Stealing and Lying

Stealing and lying

Not many behaviors get parents angry and worried like having their kids steal or lie.

We went through a season where one of our young children was found with several items that we knew weren’t purchased by us... What is going on here!? We couldn’t figure it out. The child had everything needed and more, why steal and lie about it?
Many children try stealing once or twice out of temptation for something they really want. If you have a child with early life trauma or ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) stealing and lying aren’t uncommon. Most parents want to know what they can do about it. But actually the better question is “what is the root cause of it?”

Kids steal and lie for some reason. Time to put your detective hat on and work with your child to figure out what’s going on!

1. If you know you child stole something, don’t freak out. Take some deep breaths, calm yourself down, remind yourself “we can figure this out together”.
2. Remember relationship first! Don’t damage your relationship with your child by screaming, or punitive consequences. Those things may make you feel better in the short term, but they won’t help the situation. It’s only out of a valued relationship that our kids are willing to listen to us. Relationship first. Even if you feel the relationship is harmed by your child with the lying and stealing, you can continue to be a parent your child can trust by handling the situation with love and empathy when your child is clearly struggling.
3. Let your child know you know about the stolen item(s) or the lie. Do it with a gentle face and voice, and a heart felt desire to work with your child to understand what’s going on. “Hey honey/ buddy I see that you have that chapstick and silly putty you wanted at the store. But dad I know we didn’t buy it. We said not right now. So, can we talk about it?”
4. Avoid punishing. Yup, it’s probably not the way you were raised or your parents were raised. But a harsh punishment will make your child angry with the consequence and with you, rather than learning to problem solve with you to get his/her needs met. “I’m not going to punish you. You know of course we don’t want to steal in this family, but I want to understand why you took those things so we can make a plan together.”
5. Stealing and lying are usually attempts to get a need met, to gain a sense of control or to take care of oneself and not risk relying on another person. Children who have suffered trauma and adverse experiences are survivors and will do what they feel they need to, in order to meet their own needs and take care of themselves. This doesn’t mean they’re bad kids. As loving adults in their lives we can help them learn to trust. We can repeatedly meet their needs, and show them that they can rely on others. This doesn’t mean we get our child everything they request. But it does mean we listen to their requests. We can talk about what they are asking for and appreciate it when they make a request rather than try to take the item on their own. Then we can help them feel heard by
   a) writing down their request on a “wish list”
   b) making a plan with them for how they could get the item (birthday gift, Christmas gift, look at rummage sales or second hand stores?
   c) Give them their wish through imagination. “Oh wouldn’t that be fun to have a horse!!! What if we had 6 horses, one for each of us in our family! We could all go riding down the bike path together! What would you name your horse? Do you want to draw pictures of our horses together?”
   *Too young of an example? Maybe your teen is stealing things. The words will be different depending on the situation, but the love, empathy and collaboration will be the same. “Hey honey, I noticed that make-up in your room, you’re not in trouble, but can we talk about that?  We need to return those to the store because you didn’t pay for them, but would you like to make a plan on how you could buy what you're hoping for yourself?”

In my parenting season that contained several small thefts, those conversations opened the door to understanding.  My child stated the belief that there was no way to get those little wanted items, because we would say “no”. And really, that was probably right. We did say “no” to many requests of trinkets.  But by problem solving together we found ways to say “yes, lets make a plan”, and put more control in our child’s hands and resulted in an end to stealing.

What more help with tricky behaviors?  Email me
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