What to do with a little pickpocket?

It started out a few months ago, when Maryssa and her friend came back from the corner store with a huge bag of candy. The friend's grandmother had given them money to buy candy, apparently.

Then the two oldest boys discovered their money was missing. $20 dollars had been taken. Turns out, the two girls took the boys' money and went out to buy candy. Maryssa has taken her own money to do this before, but never someone else's, and she also sneaks candy, or did. So I figured it was her idea and her friend just went along with it. Not commendable, but understandable.

Maryssa was duely punished, paid back the $20 dollars and was not allowed to play with her friend for a week.

Then just recently, we went to get some ice cream with said friend. Dominic had found some silly thing that he was playing with, and suddenly it went missing at the ice cream parlour. We looked for it all over, and couldn't find it. He cried and cried in the car on the way home. Maryssa's friend said she had some at home and would bring one over the next day to replace it. How nice of her!

The next day, she brought an exact replica of the rubber "thing-y" right down to the exact shade of green with the exact tiny stain of blue in one corner. Coincidence? I think not. She had Dominic's thing the whole time, saw how sad he was, felt bad about it, and "brought it back". Maryssa confirmed later that she knew all about it. I told her to tell us if something like that happened again.

Well, just a few days ago, Maryssa gave her friend a whole bunch of Pokemon cards that belonged to Dominic. Did she give them freely or did her friend ask for them? Who knows. But when I told them that they were not Maryssa's to give, and that Dominic wanted them back, the friend came back with only a small number of cards and they were not the same cards. All the strongest cards (it all works by points some cards are stronger than others) were missing, and most of the cards weren't even the ones they had.

Called her mother, and left a message saying Maryssa had given her friend some Pokemon card that didn't belong to her, and that Dominic was sad and wanted them back, but never got an answer back from her mother. Friend came over later and said "about your message, thsoe were the only cards I could find, the others are lost."

What? Already? Really? And why should I believe that after only 2 days, you've lost all the best pokemon cards?

I eventually told her she couldn't come to play anymore at our house because it was creating problems with Dominic. Dominic is the one always losing his stuff and it is really starting to annoy him. And I understand him completely. But I think until she "finds" the cards she lost, Maryssa will not be going to play with her either. I'm sure if she looks a little harder, she'll find them.

Marc doesn't want me to go over there and make "a fuss" over a few cards. But I think her parents should be aware of what is going on, and not just suddenly find out that we don't want her here anymore for apparently no reason. Why do things have to be so complicated all the time? Why do we put social niceties above our children's feelings and their right to their own belongings? So what if they are only cards, it's not just cards... it's $20, and a rubber thing-y as well. What will be next? A computer game? A movie?

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