Mother of the Week Contender Turns in Own Kid for Shoplifting, Asks to Collect Reward for Reporting Incident

Most parents would prefer to keep their kids out of legal trouble — especially kids who have yet to enter SECOND GRADE — but not so for an Ohio woman who asked that police be called after she caught her 6-year-old daughter shoplifting a package of stickers.

Good thing the kid didn’t try to take a Hannah Montana lunchbox, too.  Her mom may have requested a life sentence!

Diane Lyons said she doesn’t believe she overreacted when she discovered the girl, Shiane, had taken the $3.11 package of stickers used to make temporary tattoos, because she was merely trying to teach the girl a lesson early in life.

Chief Ronald Yeager of the Carrollton Police Department took the girl to the police station in his cruiser before releasing her to her mom again.

“I don’t think I went too far,” Lyons said in a phone interview. “You’ve got to catch them when they first start if they do something wrong.”

HERE’S THE BEST PART:  Lyons, 31, asked about collecting a $30 reward for turning in shoplifters but decided not to follow up because she felt bad about doing it. Wow, what an upstanding citizen!

“People think that I set her up or something to get the reward,” Lyons said.

Gee, ya think?

A parent’s own discipline is typically more effective when dealing with a young child’s wrongdoing, said Stanley Goldstein, a child clinical psychologist in Middletown, N.Y.

“You’re asking police to do something that’s not in their training,” said Goldstein, author of “Troubled Children/Troubled Parents.”

“They’re not experts on kids; they’re experts on policing the community.”

Also, they have more important things to do.  Like give a ticket to that four-year-old punk who cut off Skye’s stroller with his tricycle this morning.  Throw the book at him, I say!