Certainly not your child. What do you do when your child steals? I've got 5
specific tips. Let's start with principle. Principles are natural laws that govern
everything. It's the moral foundation behind why we do what we do.
If your child is stealing, what moral principle does that violate? Well, there's
a couple of them actually. But let's start with honesty. We focus on honesty
and we teach that as a principle and part of our family culture. In other
videos including one where we talk about teaching children responsibility, you can
link to that video right up here. Just watch it after you've finished watching
this one. And it will clarify the 3 stages of moral development.
Sometimes stealing is more of a maturity thing than it is a morality thing.
Meaning that your child hasn't yet matured to a stage where they really get
the difference between right and wrong. But this is an opportunity for them to
learn it. Let's embrace anything that happens including our child stealing.
Let's embrace that as an opportunity to teach them the correct principles that
they need to know as they move forward with the rest of their life. Tip number
2 comes back to our family rules. I believe that sometimes we overdo it with
the rules. And if you notice that, sometimes you'll come up with this list
of comprehensive rules all the do's and the do nots and you got this big old
list. And your kids have this uncanny ability to find something that's not on
the list. And then they throw it in your faces like, "Well, that was a not on
list." I like to simplify our family rules down to 3. they all start with
respect. Respect yourself and others, that's rule number one.
Respect property, that's rule number 2. Respect authority, that's rule number
3 which means that you cooperate and obey.
Those 3 rules cover everything that I've ever been concerned about as a
parent. I can find a way to fit them into those 3 rules. Rule number two is all
about respect property and that's why stealing is a problem.
It violates one of our family rules. And the family rules are founded in the
principles of honesty and integrity. So, the family rule is respect property. That
means you do not take something that doesn't belong to you. We're going to use
opportunities to teach these principles to our children so that when the
stealing happens... And maybe it's a when and not an if. When the stealing happens,
we'll have a foundation that we can use to move forward and actually turn it
into a learning experience. We'll transition next into the justice system.
When your child steals, call the police and have... No, I'm kidding you. Sometimes
that may be appropriate, okay? But we want to have an appropriate level of justice
that happens even for our young children. And then hopefully we won't have to
worry about it so much when they're later in life when they become teenagers
or young adults. So, in the justice system that we establish in the family, there
will be restitution that is owed anytime someone steals something or take
something that doesn't belong to them. What does this mean?
One of our neighbors had her little 5 year old in the store. This 5 year old
reached out and took a candy bar from the store. Not only did he take it he
opened it and he started eating it. And so it's not easy to return something
that's already been opened and touched by the toddler, right? So, she took her
5-year-old back to the store and had him apologize to the store owner and pay
him. Now, he didn't have a lot of money. But mom lent him enough to pay for
it and then he gets to work it off with mom. I think good general rule on
restitution is that they should replace whatever it is that they took plus a
little bit of value on top of that. If you can't return it, you have to replace
it. And even if you return it, return a little additional value on top of that.
This helps to teach children the cost of making a moral judgment error. Sometimes
it feels like, "Oh, I'm getting something for nothing." They need to understand that
the stealing actually costs them. It doesn't give them anything.
So, the restitution is going to add a little bit of interest on top of it. The
consequences for stealing can be very natural and logical. I just give you an
example with taking a child back to the store where they get to apologize to the
merchants and they get to replace or return what it is that they took plus
interest. You can add other consequences and they don't have to be natural and
logical. You can totally make it up. If you want to, I don't want your hands to
be tied as a parent. I want you to have the freedom to do whatever is necessary
to help your child with this learning experience that they're having. So, they
might get some extra chores. They might get to write an essay about honesty.
There might be other ways that you think of as a parent that helps them to learn
from their experiences and appropriate consequences are one of the best ways
that they can learn this lesson now and not have this behavior pattern continue
into their later years. The other thing that good consequences will do is teach
your children the concept of hard-easy versus easy-hard. Hard-easy and easy-hard
are things that you've probably already noticed as an adult. If you do the hard
thing now you can create an easier outcome. If you do the easy thing now,
you're probably gonna get a hard outcome. The easy thing is just to steal the
thing that you want but that creates a harder outcome for you. The harder thing
would be to save your money and earn and purchase appropriately whatever it is
that you want. That's hard but it it's an easier existence for you after
that. Teach this principle of hard-easy, easy-hard. When this happens and you'll
notice, I didn't say "if", I said "when" again. I know just... Does that bother you? Probably
it's going to happen. When it happens, don't freak out. Okay? Stay calm as a
parent because this is an opportunity for your child to learn something and
it's happening at the lowest cost possible. For your child to steal
something right now is less expensive to that child then if they steal it 2
years from now. As we grow and get older, the cost increases. So we want them to
learn it when? Well, earlier it's not an option anymore.
Tomorrow's more expensive. Now's good. So chill. And when it happens, just take a
deep breath, okay? In through the nose, hold. Just a little out through the mouth
nice and slow. Get centered, pull your brain back out of fight-or-flight mode
so that you can see this as a valuable learning opportunity for your child. You
stay calm and then you process this with them in a way that allows for them to
solidify the learning and to take that forward with them into the rest of their
childhood and their adulthood. And their entire life will be blessed because you
were able to use this as a learning experience. If this becomes a chronic
pattern, you may be dealing with something different from experimentation.
Oppositional defiant disorder is something you might want to learn a
little more about. There's a link to the video right here. How to deal with a
child with ODD. And there's a lot of other videos right there in the positive
parenting playlist. Spend some time there. You've got this and we've got your back
as a positive parent.