autism and stealing

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I'm hoping for a little advice really, I have 4 children, 2 have autism, 2 are NT.
My daughter (12 autism, ADHD & SPD) has taken to stealing money from my purse. She then spends the money
on sweets, I don't mean £1-2, It is £10-15 at a time. she spends it all and eats ALL
the sweets while she is away from me, so during the school day.

She knows it is wrong but it's like she can't see beyond the instant gratification
of the sweets, when asked she claims she "doesn't know why she took it"
I still punish her, usually by the removal of something she loves like a bithday
present if it is near then or ipad, ipod and treat withdrawal. I've told her I'm disappointed
in her, that her behaviour is unacceptable.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I could do differently or try?

Thanks

don't leave your purse where she can access it.

I did that for a while at that age, soon grew out of it, I would suggest hiding your money elsewhere, maybe leave a pound or two and don,t even bring the subject up, let her conscience teach her why she should stop.
And don't take it personally.

Maybe when you know she has taken something, take her shopping and offer to take her for a treat like an ice-cream or McDonalds, then just before you go in say "Oh dear, I thought I had more money than this, I am afraid I haven't got enough", that way she will feel guilty and realise the consequences of her actions.

I'm not sure I'd pull the boarding school threat (unless you're truly willing to do that over this), but doing things to pay you back is a great idea. As is hiding your money so she doesn't have access to your wallet.

On the flip side, have you considered giving her an allowance/payment for chores/jobs, that she can spend as she likes?

Ooh sure. Tease her by leaving money out where she can get it, and punish her for getting something she really likes. See how you are? Hide the money. You could be really mean, and leave a purse out that is full of grease. Or perhaps a charged 240 volt capacitor.

Fell free to tell me to shutup anytime.

Three things:

1) Don't keep a purse where you daughter can find it. She may have spent 12 calendar years on earth, but her mental development is 8 years. (Most people on the spectrum have a mental development 2/3 of their chronological age.) So her impulse control is set accordingly. So act accordingly yourself. Don't tempt her. Hide your purse and the money in it in a place she won't think to look, or in a place difficult enough for her to each not to be worth the effort.

2) Find a better word than "disappointed" to describe your feelings toward her. It's extremely vague and abstract. An NT kid will be confused what exactly "disappointed in you" means, let alone an autistic kid. So sort out your feelings, and decide what exactly "disappointed" will be? Is it a euphemism for "angry"? Sad? Some combination of the two? Something else entirely? Decide, and use those words when telling your daughter how you feel.

3) Think about what transpires on your usual grocery shopping trips with her. How common is it for you to say no when she asks for things, even banal candy bars costing $0.69? If she hears "no" more than "yes", then can you blame her for trying to make the universe more fair? Remember, she's 8 developmentally. She might still be under the impression that money magically grows in your wallet, and that you're holding out for no reason when you say no.

Are you particularly strict on her sweet eating at home? Are you rationing sweets to her. Does she have a medical condition that she needs to eat all these sweets? Some condition you are unaware of? Maybe you can reverse condition her against sweets. Give her so much of it that she no longer has her craving, or becomes allergic. Obviously, I have no children.

Lock your money away or hide it. If she starts stealing from stores, then you have a bigger problem that may need to be worked out with a therapist.

I think if it is an irresistible impulse for her, which it sounds like, out of reach is the best place for money. I know you have to work on the skill of self control, but I would do it in small doses, and maybe with something else other than "sweets money."

Stealing can be tricky to work with. I like to take a positive approach to everything, so it's important to have some control over her reinforcers, what are the things she likes to do while at home. What are special treats that she gets once in a while? (Maybe even sweets). Once you have an idea of those things, you can start making them contingent on appropriate behavior...when she does what she's supposed to do, she gets access to those things. With stealing, then you can start setting traps for her. Be clear, you expect her not to steal, and if she doesn't steal and does her chores, then she'll get X. if she does steal she won't. There is no subterfuge here, she knows that you know how much money you have and are going to check to make sure. Then make sure to always know exactly how much money is in your purse, and leave it out in the open for her to see and potentially steal from. You can then check to see if she took anything. If she didn't you reward her! I know that sounds weird, rewarding someone for not doing something that is a basic expectation, but you can tie in all her every day things to that. If she wants to watch TV today, well she has to earn that by, among other things, not stealing. The second part of this is making sure she isn't rewarded for stealing, which can be really difficult. Do you know where she's getting the candy? Is it a school store? You may be able to ask the vendors not to sell to her. Then give her a reasonable path to a reasonable amount of candy through good behavior (maybe doing chores / homework).

