In more cheer-spreading holiday news, an Ohio woman called the police on her own daughter, who had taken a pack of stickers out of a store they had been shopping in for Christmas presents. The hardened criminal taken into custody was six years old.
Officers arrived at the local drug store and took (!) the child down to the police station in the backseat of the patrol car. According to officials, the child was solemn (and probably shit-scared) while riding to the station.
The mother of the child stated she felt she did the ridiculous right thing in phoning law enforcement officials. She claims that it’s best to stop things at a young age before they get out of control.
I guess you have to teach your children some hard lessons in life, but calling the cops on a six year-old? May as well threaten her with a knife, like they do in other countries for theft. You know, simple ride down to the station for questioning or losing a hand over petty thievery. Equally valid options in my opinion, no?
Cripes almighty.
There are better ways to teach your child right from wrong then publicly humiliating them at 6 years old.
Oh hell no.
Kids know by the age of 6 that stealing is wrong. Humiliation is not out of line for this crime. It should make the kid think twice before she steals again.
We, as a society, have gotten too soft on kids. We need to remember that our job as parents is to raise our kids to be honest, productive members of society.
A little humiliation now beats the hell out of juvenile court when she is 15.
I agree, completely. Fear is a good motivator for good behavior. I’d rather scare the shit out of my kid at 6 than bail them out of jail as a teenager.
I had the strictest parents in the world and even my parents wouldn’t go this far. If she wanted to shame her she could have just marched her up to the store manager and made her apologize then gave her a whack in the behind when she got home.
I don’t think she was doing it to shame her. At least, that wouldn’t have been my motivation. The point of calling the cops is to let the child know how serious stealing is, and to let the child know what the consequences of illegal behavior is. Shame has nothing to do with it.
It’s not like the cops were going to actually put the kid in jail.
Hell no that is the worst way to solve a problem, after that she’s never going to forgive her mother and she will always remember that day. Then before you now it she will turn rebellious and commit a real crime a big one. If my parents did that to me i would never be the same towards them either and i more than likely to completely turn rebellious and be getting into trouble for real. Any parent that thinks that lady did the right is FUCKIN STUPID!!!
There’s way better alternatives than taking it up with the law, and now (because of the little girls dumb ass mother) the little girl probably has a criminal record.GOOD JOB DUMB FUCK!!!! SHE’S ONLY 6.
You seem angry.
Someone didn’t have enough eggnog.
i don’t like EGGNOG…. it’s pretty nasty.
But ya at the time i was kinda mad… but not anymore.
911isajoke – you’ll understand when you grow up, honey.
Merry Christmas!
Eggnog is really Elf Cum.
Sounds like someone else got the cops called on them by their own parents….
Blurry- Well actually I’m 18 and I’ve just experienced a lot of family issues and lots of wrong dissensions and that all together lets me see the way things should be and shouldn’t handled and that wasn’t one way that lady should of handled it. I understand that stealing is bad but call the police on your own daughter and also she’s only 6. She don’t know better and she could of disciplined her differently but she didn’t, she called the police. How would you like it if you were 6 and you stole some gum but you didn’t know better you showed your mom at the time and she turns on you and calls the cops on you scarring you to death. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t see your mom the same way as you did before. When your 6 you see your mom as a guardian angel but then she turns you in. That sends a bad message to your kids so you really have to think about what your doing and how you raise your children.
Samantha- ahh that’s pretty gross but ahh ok.
By the way have you herd of a high school called MacArthur. I’m not sure that’s how you spell it though.
I read this post when it first went up and had to think about it for a bit. I can understand the logic behind what this mother did, but I also agree with Froggy. The child was 6 years old. She knew what she did was wrong, and discipline was indeed required. At this age, I would have marched her little butt back into the store, made her apologize to the owner, and then made her do some type of restitution. Maybe picking up the backroom or straightening shelfs on Saturday.
A lesson needs to be learned at this age, and if there was no other bad behavoir that she is already exhibiting that would be that. If this has happened before, by all means I support what this mother did.
There appears to be so many parents now that “talk, talk, talk” and no action is every given. Children must realize that there are consquences to their behavior, postive and negative.
I agree with you completely. I, too, feel that parents have become way too soft with their children. When they aren’t shown (not just told) that something is wrong, and there isn’t a tangible punishment with it, they realize that it can be done again. If a child knows she’s just going to get a stern talking-to, what’s the incentive to keep her from repeating the incident?
While police intervention was probably a wee bit extreme, I think (hope) the mother had her daughter’s best intentions at heart. I seriously doubt the child will EVER even consider stealing again, but then again, what 6 year old steals with malicious intent? I think they just see something they want, and don’t realize that there must be a monetary transaction in order to obtain it. Still, I think your method is the most effective: must be made accountable, take responsibility for the action, and face punishment, aka, “you do the crime, you pay the time” with a little tweaking on “the time” part. :) I think that would have worked just as well, without scaring the living-beJesus out of that poor girl.
