Long story short: SD is 8, bio kids are teens (all boys), SD and I have a rocky relationship, especially when she alternates weekends with BM. Over the past few weeks I've noticed an accumulation of pink erasers in SD's backpack. I confronted her 2 weeks ago, put them in a baggie and asked her to return them to school. I also email her teacher. Over two weeks she told me a few stories about how the erasers were lost/stolen, but refused to let me go talk to the school about the "issues." This week she finally said they were found in her backpack (without knowing I check it every night, and they were never in there after the weekend I found them) and they were returned.
I spoke with SDs teacher today, the erasers were returned. Teacher told me she also heard many tall tails about where the bag of erasers had disappeared to. Then she tells me that SD had been accused of stealing someones toy, and that the teacher had found a timer in SD's bag that was from the class room.
My bio kiddos had issues, but nothing like this and I honestly don't know exactly what to do. We spoke about stealing when I first found the erasers and she said her BM gave the all to her, which we knew as a lie. We've gone over lying a million times too. Although SD reacts much better when rewarded, I refuse to say "if you don't get caught stealing for a week, I'll reward you with ________________." I've used the reward system with SD too much, and this time I just don't think it is at all appropriate. I'm at a total loss here, but think that there may be something deeper going on. (And for the record BM will not allow us to take her to counseling, so for now that is off the table.) Any thoughts on how to handle this, discussion points, punishments, etc would be appreciated.