Best Way to Deal With Children Stealing

A child under the age of three does not usually have a full understanding of the significance of personal pos­sessions. True, a young child can get very agitated when his friend takes one of his favorite toys without asking, but he can­not generalize this concept to other people’s possessions. So he doesn’t “steal” in the adult sense of the word; no malicious intent underlies his action.

Your child does have to learn the basic meaning of owner­ship. That’s why minor incidents of theft by a child under the age of four should be dealt with firmly, but reasonably. Tell your child that taking other people’s things is wrong, that others won’t like him if they think he takes things without asking, but don’t make a big issue out of it. If your child does tend to take things without permission, give him a fresh reminder before you visit someone else’s house.

By the age of four or five, your child will know right from wrong and will know that stealing is not allowed. He may be tempted to try it out at some time or another, even though he knows he shouldn’t do it, for the following reasons:

• Stealing gives your child what he wants, without having to wait. A child who wants candy but has no money can solve this problem by stealing money from his classmate’s desk or from home. A child who wants a computer game, but hasn’t got one, can change the situation by stealing one from someone else.
• Stealing can appear exciting and adventurous. The thrill associ­ated with stealing (fear of discovery, excitement at disobey­ing adult rules) can be very attractive to a child—at least, until he is caught, at which point he wishes he had never thought of the idea in the first place.
• Stealing may maintain your child’s status among his friends. Your child may be tempted into theft because his friends steal and he doesn’t want to be left out of the crowd. It’s not easy for a child to resist such pressures.
• Your child has seen you steal. You would probably be outraged at the suggestion that you might be a thief. But have you ever brought paper or pencils home from the office without paying for them? Have you ever been undercharged in the supermarket, yet not declared it? Double standards of moral­ity confuse children.

If you do discover your child has stolen something, nip it in the bud there and then. Treat the matter seriously (even if the item he has taken is insignificant), explain the consequences of his behavior, ensure that he is involved in compensating the victim, and discipline him reasonably. As long as your child knows that you strongly disapprove of his behavior, he is unlikely to repeat it again. Remember, though, that the fact that your child has pinched a candy from a shop without paying hardly puts him in the same league as a bank robber. A one-time incident does not mean a regular pattern will be established.

Persistent theft by a school-age child is a genuine cause for concern because it may be a sign of a deeper emotional prob­lem. A child who fails to get love and attention from his parents may decide—perhaps unconsciously—that at least he will get something from them, so he steals money from his mother’s purse even when he does not want to spend it, or takes cookies from the cupboard even when he is not hungry. Many psychol­ogists claim that this unconscious motivation frequently under­lies incidents of repeated theft.

A child who steals for these reasons still has to have moral rules explained to him and still needs to be treated firmly. But stealing is only the symptom of his underlying difficulty—it is not the real problem. The best way to tackle that more-serious issue is for the child’s parents to think long and hard about their child’s development. They must examine their child’s life close­ly, and their relationship with him.