12-year old daughter stealing, lying

[margaret101]

Our 12-year old daughter (we adopted her when she was 3 along with her brother who was 4) has had a problem with stealing for years.  It has escalated from small items and change to larger amounts of money from her father and myself. She lies to cover up.  She many times tries to make it look like a misunderstanding or a miscommunication.  She has stolen from stores and we always make her take the item back but she does not seem to care.  About a month ago she came home from a friends house and told us that her friend was getting a new laptop and when she did our daughter would be given the old one.   Later, the friends mother called looking for the laptop.  We found it in our daughter's backpack along with a handheld game system that belonged to the friend.  We took her to a counselor who thought she was looking for attention.  She stole her cousin's wallet last week.  She lies about things that happened at school, forges our names on poor test papers and steals from other students.  We have tried many different things to curb this behavior but she just seems to have gotten sneakier about it.  for stealing the wallet which contained 15 dollars we are having her do something good each day for another person and then write about how they felt and how she felt.  She will then work to earn 15 dollars which she will then donate to a charity with a letter of explanation.  We thought we we making some progress but today I found new earings in the pocket of her school vest.  She does not seem to care at all if something belongs to another member of the family, she takes it if she wants it.  She is also very destructive, ruining many of the things she takes along with her own belongings.  Recently, we discovered that she had accessed inappropriate sites on the computer (we have changed the password) but today my sister called to say that she discovered our daughter had used her cell phone to download indecent material.  Our children all have small jobs to do each day but our daughter lies and claims to have done her chores when she hasn't.  One other disturbing thing is that she will still wet her pants.  The underwear is then hidden, quite ingeniously sometimes, in her room.  She says that she didn't have time to get to the bathroom.  This is a very long list but I wanted to make sure that I didn't leave out anything that might help.  She is very sweet to people and very bright, but many people have commented to us that she just doesn't smile very much.  Please help us to help her.

[margaret101]

We don't know very much about her early life other than she went into foster care at 1 year old and was placed with a family that just adored her.  They allowed her to do and say whatever she wanted.  Her brother was placed with the same family after a while but they were not as kind to him, they thought he was difficult.  When we met the kids she was very open and friendly but he was reserved and quiet.  They seem to have reversed roles now though.  Our son has many friends, is always ready with a smile and people just take to him.  He has stolen a few small items in the past, packs of gum, but never anything like she has and now that he is 13 this has been over for a while.  Our daughter loves her brother very much and they have a great relationship, though sometimes it does seem a bit lop-sided, he does a lot for her, plays the games she wants to and caters to her.  We have two older sons (17 and 15) and she gets along well with them also.  She is the youngest and the only girl.  She has always been small for her age and is very cute.  I am afraid that we never expected her to do as much as the boys did at her age and we probably overlooked a lot of things because she always seemed so little.  we wised up though and started requiring her to do the same types of things as the boys, keeping her room clean, helping with dishes and laundry.  She has always been very sneaky though and tries to get out of things or get her brothers to do things for her.  I have wondered about Reactive Attachment Disorder with her. Also, in the last year we have had a diagnosis of ADD for which she takes Concerta.  It has seemed to help during school hours with her attention.  She will be going to see a new counselor very soon.  Thank you for your help.

[margypops]

I think you should get some councselling for your Daughter, she is obviously  upset and needs some help.There are several serious pointers to this, it would be a good idea to get her checked by a Doctor , I feel she needs to talk to someone. .

[althepal39]

Wow - this is pretty intense.  Do you know much about her life before she was adopted?  Sometimes if a child suffers a bad trauma very early in life - it can affect her for years and years..