Stealing money

Q: Dear Askanaspie,

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.  My daughter was just recently diagnosed with Asperger's and I am just learning to see her behavior with new eyes so your advice will be extremely helpful.

My ten year old Aspie daughter, I believe, has recently taken a fairly large amount of money from my husband and me.  I can't say I saw her do it but it is the case of circumstantial evidence being overwhelming..she was in the proximity of the where the money was removed and the denominations of the money she "found" were exactly the same. This is new territory for me because previously she has been very honest or so obviously dishonest that she came clean pretty quickly.  This time when I gave her with the facts, asked her if she had taken the money, gave her many outs for what I thought were reasonable explanations for why she would have thought it was okay to take the money and given her the opportunity to put the money back, she has vehemently denied that she did anything and insisted that this money mysteriously appeared under her bed.  She also mentioned "finding" a small amount of money in her classroom recently.  I haven't gotten a call from the school about this but after the experience at home, I am worried.  Can you help me understand this behavior?

I could just take the money back but that seems a short term solution destined to create behavior problems elsewhere.  Do you have any suggestions on how I can get her to face the fact that this behavior is wrong and correct it.

Thanks,

Beth

A: I remember when I was five or six I had a tendency to go through my
dad's change bowl and take coins. I saved up $10 in these coins, and
then, very proud of myself, told my parents about it.  They asked where
the money came from.  I said I had taken it from Dad's change bowl.
They took it back.  At the time I couldn't understand why they would do
that.  There was money lying around, they had told me that saving money
was good, and I didn't really make the connection that the money in the
bowl belonged to someone else and was thus not available for saving.

It's possible that this is the problem in this case, but what I find a
lot more troubling is the fact that she isn't telling the truth about
it.  Children with Asperger's don't always have a good idea of what
other people know and what they don't.  She might not realize that you
know she took the money, so she thinks that if she just keeps denying
it you won't "find out".  I think the best bet is to confront her
openly, explain that you know she took the money, explain how you know
she took the money, and that while taking money from other people is
wrong, lying about it is even worse.  The trick is to not only be clear
about the rules, but to be clear about the ways and consequences of
getting caught.

Wiley