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.
It sounds like you’ve got a good approach and good advice from the comments. Frustrating, for sure, but it’s likely to take a lot of time and repetition. Something to add to your conversations with her - you might want to start asking about her feelings about stealing. What was the moment when she realized she wanted to take something, what did it feel like when she took it, how does she feel about other people’s reactions. Lots of unpack there! Maybe it’s a conversation to have away from an actual stealing incident, so that you can approach it with curiousity more than (immediate) judgement. Does she WANT to keep stealing? And if so, why? If not, does she need help coming up with strategies to deal with the feeling of wanting to steal something in the moment?