Q12: Life With Charley – Mr. Sticky Fingers

In this chapter, Sherry talks about Charley’s bad habit of taking things that aren’t his.

Charley is always coming home with possessions. Magazines, catalogs, batteries, DVDs, CDs (at one point, we noticed the bibles at church were disappearing. Sure enough, they were stashed in his closet). Not theft, exactly. More like a back-up plan for when he can’t find the one that belongs to him or when it breaks, whichever comes first. This happens frequently. The remote becomes tangled in the bed linens or buried under the other remotes on his bed. His solution when this happens is to replace it. When interrogated at the Palmer family precinct, his reply is always the same. “I bowwote” (borrowed), or, “S’okay Mom, dat not da weal mote.” And sure enough, when his “real” remote finds its way back home (it lives on his bed), he finds a way to return the one he lifted. And all the while he has no idea that someone, somewhere, has turned their house upside down looking for their “mote.” Pp. 153-154

Has your child ever indulged in “creative borrowing?”  What punishments work best in your house?

Jealousy is a hard emotion to explain to people who rely on concrete thinking, but Sherry knows it’s why Charley took the love letter.

Supporting relationships for our children is a difficult task.

I look at the love letter again. I get it; the kid is lonely. He’s a teenage boy who wants a girlfriend. And why wouldn’t he? Everyone else seems to have a girlfriend, why not him? The problem is, I don’t know how to get him one. P. 164

 

Do you have to facilitate friendships for your son/daughter?  Does he/she have a romantic relationship, and if so, did you act as “match maker”?  Does your son/daughter prefer “typical” peers?

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One comment on “Q12: Life With Charley – Mr. Sticky Fingers
  1. Celeste Hart says:

    my son snatches pop and Zebra Cakes, magazines from Food Lion, but everybody knows us, so they let me know and I go back and pay. We can’t get him to understand so we worked out another plan, no punishment

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