I Have Discovered I Have A Little Thief In My Daycare :(

[PolkaTots]

An almost 4yo DCG had 4 of my daughters toys (one an antique) in her backpack. I only realized this because I went in there looking for todays tuition. I have noticed other things have gone missing, but didn't really think anything about it since we have so many toy boxes. Upon tearing through our entire house...several toys, some expensive, are missing, and so are my daughters brand new glasses that she needs to wear! I sent a text to the mom letting her know what I found, and if she could please go through her daughters things and see if she might have anything else of ours, including my daughters glasses. Her response was not an "I'm sorry, I will have a talk with her and look through her things tonight." Instead, she texted back..."Lol, I guess we have a hoarder." If I have to shell out another $200 for glasses when her daughter had them the whole time...I am going to be livid.
Will now be doing mandatory bag checks on all children before they leave

[ABCDaycareMN]

An almost 4yo DCG had 4 of my daughters toys (one an antique) in her backpack. I only realized this because I went in there looking for todays tuition. I have noticed other things have gone missing, but didn't really think anything about it since we have so many toy boxes. Upon tearing through our entire house...several toys, some expensive, are missing, and so are my daughters brand new glasses that she needs to wear! I sent a text to the mom letting her know what I found, and if she could please go through her daughters things and see if she might have anything else of ours, including my daughters glasses. Her response was not an "I'm sorry, I will have a talk with her and look through her things tonight." Instead, she texted back..."Lol, I guess we have a hoarder." If I have to shell out another $200 for glasses when her daughter had them the whole time...I am going to be livid.
Will now be doing mandatory bag checks on all children before they leave

Have a no bag rule.

[safechner]

If she does have your daughter's glasses the whole time. I would be livid, too. I don't found it is funny at all. If I were you, I would make her mother pay $200 for a new glasses that they have been keeping your daughter's glasses in her house. That is just me. I don't care if they have a hoarder but she needs to respect you and give it back to you if it is not belonging it to them... I am sorry what you have going through...

[canadiancare]

It is a normal developmental stage so the thief label may be premature. I hope you are able to recover the missing items and that her parents work with you to make a teaching moment from this. 4 is the fringe of developing social conscience so it is up to us to teach them right from wrong. Good luck.

[PolkaTots]

No no...I didn't call her a theif to her face.
I handled the situation professionally and told her it isn't nice to take things that don't belong to her and we are not allowed to take our friends things home. By her mother laughing it off, instead of helping her teach her daughter right from wrong just rubbed me wrong

[Play Care]

I put all bags up out of reach for this exact reason. I had a girl who did this when I first started dc. She was also older and knew to be sneaky about it... In any event no one could access their bag and I still did a person/bag check every evening as they were leaving. For a while I was limiting what toys she could play with and where she could play. Bedrooms were always off limits and I would think your child probably needs to in your sight at all times. I used to tell my dc girl "if you take my toys, I can't trust you to play freely, so you have to stay with me." In my mind a natural consequence of being untrustworthy is to be treated as such.

As for mom's reaction - this is why I don't like texting. I would have spoken to mom at pick up and made it clear you were not taking this as cute or funny. When it happened to me, I told mom face to face "P has been STEALING things from the house. I have spoken to her and let her know that stealing will not be tolerated, but I would like you to reinterate that at home. I know you don't want her to go off to school next year thinking it's acceptable to take things that don't belong to her as she will get in a lot more trouble if she does it there, so let's nip this in the bud together."

I used the word "stealing" I didn't sugarcoat it with borrowing, taking, etc. I called it for what it was, so mom would know I didn't think it was cute or funny. Yes, it's developmentally appropriate, but it's not allowable for all that. FWIW, my local grocery store had a 7 year old arrested for shop lifiting...

[canadiancare]

No no...I didn't call her a theif to her face.
I handled the situation professionally and told her it isn't nice to take things that don't belong to her and we are not allowed to take our friends things home. By her mother laughing it off, instead of helping her teach her daughter right from wrong just rubbed me wrong

Oh ok maybe she'll deal with it seriously outside of texting. It is embarrassing for her,too so maybe the stress made it seem callous.

Again I hope you get the stuff back.

[Heidi]

No no...I didn't call her a theif to her face.
I handled the situation professionally and told her it isn't nice to take things that don't belong to her and we are not allowed to take our friends things home. By her mother laughing it off, instead of helping her teach her daughter right from wrong just rubbed me wrong

It sounds like you handled it well, and hopefully mom will think about it and make her daughter apologize, as well as bring back everything.

I have caught kids trying to take things out the door, but I've never had anyone succeed. I don't allow big bags here, either, although I've had some bring little purses. I guess I realized that they will put my things in them, so they have to show me before they leave.

[KnoxMom]

Bags hang high above cubbies; bag check daily. Don't anticipate any issues but better safe than sorry!

[Meyou]

I've got one that gets searched at the door before he leaves each day.

[sharlan]

OT - my 17 yo granddaughter lost her brand new glasses, 2 days after she got them. We hunted, hunted, and tore the house apart, dumped all three sofas upside down and cut out the netting on the bottom. We ended up paying for new glasses.

Fast forward, over a year later, my other sil's car got stolen and stripped. The police found it and the insurance co totaled it. The ins co asked sil to come and clean out the car. Guess what he found???? My granddaughter had left them in his car when he picked her up from school one day.

Prescription had changed and she could no longer wear those glasses.

[countrymom]

there was a post about the girl who stole things, it was from a canadian provider but it was interesting how it all played out, see if you can find it.

I also agree, I wouldn't sugar coat it, I call it stealing too because.....

dcb is 4 (he is in school, we call it junior kindy you call it preschool, same thing different name) well apparently not only is he stealing from school he's now stealing from the stores. His mom won't let him go to the store anymore. The other day I noticed a white car on my counter (and i know its not mine) I asked him where he got it, all he kept doing is shrugging his shoulders. He always plays the "I don't know card" really if it was my kid, they would be punished.

[Blackcat31]

Here are some other threads about DCK's stealing

https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51564

https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=51610

[AfterSchoolMom]

I've had this problem with kids of all ages, from 2 to 10. I had a Mom return a valuable item of my son's a YEAR after her SA child was no longer in my care. I used to have to frisk my own DS after we left anywhere, public or private.

Hopefully, as someone else suggested, Mom is embarrassed and is using humor to deal with it....and she'll work with you to teach DCG that this is not appropriate.

[EntropyControlSpecialist]

I have never done bag checks. I will begin doing so now. What an odd reply from Mom.