So to reiterate:

1) set traps and provide contingent reinforcement on her passing the tests.
2) try to minimize her ability to effectively steal and eat candy as a result.
3) try to offer alternative paths to candy based on good behavior.

Something to add to my earlier post:

4) Consider how the adult world look like to a child who's 12 years old (8 mentally). It looks like the land of milk and honey with manna from heaven, compared to a child's life. You, the adult, technically have the freedom to buy any treat you want, whenever you want. The stores are full of those treats. So, it's not surprising that the child starts to view the adults in their life and the stores the same way most Americans view 1%-ers. So remember that stealing here is just a misguided attempt to equalize things, a redistribution of candy, if you will. Only without the power to pull it off, like the French in 1789 and the Russians in 1917.

The whys of the stealing are really only important if it helps get her to stop as things like stealing have huge social consequences especially if done outside the safety of the home. A reputation as a bit of a thief sticks and will be one more reason for exclusion. It might be worthwhile putting in place consequences (confiscating possessions, grounding etc) at home if she is caught doing this while at the same time explaining that the consequences would be much worse if this happened elsewhere.

I like Emile's points a lot. Depending on your kid's ability to comprehend abstract concepts behaviorism may be the best way to teach her.

Make sure that she has a positive outlet for her wants. If she really likes candy and you say "No candy every" OR if your reward system is inconsistant she will not consider it valid and will ignore it.

The way I diet is by allowing myself to have 1 single serve candybar/soda one a week. This gives me a positive outlet for my otherwise destructive binge eating habit. I would also make sure to teach your kid to eat slowly. That may mean breaking a single candy bar into 10 or so pieces.

The autistic guy I work with "stimms" off of having his mouth entirely full and prefers to eat that way, so when providing him with sweets I use "filler" like mashed apples and give him a small portion of the sweet he actually wants. This allows him to have the feeling of stuffing his face, the taste of the candy, and not weigh 300 lbs or spend his entire SNAP stipend on candy. You only need a tiny amount of sweet to get a ton of flavor, it's just habitual to take larger bites.

The point is to maximize the enjoyment from a small amount of reward, Make sure there is a clear and well known path to achieve the reward (i.e. routine in my case), rewards for positive behavior and punishments for bad.

Preventing them from getting the candy if they aren't supposed to have it is pretty important because they will learn that your rules dont matter. My parents used to ground me from computer by taking the power cable, so I used to keep 4-5 extra power cables hidden around my room and would only play when they were gone or asleep. Even if they caught me and took the cable it didnt matter because I had so many. This is why hiding isn't the best solution. If they are better at finding than you are at hiding you are screwed, they also may just steal from somewhere else. We have to lock up the butter so Matt doesn't eat it all, but when he does find the key he will eat 4 sticks in one sitting

EDIT: added
The guy I work with probably has the mental capacity of a 3-5 year old (he's 30) so he has trouble with concepts like ownership that require object permanence. He has 0 capacity for abstraction so if you lay out a set of rewards or punishments he can't comprehend the cause and effect trees of this action = reward, that action = punishment. If you tell him about a punishment in advanced he will just perseverate on the punishment and shut down. If you tell him about a reward he will want it RIGHT NOW. One thing that was successful for teaching him to like his reading tutor was to always reward him no matter how he behaved, eventually he associated the tutor with the reward and just got it.

