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.
In my experience getting louder doesn’t resolve any misbehaviour, at least not in the long term…
I have anticorp beliefs so I’d be aware of teaching the moral standpoint of not stealing from small, independent, local businesses.
She definitely seems to prioritise her desire for the item or the act of stealing over any knowledge of wrongdoing.
I know that taking one out of one’s comfort zone, as it were, can elicit more effective punishment. I can only think of temporary confiscation of whatever she likes (it’ll be easy if her parent/s already got her hooked on electronic devices), or perhaps if she finds comfort in her parent/s, her being detained by an officer or store security for stealing, with no familiar face in sight, but for a 7yo this’ll be hard to fabricate.
I was thinking about setting up something with a local officer - I read that you’re in the UK, so that gives you a good shot of this at least
How is she for eating vegetables? Could threaten to remove them as a punishment. I fell for some dumb threats as a kid, it might work to reinforce that veg is the most important portion aha
As well as punishment for what would later in life result in legal conflict, you probably know it’s just as important to encourage streaks of good behaviour, if you’re confident it really is a clean streak.
Thanks for your insight. I’ve not thought of removing vegetables, she does eat them no problem & enjoys them. My real worry is that if the behaviour continues into later life, then the consequences are much more severe.
I agree, last I checked the law starts to get involved at age 10, and we’d rather prevent her from getting in serious trouble!
I suppose I’d also try completely putting aside the wrongness of it, as she seems to know, and instead try to understand why she does it, maybe figure out why it so appealing. Maybe the adrenaline of doing it, which could be substituted for a different activity… I hope you have luck!