Daughter Steals Mom's Car

Hi J.,

== > I’ve responded in various spots throughout your email below:

Mark,

Recently I became the recipient of a $720 phone bill, courtesy of my 15 year old daughter, A___. After confronting A___ about her phone usage I asked her to give me her phone. She refused and a short while later left the house, presumably to gather her wits. A short while later my wife noticed my car was missing. My daughter had taken my car! My daughter does not have a driver's permit or insurance. A short time later my daughter called us from her friend's house, about 5 miles away. She was safe, and so was the car. In the meantime we had called the police. We knew she had to face consequences for her actions. The police officer explained that we had several choices on how to proceed with a juvenile (after bringing her home):

1. Do nothing (leaving the consequences up to us as parents)

2. Write her tickets for Driving Without a License, Driving without Insurance, Car Theft, and Breech of Trust. I would have to pay those tickets.

3. Write her tickets and set a court date in the Family Court. I would pay for the tickets and court costs.

4. Declare her an Incorrigible Child and give up our rights as parents.

5. Have the officers talk to A___ and then leave the consequences up to us as parents.

== > First of all, you don’t lose your rights as parents if your daughter if found to be incorrigible (not in the U.S. anyway).

Second, if this is the first time your daughter has gone off the deep end like this, then you made a good decision by picking number 5. But – and this is a huge but – if this is not her first time, you made a huge mistake.

We chose option 5. The officers did a great job scaring A___: If they had to come out to the house again (this was the third time) she would be taken to jail. They wanted to take her then, but we convinced the officers to leave her with us. (a couple white lies, but the talk was brilliant!) A___ apologized profusely about two hours later.

== > I respectfully disagree that the officers did a great job scaring A___ – rather, A___ did a great job of convincing you (manipulating you) that she is sorry / remorseful.

Fear-based motivation has no longevity. As soon as she feels that the heat is off, you may find yourself in this same – or similar – situation.

What are appropriate consequences for such criminal behavior? I've placed controls on A___'s phone so she can only text or call voicemail or family members. She is grounded, but can have friends over and go outside as long as they stay in or close to home. A___ must perform special chores around the house to pay for her part of the phone bill. I don't want A___ to get her driver's permit until she's 17 (she is obviously immature and untrustworthy).

== > This all sounded good until now. Remember, our #1 goal as parents is to “foster the development of self-reliance.” The question should be, “Will withholding her driver’s permit foster self-reliance – or dependency.” Clearly it will foster dependency (i.e., somebody will have to drive her to the places she needs to go).

My wife wants to lift the grounding and phone restrictions after one week. From the MOOCT book you said that punishments longer than a week are ineffective.

Is this a case where more severe consequences are appropriate? What do you recommend?

== > When a child is allowed to stay in the house – or out …when she’s allowed to continue to have cell phone privileges even though it was the original source of the whole episode …when she is allowed to have friends over …then the “grounding” is not really a grounding, rather it’s something reminiscent of a grounding.

Here’s my recommendation:

First, give your daughter a warning that if she chooses to steal your car again, she will choose to face legal consequences in addition to being grounded for 7 days – in the house – no cell phone (or any other privilege for that matter) – no friends.

Second, if this happens again, follow through.

Mark Hutten, M.A.

==> JOIN Online Parent Support

Stepmom and Son Have a Very Contentious and Volatile Relationship

Mark, I have recently found and joined your OPS. I have a 15 yo son that came to live with me when he was 12. His mother is best described as an overindulgent parent. He was also exposed to her habit of distorting the truth to suit her needs. He learned and has told me that no matter whether wrong or right she always gets what she wants. She will go months without calling him. My son will not open up to anyone. He seems to have the traits of a "scapegoat and a lost child". He has approximately 15 of the 20 traits from your Indulgent parent quiz. I am more in line with an authoritarian parent. Needless to say i have made a multitude of mistakes as a parent. I am also a 13-year police officer with a 50/50 mix between patrol and specialized units.

