desperate need for advice on 5.5 yo "larceny"

[Dov]

Our ds has a recurring problem with stealing things... we've lost parts to tools (important ones I use everyday unfortunately), jewelry, batteries, hardwear stripped from appliances, kitchen utensils, grooming tools and supplies, first aid items... then he lies about taking them (claims he doesn't know where they are anymore, or some variant of that line). We're going out of our minds. Everytime we need to use something lately we find parts missing or the item needed is gone. His sister has been key in finding some things because she saw him liberate them from family use and secret them away, but right now we have a broken toaster (he removed the levers?!), a missing toe ring, two missing credit cards, a pair of tweezers and two parts to a multi-tool screwdriver set.

I admire his ingenuity and his disassembly skills, but man, it's getting out of hand. When he gets caught he just cries instantly and acts mystified that anyone could be upset about such things. I'm very much withholding my increasingly recurrent urge to squash him like a bug or at least give him a yelling-for but... I mean, somethings going on with him and of course I know approaches like squashin' or yellin' are useless to employ. Usually all he needs is a quick redirect or an acknowledgment of his needs and a redirect on how better to meet his needs. But on this area, those tactics just don't work. He's increasing the pace and frequency of his dismantling and thievery and just is not understanding that it freaks daddy out to open the dishwasher to find the spinner missing (?!) or go to flip a pancake only to find the spatula outside in a tree (after a lengthy confabulatory description of where the spatula went and how it got there).

I need ideas... brainstorming. Anyone dealt with this? Anyone have little mad scientists, engineers that they've rechanneled into productive ventures? Ack! I'm going

[flyingspaghettimama]

Do you have a goodwill/Value Village by you? I'd make a deal with him to buy him his own toaster to take apart at will? But let him know how difficult it is to wash the dishes when the spinner piece is missing... So how can you solve that problem together, does he have any ideas? Maybe there's some other ideas here though, or ask him if he has any ideas ...and that you understand that he really loves to play and experiment with stuff.

I think you're pretty lucky to have such a mechanical kid...my own isn't so interested in taking things apart and putting them together as taking pieces of the household to make her "art" with ... I have no tupperwares left, they have all become stickered, markered pieces of collage. We have no q-tips left, no cookie cutters, ribbon, buttons from clothing...but she does always ask first (and if I say no to one thing, I'll try to give her something else).

[Dov]

Thanks for that advice... I was kinda freaking out when I posted.

Yeah, the family toaster is only the latest victim... he had two other less sophisticated models we'd gotten from the local thrift shop last year... figured we'd provide him with some material to work with. That along with some other deconstructables did work for a while, his manual dexterity seemed to inhibit much of the disassembly activity... but then I discovered the toaster in the kitchen... ack! I'm sure the one of the missing screwdriver parts were involved in the removal of the toaster parts... I didn't realize he could do that already! The dishwasher spinner was a real eye opener... it took one of those allen-key star-type fittings... which is one of the other missing screwdriver parts. I can't figure out when he could have accomplished that task... When I asked him how the machine was going to wash the dishes, he shrugged (eyes pasted to the floor, full blown pouted lip, red face, folded arms) and said it "didn't need that part anyway." I replied that it actually did need that part to work right and I could use a good mechanic to get it back into shape. Instead of becoming excited by the prospect, he sulked away and started to cry then found mom and complained that he didn't understand why I was "mean to him"?! A few hours later that's when mama discovered the missing toe ring... his response, after calling him on four confabulatory iterations: "It's too small for you anyway, mama. Why are you so mad?" (She was mad because it was a gift from an jewelry-artist friend of ours)

Tomorrow we're going surfing so it'll be a good moment to sit with him and ask him what's going on and maybe brainstorm/solutionize with him. I still don't know what to do about the missing items like the jewelry.. although I did find the dishwasher spinner... in his room behind the bed. It was an integral part of some sort of space station he'd built for his Obi-wan action figure. Obviously that's why he was so glib about the machine not needing it... We replaced it with an old plastic fan blade... not perfect but almost as good once we drilled holes in the edge for his connecting parts. I gushed about his design and his technical skill... he used glue really really well (even though that's another item he's not supposed to be using without supervision... after he'd glued stuff to the cat's tail a while back and glued hid sister's doll parts to the inside of the microwave). In retrospect it's kinda funny but when I go to use something or get something in a hurry and it's mysteriously missing and then not returned, I get gnarly about it.

