GD gurus, I could really use some help!

[beccaboo]

My almost 6-year old has developed sticky fingers. I posted in The Childhood Years last night:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=261381

I know this is not abnormal, but he does know it is wrong. I just can't figure out why he keeps doing it. This morning I put the legos in his school folder and told him he needed to tell his teacher about the situation and return them to her. I'll call her this morning to alert her. Of course, he's upset and feels terrible.

I'm going to go check out my parenting books to see if I can get any more insight...

Becca

[gaialice]

Mmmmmhhhhh...
Don't know...
My girl is 4 and occasionally she has stolen things from shops.
For instance in IKEA she put an item in my bag while we were having lunch.
I did not notice until we were home. I talked to her about it. I am not so sure at this age they quite realize that this is not appropriate. I think you did good, but do not make a huge thing about it, otherwise this will become a pattern.
I think it is mostly at school, that the teacher must say to her class that they should not take toys home because otherwise they won't have toys to play with at school. On the last occasion, if all she took was a few blocks it could be she was just playing and forgot to put them back.

[littlest birds]

I have 2 5yo children... And one older.

I think this is normal and that there are different degrees of "knowing" that stealing is wrong. He knows about disapproval from you for this, but it is such a long time as children grow to have true empathy. Elements of it develop over time-- some early and some late... true empathy is what helps us to believe in our hearts that we should not do something. I think a 6yo is pretty young for this...

I think a 6yo has a lot of vague areas about how right or wrong something like this is even if they can understand some of what they have been told about it or repeat a sensible explanation about it being wrong.

Children see something they want and act on impulse. They may know it is wrong to a degree but not be internally certain that that should outweigh the central thing to them--their own desire.

[lilyka]

Well for my dd I would make her take it back to someone in the store (cashier are a better bet then managment. we had some guy totally freak my dd out over a cadbury egg. Cashiers usually just say "thank you for bring back my . . . . ." ) or school and apologize for taking it without permission. Same if she took something from a friend. She would have to take it back to friend and apologize for taking thier **** without permisison. Then we have a nice chat about when we take things that don't belong to us without permission and wothout paying that is stealing/dishonest/hurtful. We talk about what someone motives might be for taking things and I ask her why she took it blah blah blah

Is there something going on at school? It seems like most of this revolves around school. Maybe it is just coincidence since most of his time outside of his home is at school.

Kinda funny about the buttons. Not that he took thembut that so many kids came forward with buttons. They must have been very nice buttons. hey, is he maybe being dared to do it. That officially comes from out of no where but I just had a vision of 5 or 6 kids standing around a bin of buttons and someone saying "I dare veryone to take some home . . . " just a thought. It seems strange that it came out of no where and came on so persistantly. My children have both gone through a sticky/tricky fingers phase but it usually was random, here and there because they wanted it and didn't have enough allowance kind of stuff. Not random but consistant stuff. It seems as though there muct be some very logial trigger here.

[beccaboo]

Thanks for your replies. I discussed it with a friend of mine this evening, and that helped. I needed a little time to chill out, I think! I plan to have a discussion with him at a relaxed moment sometime in the next couple days and just convey that I see he's having a hard time controlling his impulses and suggest that we brainstorm some solutions to try. (He already suggested sewing his pockets shut!) Maybe having a couple of his own toys in his pockets will keep him from wanting to fill them.

Yes, he already returned the things. I wasn't at the latest meeting, so I'm not really sure if he apologized. I was thinking maybe I'd suggest that he write a brief apology to his teacher.

The only "trigger" I can really point to is that he's just in the past month become hyper aware of having money and what it can buy. So maybe he's just feeling particularly acquisitive. The other thing is that he's quite a scavenger for "junk" he finds - rubber bands, ribbons, feathers, bottlecaps, etc - and tends to load his pockets up with them. I hear "I could use this in an art project!" several times a day. (I've given up on the cleanliness issue, though I draw the line at used popsicle sticks at the park.) I'm thinking at school, this place with 325 kids who often drop unwanted items, that he must be sort of on "scavenge alert" all the time. Maybe the alert got set too high somehow and now he's starting to want to scavenge useful things that actually belong to people. Now that i think of it, it's probably difficult to differentiate that fine line between, "sure, you can take that rock from the parking lot" and "no, you can't take things from your classroom!"

His teacher was pretty cool and said, "if you want to borrow something from the classroom overnight that might be OK, but I do need you to ask me first."

Deeporgarten, reading your comments about the development of empathy was really helpful. Thank you - this is just what I need to hear.

Lilyka, I've been wondering if it's something that's going on at school, but I think your latter suggestion is correct - it's just where he spends most of his away-from-home time. And the buttons *were* lovely - apparently there was quite a furor of button-craft activity the first day during their choice time, which is coincidentally the day ds missed out on choice time because he was finishing up other work. So I'm thinking he felt like he missed out on the cool new stuff and decided to take some for later (again - scavenge-mode). I totally can understand it. If he had asked first, I'm sure there would have been no problem.

Thanks for helping me sort this out.

Becca

[lilyka]

"Now that i think of it, it's probably difficult to differentiate that fine line between, "sure, you can take that rock from the parking lot" and "no, you can't take things from your classroom!""

Good point and when you put it that way it sort of highlights that he is taking little seemingly worthless things from a larger collection. I doubt he even realizes these things have any more value than a rock or a pile of sticks.

beside if the buttons were for a craft that he should have been able to do I can see how he easily justfied taking a few so he could do a craft at home with them. It also explains why so many children had them. Still cute story though :LOL

And for what it is worth I am a fan of the apology letter. It gives them time to make a sincere (or at least to think about it) apology without having to stand there being embarrassed and scared.

I htink the most important thing you can emphasize is that these things do have value and that he needs to ask before taking anything from anyones room or yard etc . . . Cause sometimes stuff laying around that everyone seems to have plenty of just seems like comunal property and if he has a predisposition to "collecting" I can se how he wouldn't even really think about adding a few more little things to his collection without having any idea that it might be a bad idea YK. Not saying he isn't bright enough to get it, just that kids think things through differently and may not being making the connection that this is something thatshould stay anymore than a rock in the park.

[jyurina]

I was a preschool teacher for years and we saw alot of this around the ages of four and five. One explanation a teacher gave was that sometimes a child that really loves school wants to bring part of it with him home. Sort of like bringing familiar items from home to school. That and the fact that we call it "their" classroom, the concept of ownership versus access to use might need to be clarified.