Steal something from her
Every time she gets caught, she has to take the stolen item back to the owner, admit stealing it, and apologize. If it’s something non-returnable, then she has to earn enough money to pay for it twice over–depending on circumstances, the money should compensate the victim, and the extra be donated to charity. Plus she gets whatever punishment applies in your house for a serious offense. At age 12, I suppose that’s probably grounding,and no internet, tv, or telephone privileges for some period of time.
From age 10 on, I made my own money; I babysat LOTS. When we moved, at age 16, I lost all my contacts and looked for real work. But month after month of no luck, and I too, began shoplifting the little things that I wanted for myself that I couldn’t ask family to provide;after years of providing those things for myself, I…continued to do so, by stealing. Things like makeup and candy. I got busted, and arrested, while putting BACK things. I headed out of the store with a candy bar still in my pocket. My folks, rightfully, let me be arrested, and then I was stuck not only grounded for life, but unable to pay the 300 dollar fine. (This was almost 30 years ago; I am sure the fines have only gotten higher)
My mom, bless her understanding heart, told me of a job opening at her gym, working in the nursery. While I suspect she might have talked with someone and made sure I got the job, somehow, I was pretty much on my own after that, back to making my own way financially <in the small areas, obviously; didn’t move out until I was 18>
Anyway…the girl may be stealing just to act out, but don’t give her any excuses. Make sure she has a CORRECT way of EARNING what she wants. Don’t just give it to her, either; nobody appreciates anything easy, especially not kids. Everyone, especially kids, needs a way to value their own efforts, to know that they did this and got this in return, and to know it was their own independant work that got them there; a feeling of accomplishment, there we go. I always use too many words to get the point across!
Just make sure she is EARNING whatever rewards she is getting, whether it is an allowance, or funtime activities. And if/when things get too emotional and you can’t see the forest for the trees, just back up a bit and pretend your child is like any other animal you want to train. Don’t take actions personally; just respond firmly and consistantly, and without anger or <overmuch> disappointment. Set high expectations, and BELIEVE in them. Do what you can, and try not to take it too personally if/when she still needs to act out on her own. Just…try to find a way she can do that constructively, perhaps.
It’s only two cents, but maybe they’ll all add up. 
I hate to bring it up, but could kleptomania be a possibility?
What has the behavioral therapist suggested? Does your daughter have any history of developmental/psychological problems that could be impacting her behavior?
One behavioral study I read on stealing behavior involved having the perpetrator not only return the stolen goods, but buy something of equal value to the stolen property and give that to the victim as well.
When I was a toddler, I liked playing blocks with my dad. One day, I threw a block hard at his forehead. Instead of getting upset or lecturing me, he picked up a block, and gingerly hit me back, again in the forehead. I started to bawl, and he simply said “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
In keeping with my dad’s style of mentor-ship, I say you should have her kidnapped.
Like others have said, this sounds as if it may go a bit deeper than just her needing to be taught that this isn’t okay. Have things changed recently? A move, new baby, fights or stress in the family, or financial stress, that sort of thing?
Anyway…My daughter was about that age when she took a little trinket from a walmart type store. I didn’t discover it until we were on our way home. It was a cheap little bracelet and she was wearing it. I said “where did you get that”? She gave me this whole song and dance about a friend who had supposedly just given it to her.
Mysteriously and while she was within sight of me the whole time we were shopping?? And with a price tag still attached? I got it out of her that she’d taken it from the store. I turned that car RIGHT around and marched her back into the store and made her give it back to a manager and tell him what she’d done (these days? I don’t know how good an idea that would be, what with our super sue-happy society and all).
The poor kid, she was SOOOOOOO embarrassed that I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West (what my dad always said about “this hurts me more than it hurts you”? turns out that’s true ). She’s 30 now and tells me that that was a key lesson in making her the strong hardworking, and honest person she is today. I hope I can lay claim to helping her become the wonderful young woman she is.
This may sound a bit ‘out there’, but at high school I had a friend who stole and her excuse was that it was a ‘quick thrill’. She didn’t have any after school activities, her parents and siblings weren’t particularly involved in her life and she spent a lot of time either at the mall (where the stealing would happen) or in her bedroom.