I'm gonna really worry if he starts asking chemistry questions....

[pjlioness]

Oh, wow...I'm half :LOL and half feeling for you :. ...and here I thought it was tough when ds2 constantly gets into my purse and has recently figured out how to open (and empty) the freezer and bottles/jars with regular screw-on lids. I've also found some wierd things in the 10g fish tank.

I don't have anything helpful to say, (except keep your sense of humor - you're gonna need it) but these are for you and your little stealth disassembler:

[trinity6232000]

My 5 yo dd does this too. For the past year or so she is famous for finding
a screw driver and dismantling things OR if something screws on and off
she will unscrew it and hide it. She has unthreaded several of the switches
off of lamps, and two alarm clocks that you wind....she stole the winders.
Last week a coupon and a credit card went missing. They were together,
I was leaving the house to go back to school shopping.

I had asked her several times, trying so hard to make light..make it a game,
"Okay honey, where did you put XYZ?". She looked right at me like
she had no idea what the heck I was talking about. Then one day I thought
I had lost something. I was looking all around for it. Then dd said "OH wait
I know where that is". I followed her to her room, she lifted her mattress ,
and low and behold there were all the switches and screws, a pair of car keys,
and other treasures.

My dd has mostly grown out of this phase. Although about a month ago
she did unscrew a kitchen cabinet door off. :LOL Her pap-pap has started
to use her skills when fixing things. Sometimes he gives her a piece of wood
that he drills a few screws into for her to get out. I think once I found her
stash and would go there looking for missing items, her fun lost some of it's
allure.

[stafl]

I think I would have a very long sit-down conversation about respect and boundaries and stuff like that. Whenever I run into any discipline issue, my focus is always on respect. I expect my kids to respect me. My DD sometimes gets destructive when she's angry with me, and we talk about how that is disrespectful. We talk about how would she feel if I were tearing up her things?

I also liked to take things apart as a kid. My very favorite Christmas present ever was a screwdriver set (a real one!) that my favorite uncle gave me when I was six or seven. I took everything apart that I could find. My grandparents, we were living with them at the time, ended up giving me things that were already broken to take apart. It worked great! I could dismantle the broken things all I wanted, and their stuff remained intact. I even managed to fix a few things by taking them apart and finding a loose screw or something, then putting them back together.

[flyingspaghettimama]

Originally Posted by Dov

When I asked him how the machine was going to wash the dishes, he shrugged (eyes pasted to the floor, full blown pouted lip, red face, folded arms) and said it "didn't need that part anyway." I replied that it actually did need that part to work right and I could use a good mechanic to get it back into shape. Instead of becoming excited by the prospect, he sulked away and started to cry then found mom and complained that he didn't understand why I was "mean to him"?! ...

I don't know if this would help or not, but there is also an awesome book at the library called something like "How Things Work" that has all sorts of everyday mechanical objects and larger objects as well, with full-scale diagrams, basically how everything does need all its little pieces and how they work together. My daughter likes to just sit and look at the pictures - the text is more at an older level. If you ask a librarian, they should be able to help you.

I also like others' ideas about doing the dissembly WITH someone else to sorta, I dunno...channel it a little...

[BIT]

my Dd will be 6 in sept. she loves taking things apart and putting things together ( gets it from her father lol he's a computer tech) we sat down with her and asked what she liked better.. to take thins apart or to build them? she said that she liked both. so we bought her a mechanix (sp?) set where she has her own little screw drivers nuts and bolts and little metal plates and wheels and such all with pre drilled holes so htst she can build to her hearts content. this hasn't eliminated the problem completely but now when she get's the urge to take something apart we direct her to that set.

Joan