowing Pete with advice long after the matter has been dealt with / corrected /overcome / survived.

mjl1783 wrote: Set up a play date at the other girl's house, and arrange for your daughter to cause some sort of commotion when she gets there. While the parents are distracted, steal some of their shit. The little bitch'll get it when it's their own shit that comes up missing, and maybe they'll learn not to be such suck ass parents.

Sad fact is I thought about that. For real.

UPDATE:
Denial, denial, denial. Several stories from "I never saw it" to "yeah I saw it" to "I picked it up and put it on the shelf" to "It wasn't that, it was a ping-pong game my friend gave me."

Daughter jumped in her shit on the bus, made her cry, told her I was going to call the cops and have her tossed in Juvi. Proud of her. So, I'll be calling the cops Thursday, filing a report, and subsequently prosecuting. BUT, this is Kentucky where no inequity goes punished, so I'll probably sue the fam in civil court.

Schweig! wrote: One month ago I would have called uba's post utter nonsense, but since then I've had one woman and former co-worker try and expel me from a group of mutual friends and co-workers for untruthful reasons the woman made up in order to cover up her own mistakes which I but hardly anybody else had witnessed.

Don't masturbate at your desk and this won't happen again, Schweiggy!

SuperflyTNT wrote: Don't masturbate at your desk and this won't happen again, Schweiggy!

It's not funny to see former friends turn on you for no reason.

Are you fucking kidding?? Denial from the parents as well? They're gonna risk going to court rather than make at least a half-assed attempt to learn the truth?? I need one of those head-shaking smilies from BGG.

scissors wrote: Are you fucking kidding?? Denial from the parents as well?

This was a given.

S.

Sorry I didn't speak up sooner, it's probably too late now. Something similar happened to me when I was a kid, around about age 12 I think. A kid from my boy scout dropped by my house for a surprise visit, with a friend of his tagging along. I sometimes took some comics to read on the boy scout campouts, so the other scout knew that I had a comic collection, and they wanted to see if I wanted to trade anything. It was just before dinner time, and while they were there, my mom yelled upstairs for me to come down and set the table. I told them that I would be right back. While I was setting the table, they left, saying they would come back some time when I wasn't busy. Something seemed off about the whole situation, so after dinner, I checked my comic collection and saw that I was missing some comics, including one in particular that I had just showed them.

I didn't tell my parents, but I lost some sleep about it over night, feeling betrayed. The next day was a Saturday. I flipped through my collection and came up with a list of about a dozen comics that were missing. I went over to the fellow scout's house to confront him and ask for my comics back. He wasn't home, but his older sister was there, which gave me a brilliant idea. I told her that her brother borrowed some comics and told me to stop by and get them because he was finished reading them. She was annoyed that her brother left her to deal with me, but went into his room, grabbed the comics and handed them to me. Score!

As I was walking home, I saw that there were a couple of comics that I didn't notice were missing, but were mine. And the oldest, most valuable one (Fantastic Four #116, I think) was still missing. So I looked up the other kid in the phone book to get his address, then recruited my biggest friend to help me go recover it. We showed up, intimidated the kid and got him to give it back. However, he admitted to having two other comics as well, and apologized for already trading them away. We thought about going after those, but on reflection, I realized that I didn't even like those two comics and let it slide.

Anyway, it's too late for situation, but it might have been better for your daughter to approach the other girl in a way that would allow her to return the games while saving face. She could have said "my dad saw you take my purse with the DS games but he thought that you were borrowing them. I know that it was probably just a mistake and I didn't want you to get in trouble, so I hoping that you would just give them all back to me." That might have worked because she wouldn't have felt trapped.