To the mother of the seven year old girl who stole from EB Games, I understand that it is not easy being a parent let alone being the parent of a child with a disability (or so you say, I do not know and will not assume). However I must point out to you that regardless of your child's possible social unawareness it is your duty as a mother to watch over her and to raise her properly. Instead you use this disability as a crutch and rather than returning the stolen property from which it came, you remained in The Source buying a cell phone. I can see you have your priorities all sorted out so I feel I don't need to say anything.

When I found your daughter and saw you do nothing about returning the stolen property I decided to wait in the hallway for security to arrive so that they can make sure the property is returned and that the situation is dealt with, however it needed to be. I did this so that if you decided to leave that I can then tell security where you went so they can talk to you.

And to accuse me of harassment for simply keeping an eye on you while I waited for security to arrive, let me make myself clear; I do not know you. I do not trust you. I have no reason to believe you when you tell me that you will return the item, especially when you are more worried about a new cell phone and not the fact that your child just did a bad thing that, if she was older, would be a criminal offence. As I have said, I do not know you. You may just as well have left the store with the figurines to later give back to the child as if to say “I know you stole, but that's okay, here go play”.

All of this would have been avoided had you been watching your children. As I have said, your daughter was caught stealing from a store, separate from the one you were in. I don't blame your daughter, especially if she does have a disability you stated she has, as it can be marked by lack of understanding of social rules and boundaries. However, this is extremely dangerous as not only does this open them to doing something bad such as stealing, but what makes it scarier is that anyone could have picked her up and left with her. Don't blame me for your mistake.

Use this as a teachable moment to discuss with your children right from wrong as opposed to what you did today at the mall (which was that when they do something bad it's not their fault, it's the fault of the person catching them and that Mommy will defend your deplorable behaviour).

Signed, The bad guy who caught your thieving kid!