Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I have worked with troubled teens for many
years, and some of them were actually diagnosed kleptomaniacs. In this video,
I'm going to be talking about how to discipline a teenager who steals.
In this video, I'm going to talk about my story with working with teens with honesty issues,
and what worked and what didn't work. Years ago, when my own children were very young,
I took in treatment children. They were all between the ages of 12 and 18. I did this for a
number of years and we did therapeutic treatment care. So all of these youth came to our home with
different files that talked about what issues they were working through.
Many, many of them had what they called honesty issues, which means they would tell lies,
and they would steal things. But one child in particular, a girl who was 14 years old, she had
diagnosed kleptomania and she was a compulsive liar. She also had anger control issues
to boot, as she had a hard time connecting with people because she also had ADHD, and OCD. So
there was a lot going on with this young lady and she was definitely when it came to stealing and
honesty issues, our most difficult child to help. Now a little point of reference, when I was young,
I actually had honesty issues, too. I didn't steal really, but I lied. And I say, really,
because I think I probably did take a couple of things anyway. But I lied. I lied a lot. In fact,
it was habitual. And the two behaviors are very similar to each other. So I had corrected myself
when I was young. I had taught myself how to recognize I wanted to say something, stop myself,
then ask myself an evaluation question and plan my movements going forward. This helps me control the
impulse to lie. Well, controlling the impulse to steal is very, very similar. So I knew that
I could help people who were stealing or lying because I had personally overcome a line problem
in my youth and I vividly remembered it. So let's talk about what I did and what you can do to help
your teens who might be having a stealing or maybe even lying problem, too. So let's
understand stealing and lying, okay? People steal things because they feel like they have a need, or
because they have an impulse. Sometimes it can be a habit, it gives them a feeling of comfort. And
so they get this impulse of like I want, I want I don't know if I could get that. I don't know,
if I could ask someone for that. I don't know, if I have enough money for that, I may never get
one of the opportunity to have one of those again. So there's this like scarcity mentality that's in
somebody's brain when they are wanting to steal something. They're looking for comfort, which they
think will come from taking whatever that thing is, the problem with stealing is once you steal,
you usually have to lie about wherever you got the things. So usually, those two behaviors go
hand in hand because, you know, otherwise, how do you rationalize how you got the thing? You're
never going to just tell someone? Well, I still, you know, I mean, some people might,
but that's very rare. I never have had a foster child with a stealing problem, who would just
own up to it, if, that was later on in treatment, but at the beginning, not so much. So what did we
do to help them control that impulse then, if they felt this craving, and if they felt
this scarcity mentality? What did we do especially as foster children, they don't
have a lot of money. They're not living with their parents, they don't have a whole bunch of stuff
that belongs to them, all the more reason their scarcity mentality. So parents can create scarcity
mentality sometimes and not even know it. So my one child that was diagnosed as a kleptomaniac,
her mother was very abusive, and actually taught her how to steal and had taught her that
this was a good thing because she was taking care of her own problems by stealing and oftentimes,
the child would go hungry and she would have to go to neighbor's yards and steal things like food
and stuff so she did feel it was a survival skill. So if we make life for children like
to destitute or we don't explain circumstances is related to money and stuff, children might just
feel a little panicked and start feeling like it's a survival skill to take things so you know,
understanding why could help. We try to make our environment very secure, we tell her, hey, you
can have access to these things. And these things, so she knew she didn't have to feel like she was
taking everything. If you are micromanaging or controlling everything, a child who has a
tendency to steal will steal more. A parent who is overly controlling will push the child into a box
where they feel like they have to lie and steal. And we definitely don't want to be doing that. So
be sure to do some self evaluation there too, and see if there's anything that you can adjust about
you and if there are things that need adjustment, I can help with those things, too. That's what I
teach. So let's talk about how to bring this awareness to the child. But before we do,
tell me in the chat, what's going on? What type of stealing is happening, I think it
could probably help other people to to feel like they're not alone with what's going on with their
child. Stealing is a very difficult behavior, it can be very frustrating, and overwhelming to
deal with, because it seems like it doesn't get better very fast. I do know that. So leave me a
comment and let me know what you're dealing with. So let's talk about what to do. Number one, do not
take stealing personally. This is so important it is a frustrating behavior is something that
feels like a violation, it feels like an ultimate disrespect. But lots of times is not personal.