Lastly, this is sort of off topic, but that picture is just hilarious.
Exactly there are way better ways to handle things, except some people are to ignorant to realize it.
Did anyone else read this and think it was an inappropriate use of the police force’s time? It just seemed way too excessive and I’m sure the police had more important things to do than arrest a 6-year-old.
On a different note, her mother inquired into the possibility of receiving the $30 reward for turning in shoplifters.
That $30 thing really bothers me.
How poor is this woman that $30 would make that much of a difference in her life?
Especially at this time of year.
Where did it mention $30.00?
You can click on “cheer-spreading holiday news” in the Zelda Lily article. It will take you to where they got their story.
:) Thanks Blurry. I’m like what the hell? I reread the article a thousand times..lol Too many Christmas cookies!
….
Or she could have given her daughter a swift smack on the wrist and taken TV dessert away for a week, but that would just be too BORING, now wouldn’t it?
Personally, I’m kinda torn about whether or not I agree with this woman’s decision (on the one hand, giving the kid a taste of exactly how it would go down when she’s 15 and a store manager catches her filching make-up/clothing/whatever has its appeal in the scared straight sort of way, but on the other hand it could do more harm than good in terms of trauma and it’s possible the mom just did it for money/attention in the first place, and it is certainly a waste of the police dept.’s time), but take away dessert for a week? That hardly seems like an even remotely sufficient punishment for honest-to-god theft (not the murkier gray area of “she took my toy!” between siblings or carelessly taking something from a relative or close family friend’s home), especially for a kid who is DEFINITELY old enough to know better.
It doesn’t have to be that specific punishment. But as much as a six year old should know it’s wrong to steal, the fact is, anyone supporting this has ABSOLUTELY NO RECOLLECTION of what it is like to be six years old. A six year old SHOULD know better, yes, but if she’d never tried such a thing before and no one’s discussed it with her, maybe the full extent of her actions haven’t occurred to her yet. She needs to be punished, but while she is not a baby, she is also not a teenager. This may be the appropriate response when she’s fifteen and shoplifting simply because she can get away with it, but she was most likely thinking ‘oh stickers!’ and not much else. I’ve heard hundreds of stories from my peers about their first (and last) shoplifting experience being around age 5 or 6. They didn’t realize that they were stealing so much as they thought they were taking something they wanted because there were a hundred of them, or getting a present for mommy, or whatever. They need to be taught that it’s wrong, but the fact is, a kid this age doesn’t fully comprehend that what they’re doing is bad. They need to be taught, not treated like a hardened criminal. I don’t know of any store manager who wouldn’t take a little kid returning the item and giving an apology as acceptable. There are a hundred appropriate ways to deal with this, and calling the cops on your own child for taking stickers is not one of them
Has anyone considered that the stealing was a sign of a much larger problem? Like perhaps no father in the home or neglect? I saw the mother on the news and she seemed kinda of cold to me, maybe the child is unhappy and stole out of despair? Perhaps the mother should have asked her why she did it instead of running right to the cops.
That’s also a possibility. I don’t jump to that conclusions when I hear of six year olds stealing stickers, but then again, I didn’t look at the mother. Either way, calling the police was probably the least appropriate measure to take.
Personally, I question this mother’s motives. I wonder if she was just seeking media attention and sacrificing her child’s welfare to get it. We’ve all seen quite a bit of that this year.
She would have done just as well to march her daughter up to the customer service desk of the store and make her confess to the theft. I worked in retail for a while and it was a fairly common occurrence to have parents come up with children who had to confess to putting things in their pockets.
Parents need to remember that we discipline our children when they are young while the consequences are small so that they can avoid making these same mistakes when the consequences are much larger. This woman forgot that and robbed her child of the opportunity to learn from a smaller consequence.
Honestly, Froggy – that’s what I did when one of my kids decided to be a thief. Some store personnel were great about seeing it as an opportunity to teach the child something, others – not so much.
I don’t really think we can make a judgment here. There are too many unanswered questions.
Has the child done this repeatedly?
Perhaps the Mom IS a publicity ho.
Maybe she was just frustrated, maybe she had threatened the kid that this is what happens to people that steal.
Who knows?
I do know that this is better than ignoring the incident.
Get the kid a job with the IRS. Honestly,I don’t know why you guys think I’m too conservative!
She didn’t take enough to qualify for an IRS worker, Joey.
As ashamed of it as I am now, I’ll admit it, I shoplifted once when I was around 6 too. I saw a cute little toy I wanted and my mother wouldn’t get it for me. So, I tried to hide it under my dress.
