subject: What Do You Do When You Catch Children Stealing? - Strategies To Help You Deal With This [print this page] What Do You Do When You Catch Children Stealing? - Strategies To Help You Deal With This
With very young children who like to steal toys from their siblings or friends, stealing is one of the parenting problems that we come across. The first thing we have to do is to try and teach the whole concept of ownership through examples of favorite toys and other things.
The first thing to do when dealing with children stealing is to explain as simply as we can that stealing is not only a criminal offence but is anti social to say the least. For very young children, we can explain that if somebody stole their beloved toy or teddy, then he would be very upset. What do we do when we catch children stealing?
The second thing we can do is not to show any anger or create a scene. There is no need for that as stealing happens and the idea of ownership has probably not been taken on board just yet, if the child is very young.
Ignoring stealing when it happens is just not on. We have to react and we have to do it quickly and calmly. If we are dealing with something stolen from the store, we need to go back with the child and pay for it. If the child is old enough, he has to earn this money back or simply have it deducted from his pocket money.
This is teaching the natural consequences of such anti social behavior. This is a good example of making the child accountable for his actions and although he may not be old enough to apologize for his stealing, at least he is there to witness the whole process of taking responsibility for his actions.
You can apply other consequences as well if you think it necessary such as no shopping trips at all for a certain period or not being allowed candy for a specific period.
Talking of shopping, it has been shown that the majority of children stealing are those who are left unsupervised.
If you ask a child why he has stolen, you may not get an answer as the child is too young to verbalize this. If the child is older and claims that he did not have enough money, then you start him on extra chores to earn money so that the chances of this happening are reduced. This also teaches him to start taking responsibility for his own allowance and how to manage it.
These then are some of the strategies we can learn from a child behavior program in dealing with children stealing property or things that do not belong to them. If you have other child behavior problems, you will find a wealth of information on how to deal with them.
welcome to Insurances.net (https://www.insurances.net)
