Now that Krazy Caity is twelve she is becoming a strong independent woman... At least she thinks she is but every parent knows, a twelve year old is not even close to becoming an adult, they are headstrong children that think they are more capable than they actually are.
Recently I have allowed her a lot more freedom to go to dances, school events, community events and regular trips to the library. During her freedom she has met some new people and started making friends, unfortunately for her not everyone she meets is as nice as they may seem and this lesson is being learned the hard way.
Krazy Caity has met a girl her age, they hit it off and hung out quite a bit out in the community. This new friend introduced Caity to some exciting news books.... Japanese manga.
Caity brought home three pretty graphic books with boy on boy themes and some very detailed drawings in them, which did have a warning label on them that sated they were adult only and contained graphic content.
I immediately laughed because Caity thought they were just Japanese comics, she didn't actually flip through them before bringing them home.
My husband and I explained to Caity what these books really were and after some discussion and laughs she agreed to return the books to the library.
I wish I could say this is the end of this lesson but it isn't.
Yes Caity learned a lesson, she will definitely be more careful when checking out books and will stay away from the adult section at the library from now on, but that's only half of the lesson.
We discovered quite by accident that Caity wasn't the only one who checked out those manga books, her new friend took three of them as well, only she didn't check them out using her own card, she took them out on Caity's card.
This girl told Caity that she didn't want her parents to know that she took these books and Caity being the nieve, good natured girl that she is, didn't think twice about letting this girl use her card.
Unfortunately the due date for these books has come and gone and this new friend was nowhere to be found. Caity tried calling and texting and going every day to their usual hang outs but this girl seemed to have vanished off the face of the planet.
Now as parents we have a couple options in this situation, we could simply renew these books until they are returned by this girl, or we can let Caity learn a valuable life lesson about trust and have her pay her friends late fees.
Of course we choose the latter. We decided that this was the right time for Caity to learn all about trust. As much as we hate to see our daughter go through situations like these it is important for her to understand that she can't trust everyone, even when that person is a new friend.
The end result of this is Caity not being allowed to take anything out from the library until the books her friend has are returned and of course, she will have to use her weekly allowance to pay the late fees, if the books are ever actually returned. If the books never get returned then we will make a trip to the library, explain the situation to the librarian and buy the books as well as pay late fees... This has the potential to be an expensive life lesson.
Caity is taking this rather well, as upset as she is about the situation, she understands that she made a mistake and has been doing her best to get a hold of this girl so the books can be returned. She even has the intention of telling this girl that she has to pay late fees and getting this girl to pay her back for them.
Caity did catch a passing glimpse of this girl at the mall and proceeded to run through the mall calling out to her until she caught up. This girl has now been informed that the books she has are overdue, the girl acted as though it was no big deal and said that she might be able to drop them off the following Friday. When she was told that she would have to pay Caity for the late fees the girl walked away leaving Caity frustrated.
At this point, I'm guessing that we will be making that trip to the library to buy the books and pay off the late fees ourselves, I have my doubts that this girl will come through for Caity in returning the books at all.
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