As an adult, I now wonder if she would have stolen as much if she’d had another activity that gave her the same thrill, whether it was a sport that tired her out, or something with a hint of danger (indoor rock climbing or something like that).
I’m not saying that any of my friend’s characteristics match your daughter, but I’m just wondering where else in her life she gets that sense of ‘thrill and adventure.’
sandra that doesn’t sound out there, that sounds like a great possibility. Even if the OP’s little girl isn’t in it for thrills, having a good distraction might be an excellent solution. She can’t be out stealing when she’s busy with (and tired from) dance practice, or what have you.
I had a series of significantly traumatic events happen when I was nine, which concluded with moving in with another family member temporarily. While there, I stole. I didn’t think I was doing it for attention, but it was certainly clear I couldn’t get away with it (it could only have been me stealing). It was made completely clear to me that although they understood that I was having a hard time, there was no excuse for this shameful behaviour. They were gentle but firm.
Fast forward six years, I was depressed and confused, and I was suspended from school for stealing. I had to spend three weeks at home, then go back and apologise to my whole year group all at once. It was their decision whether to let me come back to school or not. They let me come back, but I had to go to a counsellor, wasn’t allowed to stay around school apart from during the school day, and lost the trust of all my peers. Worse, though, my parents were devastated. The thought of my mother, who is a very emotionally reserved woman, asking me with tears in her eyes, “How could you?” makes me feel sick and ashamed even all these years later.
I had reasons why I stole, both times, which I won’t go into here. Suffice to say I needed the counselling, partly to sort things out in my own head, partly to have some of the attention I felt I lacked. My counsellor was terrible, unfortunately, and since she was appointed by the school I couldn’t change, but I think a good counsellor could have really helped a lot quicker.
In all this long spiel, I think I’m saying that there will be reasons why your child is stealing. They might be serious or apparently trivial, but there will be reasons. If the counsellor she’s currently seeing isn’t helping, maybe consider a different one or a different type of counselling. Pay attention to her positive behaviour and allow her to be an individual in her own way, reassuring her that whatever kind of person she is, you love and support her. A lot of it for me was to do with feeling that I couldn’t express my own identity, so I chose another one: thief.
juvenile detention?
Seriously, talking isn’'t helping a couple of nights in jail might. I only knew 1 12 year old that stole and stole as often as possible. At 18 he was sent away for 3 years for stealing, I’m pretty sure he has spent more time behind bars than free.
Nip it, Nip it in the bud.
I would be very cautious about that type of approach. Maybe in Mayberry, but not in most other locales. A friend of mine was arguing with his 16 year old son. The son got fed up and just had to get away for a few minutes, so he drove off in his dad’s car.
Dad was pissed at son walking away, so he called the cops and reported the car stolen. Police see “stolen” car and pull it over. When the kid tried to explain, he wound up face down in the dirt, cuffed, bruised up pretty badly.
Didn’t help father-son relations at all.
Don’t, don’t don’t ever involve the police. She could end up in a juvenile detention center which is nothing but a school to train criminals. See the recent contretemps in Pennsylvania where a juvenile court judge was getting kickbacks from the centers and sending kids who did a hell of a lot less that your daughter to a center (in one notorious case, for sassing a teacher on Facebook). Keep a million miles from the police.
Actually I like the idea of forcing her to return the stuff and confess. But if she is compulsive, it may require more professional counseling.
Is there something you can take for this?
I think that idea is right on the money. It might be a good idea to check her dopamine(or is it seratonin?) levels. She may have a really high arousal level, in which case the shoplifting is just giving her the boost she needs to feel something other than just…flat.
Don’t take her anywhere for a while. Make arrangements for babysitters if need be. She is restricted to her room, no computers, no cell phones, no TV, no nothing except for a stack of reference books for something you wish she understood more and perhaps some quality fiction preferably things that will be in her english curriculum over the next few years.
Let reading and learning become her escape.
Worked on me.
Pretty much every girl I know went through a ‘shoplifting phase,’ to the point where we can trade stories now that we’re adults (and have all turned out quite well). The shame of being caught stopped it for many of them. The rest grew out of it. Some of it was the thrill of being bad (until they managed to get some cigarettes or booze), some was taking stuff they really wanted but weren’t allowed (bras, make-up, even tampons), some of it was bonding between them.
ETA Being 12 is the worst.
Under no circumstances unless you are certain it cannot be brought up later in life. Certainly if you were in the UK then doing this could theoretically deprive her of a chance of being, say, a doctor, when she grows out of it.
OP, I feel for you and I wish I had an answer.
I don’t.
My kid started at about 9 and has not stopped.* Nothing has worked - not counselling, not consequences, not rewarding good behaviour, not a “talking to” by police, not getting arrested, not hurting and upsetting his family, not losing things he really likes to have, nothing. Not. One. Thing.
He’s almost 15 now.
Essentially, we have worked out in counselling that he’s pretty mad at me for divorce related issues - he first had primary custody with his father, although I was heavily involved in his life and he had quite long stretches of visitation with me. Things happened whilst in his father’s custody with his father’s gf of which I had no awareness - the gf was telling my son I left because I didn’t love him, all sorts of horrible stuff. To add to that, my ex was telling my son that they couldn’t have nice things because I didn’t pay child support - which was an absolute and utter lie. Had I known, of course, all fucking holy hell would have broken lose, but I didn’t. My son never told me until about six months ago, and my ex claims he didn’t know about his ex gf saying all this stuff (essentially pretty clearly mentally abusing my kid, although he swears she never laid a hand on him) but he admits to the child support lie. He lives because it is illegal for me to kill him painfully.
After a year and a half, my ex and I swapped custody - I had him primary, and the ex had every opportunity to avail himself of the same amount of involvement - daily phone calls and school holiday extended visits (we live in different countries.) He has chosen to do none of this. Although he tells my son he will and then does not follow through, which makes things SO much better, as you can imagine.
In addition to theft, we had some fire starting and a long string of destroying property (only mine and his stepdad’s.)
So, from what we can gather, my son was a really pissed off young man. He also plays things close to the chest, by nature, so he didn’t want to tell us any of this, despite being given every opportunity. He worked out stealing pisses me off and hurts my feelings, and further, pisses off his stepdad, so he did lots of it.
I don’t have a good answer, bup. Things got very bad here, everybody always angry at everybody else, which didn’t foster a good environment for any of us, most of all my son. Punish him in some way, by taking away privileges? He’d steal for revenge. My husband had tried so hard, but my son treated him like crap - and was smart enough to wait till I wasn’t home to do it. We had bigger issues than stealing, as you can see, but stealing was the one constant throughout. My son ended up not really having a normal kid life, no sports, no out with friends, because I could not trust him not to steal and because I could not make myself reward him with the being able to do fun things when he was making the entire family so miserable.
Our solution has been boarding school. My son loves it there. We like having him there - I really miss him, although I can’t say my husband does and I can’t say I blame my husband for not missing him. To be fair, it’s not cheap and my husband makes far more than me, so essentially he’s paying for it. My husband participates in my son’s school - it’s about three hours away from here - so we do the parent’s weekend and parent teacher conferences. My son is home for school holidays. The benefits for my son are many - a supportive environment, a fresh start, a place where he’s not the “kid who is a thief”, a heavily academic and sports centred lifestyle where he’s too busy and too tired to get into trouble. I don’t have to worry about not being able to supervise him 24/7, which at his age, I should not. And slowly, by little bits, his step dad and him have started to repair their relationship.
So, sorry, no help. We couldn’t stop him, and it almost tore this family apart. It got to the point that we had everything locked in boxes, and my son was stealing keys off keyrings and making copies. He had no privacy, I had to search his room constantly. I had no privacy - you want to contemplate what it’s like to have your kid know your method of birth control, and what colour your sex toys are? It’s awful.
What we’re doing now seems to be working, but we’ll see. I’ve had my hopes dashed before that I could fix him somehow, so I’m reserving judgements.
*I say he hasn’t stopped by as far as I know he’s not stolen since we sent him to school in January. And despite all his practice, he’s a lousy thief and tends to get caught. So maybe…just maybe…