That said the current problem is that my wife (his step mom) and my son have a very contentious and volatile relationship. Saturday while I was asleep my wife got onto my son about something and he announced that he was leaving. She grabbed his bag and told him that he was not taking the items that he had packed. He shoved her and either kicked her in the leg or stepped on her leg.

My wife woke me telling me that he was leaving and that I needed to get a hold of him and that he had pushed her. My immediate response was to try to calm everyone and get the story of what had happened. Instead it was a lot of "I hate her, all she does is ...".and "I'm tired of his crap all he does is cause problems...."

Things got calmed down and I was able to get some of the frustrations lined out. I spent the day trying to come up with a discipline for him later that evening my wife suggested grounding him to his room w/out tv, ipod, cell, etc..

Now she is upset and resents me because she feels that I did not stand up for her by either pushing/attacking him or whipping him. The more she thinks about it and talks to relatives and friends, the more frustrated she gets. I feel that the physical discipline would give him the "reward" that he seeks. I have no problem with corporal punishment, however he seems to genuinely appreciate it. My wife has commented numerous times over the years that she doesn't understand how he acts perfectly normal, even happy after getting a whipping. But now she is upset that I didn’t mete out some type of corporal punishment to him even after the fact, yesterday or today. I feel almost helpless, nothing I have tried has worked and I can't convince my wife that we are doing the right thing now. I know there is a small window to get him turned around and I am afraid of losing another chance.

I didn't find your site until Sunday and it seems to fit so well. I know this is a lot at one time, but any advice is appreciated.

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Hi D.,

Re: corporal punishment.

I don’t think that spanking is child abuse. When done in the heat of anger though, spanking often does lead to physical abuse. While spanking may be appropriate for some younger kids, physical punishment is not appropriate for teens. Rather than having it escalate into abuse (or, in some cases, result in retaliation by the teen), I discourage spanking as a method of discipline.

Instead, I offer parents several alternatives to spanking. These alternatives are not as quick and easy to apply as a good whipping, but bear in mind that corporal punishment is just another traditional parenting strategy that has no long-lasting benefit.

Re: tension between you and your son’s stepmother.

I’ll address this to your wife in hopes that she will read it without being offended:

A StepMom often feels hurt, angry, and worried about her relationship with the children and her relationship with her husband. She has come to care for, even love, her husband's children very much and wants to do a good job as a parent. Naturally, she believes she is right in her ideas and wants to shape up the other adults/caretakers (i.e., her husband and her stepchild’s biological mother).

Even if that were possible (it isn't), the other adults also believe they are doing right. The only person StepMom can change in this situation is herself. She needs to begin to look at the situation differently, and change her part in the cycle of hurt that is going on.

Assuming that we're talking about differences, not abuse or neglect, all of the adults in this situation need to start giving each other a break. Nobody has a corner on what is right -- only on what they each prefer.

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

StepMom can take a great deal of stress off of herself by accepting the reality that the children will always have a deeper, stronger feeling for their biological mother (no matter how she parented). She doesn't have to compete with that or correct what she sees as

Bio-Mom's deficiencies. In fact, she would do much better to approach the children as young friends, not as responsibilities or as reflections of her beliefs about child-rearing. She can have far more influence on the behavior of the children by simply being an additional adult friend.

StepMom can also withdraw from the struggle with her husband. He wasn't able to work out his differences with his former wife while they were married. He isn't going to be any more successful at it just because StepMom wants backing.

By getting out of struggles with the adults, StepMom also gets herself out of struggles with the kids. She certainly has the right to ask for basic politeness and respect for herself and her possessions. But it's a losing battle to ask them to behave differently or to follow her house rules. They won’t.

It's often fascinating what happens when one part of a complex system makes genuine change. Often enough, there is a quiet but significant domino effect over time. That's why I advise stepmothers in this kind of situation to understand what they can and can't change and to make peace with it.

