It's needless to say getting your stuff stolen isn't a pleasant experience – your personal space and belongings were violated. In fact, some people can be so affected by it that it leads them to mental health struggles. What can make this situation even worse is when the crime is committed by someone close to you, someone you trusted enough to let into your personal space that they violated.
That's what happened in today's post. In it, a mother tells a story of how her daughter's friend stole an expensive watch and was caught by security cameras. After they confronted the girl's parents, they learned the girl had stolen way more than just a watch.
More info: Reddit
Becoming a victim of theft is bad enough, but it's even worse when the thief is someone close to you
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The author's daughter acquired a new friend who used to come over to do college projects at their home
Image credits: Kaboompics.com / Pexels (not the actual photo)
One day, the author's husband was helping the girls with one of their projects, and while they were in his office, he took off his expensive watch
Image credits: Quang Viet Nguyen / Pexels (not the actual photo)
After the friend left, the man noticed that his watch was gone, so they checked the security cameras and saw the daughter's classmate stealing it
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Image credits: Stephen Hillenburg / Nickelodeon (not the actual photo)
The daughter opened up that the friend must have stolen some jewelry from her too, so the parents started to think about how they could reach out to the thief's folks to talk about it
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When they did, they learned that the girl had stolen even more than that from them and that she wanted to sell it to help her parents with their debt
Nine months or so before the post appeared on Reddit, the OP’s 18-year-old daughter acquired a new friend. The girls were college classmates and sometimes had projects due together, so the author’s daughter would invite the friend over.
One day, the girls were working on a project that was in an area that the OP’s husband studied in. They went into his office to concentrate, where the man took off his watch and left it on the desk.
After the project work was done and the daughter’s friend left, the man started to look for his watch. It was gone – it wasn’t where he put it, nor anywhere else. So, they checked the security cameras and saw their teen’s friend stealing it the moment she was alone in the home office.
When they talked about it with their daughter, she revealed it wasn’t the first time something had disappeared after her friend had visited. Her gold earrings and gold necklace had disappeared, and she thought she had lost them. After the revelation about the stolen watch, she was sure that the friend must have stolen them.
While some of you might jump to the conclusion that this friend must be a kleptomaniac, in reality, this mental disorder isn’t as common as one might think – only about 0.3%–0.6% of the general population has it. So, while this girl may have it, it’s quite unlikely.
But there is a more likely reason. Bored Panda’s interviewee, parenting expert Rachel Bailey, explained that negative behavior, such as theft, is always a sign of an issue: “Either a child has a lot of emotional distress and/or they're missing the skills to control their impulses, address discomfort, etc. (Many teens address their discomfort by trying to feel more powerful – being mean to others, stealing, etc.)”
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She also noted that these behaviors should never be excused and said that addressing the reasons is a must: “If we don't address the cause of the behavior, it's like weeding a garden by pulling out the tops of the weeds but not the roots. When the roots stay in the ground, the weed pops back up. If we don't address the cause of behavior, the behavior continues to happen.”
The OP and her husband weren’t sure what to do about their daughter’s friend who was acting out. They wondered whether they should tell her parents that she stole things worth a lot of money (around $6,000), as they didn’t want the police involved, they just wanted their stuff back.
Well, as our interviewee said, addressing underlying problems is important, and it can’t be done by avoiding talking about the incident. The teen needs to face the consequences for her actions: “They may return or pay for what they've stolen, and perhaps apologize as well. But addressing the cause of the behavior should be a primary focus.”
That’s why the original poster and her husband asked people online how they should proceed with talking to the girl’s parents without it becoming an overly dramatic thing.
People on Reddit suggested plenty of ways they could go about talking with the girl’s parents. Some described it, and others straight-up provided draft messages.
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As the update showed, the OP and her spouse ended up reaching out to the parents of their daughter’s friend. They didn’t get offended, as the author feared, but uncovered that the situation was bigger than it was initially thought – the 18-year-old had been stealing from her friend’s home for months.
Some of the things she had given to her parents as gifts, others she had tried to sell. Apparently, her family had some debt and this was her way of helping. After she was caught, her parents promised to give back everything to their rightful owners.
So, the original poster and her husband told them that this time they wouldn’t call the police, but they should be wary, as someone else in their place would. And that of course, from that point on, the girl couldn’t come to their house anymore.
Quite a few people online thought it was a foolish step not to get the police involved, as this way the teen might not have realized the magnitude of her crime. As they explained it, they didn’t want to ruin her life, but maybe being caught would work and she’d nip this behavior in the bud. Plus, maybe her parents would make her face some consequences besides that.
Either way, it’s nice that the situation was handled pretty civilly and that the family got back their expensive things. Let’s just hope that the ex-friend realizes the wrongness of her actions and will fix her behavior.
The items were returned and the friendship was cut short, but some netizens felt the parents should have called the police since the value of the stolen goods was high
