Stealing in Childhood Does Not a Criminal Make

Stealing in Childhood Does Not a Criminal Make
Lars Leetaru

By PERRI KLASS, M.D.
Published: August 10, 2009
By the time a worried parent asked me about a child who had stolen something, I had some answers — because I had already been a worried parent and had asked my own pediatrician.

Go to Well » In our house we had gone through the usual process, but I had no idea how usual it was. First the casual inquiry, one parent to another: Did you take any money out of my wallet? Then the little rat’s nest of bills accidentally discovered in the 7-year-old’s room. The worrying, the questioning, the self-doubt: How do we handle this? What does it mean? Does this tell us something we don’t want to know about our child’s character? About ourselves? Is something really wrong?

“Most children will take something sometime,” said Dr. Barbara Howard, cheerfully.

Dr. Howard is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and some years after my own family crisis, I attended an educational talk she gave for pediatricians on behavior and development. Stealing was included matter of factly along with sleep problems, tantrums and all the rest.

A 2-year-old who takes something, she said, is probably going to be described as not being good at sharing, rather than as a thief, at least by a parent with a reasonable sense of child development. I see it, I want it, I take it, it’s mine.

Setting limits is a big part of taking good care of children this age. No, everything you want does not become yours, and sticky-fingered possession (these metaphors become the literal truth with small children) is not even one-tenth of the law.

But what about the somewhat older child, the 5- or 6- or 7-year-old, who clearly knows the rules and takes something from another child, from the classroom or even from a store — the child who makes some effort to hide the ill-gotten gains, and when confronted, perhaps flatly denies the crime?

This turns out, once again, to be extremely common. I had a 6-year-old patient once whose mother cried while spelling out the word shoplift in front of the daughter, who had walked out of a store with, I believe, a hair accessory. I see it, I want it, I take it.

But developmentally, there is something more complex going on.

“The next phase is a testing phase,” Dr. Howard said. “Kids are trying to find out what happens if you get caught, and one of the biggest problems is if you don’t catch them. They’re trying to find out what the rules are, and if nobody catches them and says, ‘That’s wrong, you have to give that back or pay for it,’ they don’t get a sense of being properly supervised.”

Dr. Martin T. Stein, another expert on behavior and development, and a professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Diego/Rady Children’s Hospital, used a favorite pediatrician’s phrase to talk about those 5- to 8-year-olds who steal: “It’s really a teachable moment,” he said.

It’s your moment as a parent to talk about standards and ethical behavior, and to make those concepts real by requiring that a child apologize and make restitution. “That’s really a great opportunity,” Dr. Stein said, “and it does give the message it’s not proper behavior and it’s not something we condone.”

More worrisome is a child who steals for less obviously acquisitive motives. A hair ornament that she imagines sparkling on her ponytail or another child’s toy that he envies — this kind of stealing, while it needs to be discussed and corrected, is less troubling than so-called symbolic stealing.

An angry child might steal someone else’s treasured possession and destroy it — flush a piece of Mom’s jewelry down the toilet, or incinerate a sibling’s special project. A child who is worried about school performance might steal something from the class superstar.

A child who keeps on taking things is a child with a problem, and as children get older, this all becomes much more serious. If a child in middle school is stealing money, you have to worry, already, about drugs and alcohol and the other influences in that child’s life.

And what about true antisocial behavior? A young child’s stealing is in no way the equivalent of setting fires or torturing animals or any of the other frightening prospects that flash across some parents’ minds in that first did-I-just-see-you-take-something-from-the-store moment. On the other hand, a pattern of stealing without any remorse can mark a serious problem — and that child needs help right away.

But the parents of most young children can be confident that stealing is a pretty routine behavior. “It might be unusual for a child to go through childhood without ever stealing anything, though the parent may not know,” Dr. Stein said.

Once you do know, Dr. Howard says, you shouldn’t do as some parents have, and rush out to organize a “scared straight” tour of the local correctional facilities to show your 7-year-old where a life of crime will lead.

“They need to be stopped, they need to pay it back and they need to apologize,” she said, “but they shouldn’t be taken to the county jail or treated as if they’re bound to be criminals forever.”

So the onus is on us — the parents — to strike the right balance. “Often the parent is embarrassed or humiliated, they don’t want to tell anybody that their child stole,” Dr. Howard said. “Doing too much or doing too little, either is bad.”

So when we found the cache of stolen cash, I did ask my pediatrician, who told me, kindly, that this was strictly routine. Take it seriously, he said, talk about consequences, extract an apology, but don’t act as if you think it means your child is a criminal.

Which is exactly what I said to the first parent who asked me this in the exam room, and to all the parents who came after.