So I got interrupted by my sister who is very pissed off at me for this addition. Her basic point is that using the description of someone as being "X age chronologically, Y age Mentally" is extremely harmful to the person. It is harmful because they may have the capacity to achieve the same things as their peers if they get help but calling someone "mentally 8" will cause you to only prepare them to prepare them to be 8, when instead you should be working to make them 14. I still feel like the age thing applies to the guy I work with... BUT it may be a case of the tail wagging the dog, because he was treated like he could never mature past 5 his whole life: He didn't. It could be the case that he has a greater capacity than has been tapped but we, his caretakers are accidentally repressing his cognitive growth. On the other hand treating him as mature may put him in danger if he does not, in fact, have that capacity. (i.e. if someone calls the police on him and he tries to hit them in frustration). So IDK. She feels like my brother and her have more capacity than they were treated like they had. I tend to agree with her because she is pretty independent (possibly moreso than me even lol).

I think that the mental age comparison is an easy, oversimplified way to explain behavior to others, but its dangerous to internalize as a long term thing, and not just a stepping stone.

God damn it she never said her child was eight mentally.

For f***s sake you don't treat her like you would treat an eight-year-old version of her. She's not eight, she's twelve. And that should be mostly irrelevant because if you note everything by developmental benchmarks you're going to hold them back when they don't need to be held back [e.g. keeping nonverbal autistics in remedial classes forever, even when they demonstrate knowledge of the concepts and materials, because they are 'developmentally younger than their chronological age']. You teach by individual ability, not by benchmarks. If NTs get that privilege so do autistic people.

I used to do something similar because my allowance only paid for four days of lunch out of a five day week. I also have a problem with sweets where I'll eat them but I also have a huge association with guilt when I do - I don't know why, I can't think of any reason, but eating sweets just makes me feel sh***y 80% of the time. And it may be interesting to note that it hasn't stopped me from buying or eating sweets. I also used to sneak normal, gluten-flour cookies and cupcakes when I was little because my mom was trying to put me on a gfcf diet arbitrarily. [I don't have any medical condition that would necessitate this.]



OK, anyway, evaluate if your child has any other way to access this by herself. Can she save money, can she comfortably ask for help if needed? Not being able to ask is probably more important because some people have severe aversions to being told no, to the point where they won't even ask. Does your daughter ask at all or does she just take?

If she can do chores around the house then you could set up an allowance system where she can get the candy bar but only if she eats reasonably well and does her chores without being asked for the umpteenth time. You may have to remind her a couple of times because school and people are extremely stressful, and idk how she copes. So keeping that in mind... [also you should listen to her if certain chores become overstimulating; some can't handle the vacuum, some can't stand dishes, some can't stand turning shirts inside out. Give her options, like 'do you want to do the laundry, the dishes, or the floor?']

I think it is important to remember she has ADHD here. People with ADHD often have problems with impulse control and because it is related to brain functioning, there will be times when punishments and reinforces will be ineffective. My son (12, like your daughter), for example, asked me to lock the food pantry because he recognized that he simply cannot resist his impulse to take food he is not supposed to have when I am not home. He knows he is not supposed to eat it, but he feels an overwhelming urge to do it, he does it, then he ends up feeling like crap afterward. Guilty because he broke a rule. Guilty because he ate things he was not supposed to eat. Sick because he ate too much. We found that no consequences helped. Neither did rewards. So, I have to act as his surrogate frontal lobe and squash his impulse by not giving him access.

I do want to point out that my son is an incredibly compliant kid in general and is very people-pleasing. He obeys both the letter and spirit of the law and in general has a very difficult time breaking rules. I share this because I want to highlight that for some people, this type of behavior is not exactly a volitional thing. It is very unusual for him to disobey. In fact, if someone inadvertently left something out and he ate it, when I get home he usually tells me and announces what he believes to be the appropriate consequences, and he is usually dead on, and sometimes more strict than I would have been. If it is an impulse control thing, she may not be able to help it and in that regard YOU must take control because the only lesson you are teaching her if you don't is that she is a "bad" kid for not doing what she's supposed to do.

I want to second the notion that although she is chronologically 12, she is likely not developmentally 12. FTR, my son has ADHD, NLD, and SPD. I'd say he acts like a 10 year old--at best--with many things.