my daughter has stolen a few things. She’s 7 now but it started when she was 6. It was from school a few times - at first it was seen as a mistake and for her to return at item.
She was always told “it’s the school’s” or “person X will be sad if doesn’t have y back”.
Recently however she took some chewing gum from a shop. When I saw it I took her back to the shop, we gave it back and she apologised to the shopkeeper.
I told her about how it is not nice, can make people sad, it is illegal etc. she didn’t get a dessert that day (our usual day for having one). And I wrote a few questions on a bit of paper (why stealing is bad, what will you do if you feel like doing it again etc.) and asked her to answer them - she wrote the answers down.
Less than a week later she got a pencil off a boy, gave it to her mum and said that she won two pencils. We checked this with the teacher and the teacher said there was a boy who ‘lost’ a pencil and was upset about it.
So she knows it is wrong, but is continuing to do it. It is difficult to catch her in the act of it. Has anyone dealt with similar behaviour in a child of a similar age? Any recommendations?
I can force myself to shout at her (this would scare her as I don’t shout), I can take her to the local police by pre -arrangement , I’m not sure what the best approach to stop this behaviour is. It could have possibly been going on since she was in nursery as we’ve always accounted for things showing up as normal mistakes not intentional stealing.
Not-a-parent here. I would probably speak with a therapist/child psychologist. Kleptomania is a thing, it happens, it is treatable. If it’s not that, a therapist would still be able to help.
In any case, holy shit definitely don’t do that:
Ratting out your own child to police for very minor infractions, even just for a scare or whatever, sounds like a good way to lose her trust, ruin her psyche and destroy your relationship with her forever. All for what?
It would be a community support police officer, in the UK. It wouldn’t be a criminal record sort of thing nor even saying my daughter is stealing or anything serious. Basically a discussion of what can happen if someone steals. Just an idea. They have regular community events which we would attend and I’d ask ’ what happens if '… My wife is a psychologist, so we have that part covered. Thanks for your response.
Doctors still go to other doctors, you don’t want your wife to be both a mom and the therapist, it muddies the waters. An unrelated third party can do a lot of things parents can’t (some things settle differently when a parent says it vs when someone else says it). It’s also tough for the grown ups to see things that are obvious to others. So many kids with even mild adhd or autism that could have had a little help, but the parents just thought of it as their quirks.
Edit: sorry for the babbling rant