If she angrily withdraws or punishes her husband and the kids by playing the martyr, she hasn't shifted her role in the fight, only her tactics. If, instead, she can really let go and find a place for herself as another adult role model in the family, she may be surprised to find that she gets far more of what she was fighting so hard (and so ineffectively) to get – respect and consideration.

Mark Hutten, M.A.

 

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

==> More crucial information for step-parents can be found here... 

How Parents Make a Bad Problem Worse!

Hi Mark, First, thanks for your great ebook and website. I realise I had been very unclear as a parent and started on the assignments with a sense of relief. Things did get worse before they got better but I am very pleased that I did not lose my cool or get drawn into arguments and we started to settle down and my 11 year old son S__ said that he felt so much better because he knew where he stood.

But our new-found calm was shattered by something that happened at school [before schools closed due to the virus]. A boy accused my son of something that he did not do and said that he was going to fight him. S__ alerted a member of staff but they didn't act in time and S__ got beaten up. The school was apologetic and admits that they let S__ down by not acting quickly enough. They have offered various strategies to try and settle him back into school this coming school year, but he is hysterical at the thought of going back.

As I want S__ to be happy and to feel he has some choice in the matter, this is what I am doing. (we live in the UK, by the way.) The Education Welfare Officer has been to see us and has suggested two other schools that might be better for S__, so we are going to see these schools. She has also put me in touch with a network of people who educate their children at home so I can see what's involved. This is my least favourite option as I am a freelance writer/editor and I work from home, so I'm quite worried about combining the two things. But home education is S__'s favourite option. I am also going back to talk to his original school, though S__ is refusing to come with me.

I am just very worried about S__ because he seems so depressed. Every bit of confidence has been knocked out of him. He is so unhappy. I too am unhappy and depressed and can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning. We are both completely demotivated. I did try taking him bowling to cheer him up, but it didn't work as he seemed to have lost the knack and felt even worse about himself. I need to find some ideas to boost his confidence. He has stopped looking after his pets, which is putting a real strain on me. The only thing we are managing to do every day is walk the dog.

The children's father died three and a half years ago.

S__ and I do talk, but he tends to speak in sweeping generalisations so that there's nothing I can focus on to help with, eg 'my life is over' 'my life is ruined' 'I'll never be the S__e again'. I have found a counsellor who he will speak to and he has seen her twice, but because these are confidential sessions I don't really know what's happening - although I do know she will be talking to him about his education next week. Your comments would be greatly appreciated, Thanks, S.

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Hi S.,

I think I have a good idea what’s going here. Please don’t get upset with me. I’m going to be a bit tough on you here:

Your son is playing you for a fool.

Here are some of the statements you’ve made that concern me:

… I want S__ to be happy

… I am just very worried about S__ because he seems so depressed

… Every bit of confidence has been knocked out of him

… He is so unhappy

… I did try taking him bowling to cheer him up

… I need to find some ideas to boost his confidence

…The children's father died three and a half years ago

All the above tells me that you are really feeling sorry for your son. And your son is “milking” your sympathy for everything it’s worth.

Please do not misunderstand. I’m not being indifferent here. I definitely understand that there is some real hurt and fear going on inside your son. And I do not want to minimize the loss of his father. But I also know how son’s can manipulate their mothers when they’re feeling down. I did it too.

His statements verify this (in my mind anyway). When he says things like …'my life is over' …'my life is ruined' …'I'll never be the same again’ ...he is trying to get you to feel sorry for him – and it’s working!

Why would he do that? What could possibly be the motivation?

Well, he gets out of doing chores …he gets out of attending school …he gets out of facing his fears (i.e., going back to that school and standing up to the bullies) …and he gets a bunch of attention from you – his parent.

Having said this, I think you need to do some serious soul-searching regarding whether you are helping your son with your approach to this matter – or hurting him.

I believe your sympathy comes from a well-intentioned, loving heart, but it’s resulting in a lot of over-indulgent parenting. (I trust that you know the dangers of that parenting style.)

From my gut,

Mark Hutten, M.A.

 

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents