How would you respond?

You asked how we would respond. I’m a teacher and a mother. I’ll give you my view.

Poverty and food insecurity is real. However, teachers get to know students pretty well by this time of year. If this student had food issues there would have been clues before now. I’ve had several students who are currently homeless or have been in the past. Some steal/hoard food, others take random items, the rest don’t steal at all. 

Stealing is stealing whether it’s one piece of candy or the whole bag. My middle child stole one piece of Dove chocolate from the pharmacy. I smelled it when he ate it in the car. We went back to the store, he told the cashier what he did, apologized, and i paid for the candy. When we got home he gave me money from his piggy bank to replace what I had paid. He was four, but he remembered that taking ANYTHING that isn’t yours is stealing. He has thanked me for teaching him that early in life. 

Lying is not acceptable. I tell my students that if they take responsibility for their mistakes I can work with them. If they lie to me, then consequences will definitely be given. My oldest once had a substitute in 5th grade. They took a math test right before recess. My daughter didn’t liege math, knew she wasn’t ready for the test, and didn’t want to take it. So she pretended to be writing until it was time for recess. Then she hid the paper in her desk.



The sub counted the papers that were turned in and knew one was missing. She told students to line up as she called their name. She read names from the papers. My daughter would slip in line when someone near her was called. Sub got to the last paper and everyone is in line. The numbers still didn’t add up, so she repeated having all sit down and line up again. My daughter did the same thing. Finally, on the third time, she had them leave the room as she called them. My daughter wasn’t able to slip in line this way. 

I was notified. I had my daughter write an apology to the sub and another to the class. The sub received her apology to read privately. The class received a verbal apology for lying and causing them to miss part of their recess time. She said it was scary to stand in front of her friends and apologize even though they all already knew what she’d done. But she has said that the lesson on honesty stuck with her. She has a two-year-old now and knows she wants to teach honesty and responsibility to her own child. 

FFS. Some of you are really batshit crazy.

I’m so glad I’m not teaching anymore. I’ve been on several sides of these situations. I was a teacher. I was that parent whose kid did stupid shit. I’ve also dealt with teachers (and administrators) who made big deals out of nothing. (My son had sharpie drawings on his arm and his dean called me to say he was “wasting school resources”. 🙄)

This is NOT a big deal about nothing. The kid breached her personal space and lied about it. It’s NOT about the CANDY. She never did a “public shaming” of the kid.

Ignore the idiots, husker.

I my kids were told to ignore stupid teachers. see how this works?
I grew up being shamed and unapolgetically mistreated by ignorant teachers like so many of you are exposing your self to be.  I wasn't very tolerant of my kids being treated the same way. You wonder why today's society is the way it is; kids spend most of their waking hours with idiot teachers who don't know how to put away personal stuff and shame kids for acting like kids.

I think you made it about the candy from the beginning when you made the comment about getting the wrapper in the garbage, etc. I could see how the kid might think it was about the candy.

If I was the teacher, I would have talked about boundaries and not taking things from my desk rather than finding out who took the candy. However, I don’t necessarily think that how you handled it was wrong, and situations develop as they go so what each person says is related to what the other persons response is.

If I was the parent, I would say thanks for letting me know, we will talk about it at home. I think you and others are making a lot of assumptions of what the parents did or didn’t say.

Judging by how this was written and your lack of reading comprehension on my last post, it’s pretty obvious that you ignored your teachers. 

Today’s society is because of people like you who teach their kids to ignore teachers and not respect boundaries. 

For me it's putting all of the emphasis on the candy itself, which to me, is the least important part of the story.  If it were my child, I would not have even bothered to send in any replacement candy at all, given that it was one single piece.  I would, however, have sent a note/email to the teacher letting them know that we would address the stealing/lying issues. 

I asked DH as well, and his reaction was the same as mine, that the 3 bags of candy to replace one single piece sounds like they're saying "Oh my gosh, you're whining over one piece of candy??  Fine---here's a boat load of candy."  



(I will say, though, that the fact that they sent in 3 bags of candy unnecessarily also makes me believe that this is likely not a food insecurity issue.)

I understand.  Thanks for clarifying.