The person just takes because they have a craving, or because they have a habit. It's what they're
doing processing wise, it's not about you. Now, occasionally, a child is so oppositional defiant,
that they will steal or take something just to try to get under your skin, just to try to make your
life hard or horrible. But usually they'll own up to it because they want the fight. Most children
who steal things are just doing it because of some sort of craving or impulse on the inside. So don't
take it personally, that is the most important thing. If you are taking it personally, you will
not be able to reach their hearts, or teach them the truth they need because you will always be in
an emotional place and your calmness is a vital for helping them. In our home, we focused on self
government. So self government is being able to determine the cause and effect of any situation.
And then possessing a knowledge of your own behavior so that you can control them. So I
had to help the children understand why they were wanting to steal to. Where's this impulse coming
from? What are the thoughts that are coming into your head? Let's analyze those and when do they
happen so that we can keep ourselves from those circumstances, right? If I'm alone, somewhere,
maybe it's going to happen more often. So let's not be alone. Let's stay with people, that's going
to be helpful, right? If you analyze why things occur, then sometimes you can come to what you
need to do. Instead, we don't want to do the why to make excuses. We want to do the why so that we
can find a pathway forward. So what I taught the children to do was a skill set called accepting
a "no" answer. So there are four basic skills that I teach in the teaching self government system,
and they are following instructions accepting a "no" answer and criticism, accepting a consequence,
and disagreeing appropriately. When a person accepts a "no" answer, what they do is they
look at the person or the situation, they keep a calm face, voice and body. They say,
okay, or they asked to disagree appropriately, and then they drop the subject. So if there is any
boundary line that a person should not cross, such as taking something that doesn't belong to them,
that is automatically a "no" answer. No, I do not cross over this line. So if there's a
line that they see, oop, that doesn't belong to me, than I need to look at the situation,
keep a calm face, voice and body, say, okay, I'm not crossing over it, and then drop the subject.
what this might look like, in real time is this. When a person has a craving to take something,
they'll recognize, oh, I have the craving to cross over this line, to take this thing
that doesn't belong to me. Ooh, should I do that? No, I should not. So no self, do not take this.
So I would put my hand back or whatever it is that I was going to do to take it.
And then at that point, I drop the subject. So I'm going to have to walk away to drop the subject.
That's the best way, just get out of there. The same thing works for other addictions,
because many times stealing things becomes an addiction. Lying becomes an addiction to when we
have addictions like pornography addiction, or a drug addiction, we have to do the same thing.
We have to tell ourselves no, and then drop the subject walk away from the circumstance,
think of how empowering that is to know exactly what to do step by step in a circumstance where
you should not cross over a line. This is going to help somebody socially, it's going to help
somebody with their own habits and cravings, as well as help them not take things and do that,
because that's an illegal action. Right? So now they can do things that are more legal, right?
If somebody does take something and they've done something illegal, they've got to own up to it,
it's super important that they get the opportunity to fully accept their consequence. Sometimes it's
even a natural consequence. They have to go see a judge, they have to maybe even go to, you know,
juvenile detention for a night or two or something like that, that it might have to happen so that
they see the severity of the situation. And even though I don't love the idea of ever taking my
child to a place like that, if they need to see the cause and effect, it might be important.
Now when you do a correction for stealing, you might have a specific consequence that you have
designated for the stealing so that you're not making it up every time. There's going to be
the natural which is to replace, and fix what happened. But there might also be a synthetic
negative consequence, something like an extra chore, or maybe something like a major maintenance
or something like that if they happen to do that stealing behavior. Something that would
be a deterrent for them, but then also praise them, when they overcome that impulse to steal.
That's something that people forget to acknowledge is that there are times when the person would
have taken something, but didn't. You need to acknowledge that. Teach them to come to you and
say, I was tempted to take that thing, but I did not do it. And then praise them, acknowledge them,
show them the cause and effect so that they can learn to control that impulse to steal
in the future for themselves and recognize it as a good thing. Your teens probably
don't want to hurt you as much as they just want something. Maybe they want to get out of what
they feel like is a restriction they don't like or maybe they're wanting to impress their friends, or
whatever it happens to be. You need to talk about the why give them the skill to stop the behavior
and make sure you follow through with good correction and good praise when things go right.
If you have enjoyed this video, I know you'll love my next video, which is the not so known
secret for parenting success. There are going to be a lot more details there about the skills and
principles that you can use to teach your children self government in all things, not just stealing.
Click on the link to that video now.