Obviously, I got caught, and my mother was beyond furious. However, instead of calling the police, she made me apologize to the store manager and all the employees, and when I got home, she spanked me and made me write “I will never steal anything from anyone ever again” on 10 different sheets of paper, front and back.
I really have learned the lesson, and I can promise that I will never steal in my life, and I am truly ashamed of that one time. If this mother had done what my mother had done, then this child would probably end up like me, realizing what a big mistake I made, and to never do it again.
However, this mother HUMILIATED her child publicly in a way that will always be remembered by her child. This child will most likely now despise her mother, and will rebel against what her mother says, even more than the average child. With one action, this mother has probably severed all ties of affection her child ever had for her, because if she can do this to her own child, she’s done some other odd things to her daughter too.
I just thought you guys would like some input from someone who’s been in the child’s shoes. :)
Good point. Kids are affected by EVERYTHING that their parent does (or does not) do. People are traumatized for life for way less, and if this girl is even remotely well-adjusted in ten years, I’ll be surprised. Punish away, parents, but don’t punish them in a way that will draw national news.
BTW, Merry Christmas, happy Jew holiday (I can’t spell it!) and happy Kwanza everyone!!!
How about Festivus for the rest of us!
Yeh! Festivus! Here are my grievances for the year:
People who whine about being offended all the time
leopard Print-it should only be for HO’s
Credit Card interest rates
The line of idiots at Starbucks
Jersey Shore
And last but not least, STALE donuts!
People who hold up the line filling out their checks,get a debit card,morons! The new Kentucky fried grilled chicken,sucks. People who still believe in global warming. Young people,especially girls, who plaster themselves with tattoos. Forty years from now they’ll look nothing like they do now,trust me on this one.
Who uses checks???? Dinosaurs?? Oh and add morons who return things without receipts and hold up the whole dam line!
I am a Loss Prevention Investigator, my job is to stop shoplifting, I’ve been doing it for 5 years. I’ve witnessed people this age shoplift numerous times, and I have had to confront the unknowing parent about this. Every parent said the same, call the cops. We did, stated to the police that my company does not wish to press charges, just do what the parents wish. Simply scare the kid.
I think calling the cops was a little extreme. As others said, there are other, more appropriate ways of dealing with the situation. I’m all for disciplining the child, but really–bringing in the fuzz?
I don’t have kids, but I think this is a little to much for a 6-year-old. Yes, kids know by that age that stealing is wrong, but there are other ways to teach them the lesson.
Whether it was appropriate or not, this kid is going to HATE her mom when she gets older. My mom would never have done anything like this to me. She was a very fair mom who commanded respect, not fear, from my siblings and me. Ultimately, any punishment she issued didn’t leave me feeling like she was being a hard-ass or a terrible mother but that I had deserved the punishment and I was a bad little girl. Kids shouldn’t be afraid of their parents, just respectful.
Sounds like this mother has a good head on her shoulders, UNLIKE the poster of this article… exactly why u will have unruly kids…
So it’s not possible to raise well behaved children without calling 911 for every minor infraction? I think I turned out alright and I only had the police called on me once by a neighbor and he was the one that wound up getting in to trouble. Apparently the police agreed with me when I pointed out that cycling down a public street past someone’s house was hardly a crime worthy of police attention. If you call 911 every time your kids act up at all you’re going to find yourself behind bars PDQ.
Yes. The ONLY way to discipline small children is to call the police, a punishment usually reserved for adults, or at least older children committing crimes with full knowledge of their actions and the consequences. I suppose next time my 5 year old cousins throw a tantrum, instead of being put in time out and having their toys taken away, their mother should call in the national guard. No need for parents to actually oh, I don’t know, BE PARENTS. Just for them to shove off all their responsibilities on the police who COULD be out protecting the public from more serious crimes.
Calling the cops on a 6 year old will make her grow up neurotic with phobias of authority. The police aren’t there to discipline your kids, that’s YOUR job.
That seems to sum up the bottom line pretty well!
My 11 and 13 yr old were bored one day and messing around and broke the fence at their grandparents’ house. So, what we did was explain to them that people don’t want to have to pay to replace things that they already own due to someone else’s negligence and their punishment was that we took their Gamecube and gave it to charity and told them to just assume it was broken because we were bored. Then told them that they’d have to pool their money and buy a new one if they wanted it. I wanted to illustrate what it feels like to have to spend your money on something you already owned because someone else ruined what you had.
1. I think it worked.
2. I think about that punishment often and wonder if it was the right thing to do or too harsh.
Hopefully the woman in this story did not call the cops for $30 and actually was trying to help her child. I don’t know if what she did was right or wrong but I wouldn’t have done it..
What an incredibly well-thought-out punishment. Seriously, I can see that as working WAY better than “go to your room for an hour and think about what you’ve done, no computer for a week.”
Good job :)