What you do when your child steal things?
By june2248
@june2248 (154)
September 13, 2012 3:57pm CST
We all steal something at least once when we were kids. Mostly parents overreact,panic,
accuse a child of being a thief. They take extreme measures like spanking, grounding, and other punitive solutions,Judging and punishing kids only makes the situation worse.
1 person likes this
5 responses
@bunnybon7 (50970)
• Holiday, Florida
14 Sep 12
well frankly thats exactly what i did if i was the first to discover it and i was with 3 and it worked as far as i could ever tell. it also worked with me when i was growing up. the thing that worked with my other 2 is they got taken down to the jail and spent some 2 hrs. behind bars when they were caught by a store and by the time i got called and picked them up they had learned their lesson believe me.
@carmelanirel (20942)
• United States
13 Sep 12
First thing I did with my children is to teach them stealing is wrong in the first place. Out of all my children, the only one who stole, that I know of, was my oldest. She was probably about 7 or 8 at the time and we had left the store and somehow either her younger brother or someone saw she was eating candy we didn't buy. So my husband took her back into the store and gave her money, (that she had to pay him back for when we got home) and made her apologize to the employee and gave them the money for the candy. By making my daughter responsible for her actions, she knew that we did not take stealing lightly.
Then we did another lesson in explaining why stealing was wrong and ever since then, she hasn't stolen and as far as I know, my other children have not either.
@june2248 (154)
•
13 Sep 12
Hi Carmelanirel, i think parents are the best teacher, Children start lying from a very young age and you need to discourage those habits ever since the day you catch them doing so,don’t take your child’s story telling habits lightly.
whateve you did that leaves a positive impact on her life.
Also i believe you lesson will definitely help me in future.
@lelin1123 (15594)
• Puerto Rico
16 Sep 12
Thankfully I never experienced this problem with my two girls. If they had ever did such a thing I would have made them take back the item stolen and apologize for taking the item. Then they would have been punished for a week or two from their favorite thing to do at the time. Not giving a punishment will create more problems down the line. They need to learn from their mistakes, in my opinion.
