Moral dilemma - should 6 year old DS be made to confess?

[Ricecrispiesatsix]

6 year old DS had a friend round yesterday to play Lego Star Wars. The friend brought a couple of figurines with him including the Emperor Palpatine and the boys played for hours together so nicely. It was really lovely to see DS (who has quite niche, geeky interests) find a school friend he connects with.

When it came to leave, the friend couldn’t find the Emperor Palpatine, we looked everywhere, DS offered to let him borrow his millennium falcon instead which was suspiciously generous of him….

Well you can probably guess what happened later. We found Emperor P hidden in DS’s “secret drawer”. He basically stole from his friend and lied to us about it. He was distraught and ashamed when we found out because he knows he made a bad choice.

He will of course be made to return Emperor P to the friend but should we make him own up to stealing it, or is it ok for him to simply say “I found it”? DS is worried his friend won’t want to play with him anymore. And that would be a shame. DS is generally a lovely gentle boy and he is remorseful, the temptation was just too much! I do want to teach him honesty though and worry if we don’t encourage him to confess we are saying that lying by omission is ok.

YABU - make him confess
YANBU - it’s ok for him to give it back and just say “I found it”

Wow unbelievable responses

Start him off as you want him to go on. He should own up and face the consequences obviously. He knew he was wrong.

Natural consequences are he has to return the toy, and the guilt he’s already feeling.

Adding punishments will just teach that he has to hide mistakes better next time.

@Goldwren1923 letting him say “I found it” is a cop out and will bite you later.

"could" bite OP later, not "will".

You no more have a crystal ball than the rest of us.

Rubbish!

If it suddenly turned up after you looked everywhere, as the other parent it is pretty obvious what has happened here. I'd stop all play dates for a month or 2 as a punishment, he's 6 and knew he was stealing it (I have a 4 year old and he has stolen and hidden stuff that belongs to his brother and sister, he absolutely knows it is wrong and was punished), don't teach your child that it's ok to steal. It's up to you if you make him tell the child, the mum will have realised what has happened anyway and might just be unavailable to reciprocate the play date. I'd be reluctant to have a light fingered child around my house, even if they are little.

If he tells his friend this time that he found it and then you make it absolutely clear to him that if this ever happens again you will not cover up for him in any way ... the boy and the parent will be told and he will be expected to apologise and take the consequences as regards loss of friendship etc.
He needs to know that we are all tempted to do wrong sometimes but we resist and that you expect him to do the same.

Wouldn't most of us assume the other child had taken it anyway if it turned up the next day?

If you make him confess you can assume the other kid will be all over school telling everyone your son is a thief

I can’t believe you wouod consider shaming him like this and risking him being rejected by not only his friends but the wider peer group - there’s another lesson he will learn if you do which is that confession is unsafe and he can’t go to you with difficulty.
just give it back to the parent and encourage him to talk to you about how he feels and why this happened if he wants to.

If you’d not found it in the drawer of preciousness what would’ve happened?

I think the PP saying that confessing to the friend will make DS a better person are deluded. There is no telling how he and his family would react. The possibility of being called a ‘toe rag’, as happened to PP, would not be good for DS’ character. Neither is losing this friendship for an understandable, if regrettable, reason.

No one knows for sure what goes on in a child’s mind but probably we’ve all done something similar. Adults who extended me grace had a much greater impact on me than those who were too harsh.

I also would not send the toy to school, because something could happen. In OP’s place I would bring it to his house and say that we found it after he went home.

I would maybe be talking to DS, very lightly and over time, about how to be a friend.

He is sick years old. On the spur of the moment he hid a toy he wanted and told a lie about it. When found out he is remorseful and I would guess after a talking to by you he won't try it again. You just need to stress that the other little boy owned the toy ...just like he owned the Millennium one ...and how say he, your son, would be to have that taken from him by a friend and his friend would feel just the same. After that why make a song and dance about it. He will value the friendship more having almost lost it and after the upset, guilt and remorse I can't imagine he"ll do it again. One thing though ...I don't think I would probably not buy him that model for a birthday or something if it's coming around soon

Return the toy yourself, don't involve him so that you're not encouraging him to lie. Make sure there are proper consequences for him so that he doesn't do it again.

Last bit rather muddled 😱 I mean I wouldn't be buying that particular model for him

Sorry but this a great opportunity to talk through consequences. Ask him to think that through-
Will his friend want to come and play with him again?
Will his friend want to bring his nice toys again?
Will his friend trust him again?
Will his friend tell other people at school about this?
Was it worth it?

Personally I’d ask him what you should do in his opinion? Then you’ll know what to actually do. Because if he says please lie to friend then you don’t. If he says tell the truth then you help him.

If you know the mum would just give it to her with a light explanation

Can’t really admonish your child for stealing & lying then in the next breath tell him it’s ok to tell untruths.

I also agree with @HoskinsChoice Return the toy yourself so you don't involve him a lie to add to what's already happened.

DS was busted.

He didn’t confess.

Needs to own up and deal with the small fallout.

I think if it’s out of character and he’s genuinely remorseful, I’d let him off re telling the friend. Assuming the friend is also 6, he might not care and just be happy to have the figure back, or he might be heavy handed and go down the ‘I’m not going to be your friend any more’ route. Because of the possibility of the latter, I’d let it go. Hopefully your son playing out the scenario of losing the friendship because of what he did, has been enough of a lesson.

We all make mistakes. The real lesson is not repeating them, so I’d give him the opportunity to do that and treat it as a one off lapse in judgement.

I think if he is genuinely remorseful and worried he will lose his friend then the lesson has sunk in. I'd go with 'here's your toy back, it was in my room.' Not a lie but not going to cause a falling out either.

I'm amazed at the people who say he needs to be punished... You don't teach a child not to lie that way, you just teach them that they need to lie more effectively and hide the thing better. I don't want my children to tell the truth because they're scared of me punishing them if they don't, I want them to tell the truth because it's the right thing to do. Which means teaching by example and a slow imparting of morality and empathy, not punishment.

My DS is 5.5 and I wouldn't make him "confess" if he did this, I'd just make sure he gave it back and make sure he understood how upset his friend had been and that if there are things other kids have that he wants, he can ask us for them or put them on his list for Santa.

No. This could carry over into school and your son could get bullied. Tell him to take it back to school and tell his friend you found it. That’s the truth. Then give him a lecture about steeling.

DS is worried his friend won’t want to play with him anymore

I’ve been in this exact position before - but the other way round. DDs ‘friend’ stole a toy that was very much coveted by a lot of the contemporaries at the time but wasn’t easily available. When I realised what had happened and asked if the parent/child had seen it (I knew what had happened) they also suddenly ‘found’ it. My DD was inconsolable at the time. If they had been honest and said sorry, bad choice was made, genuinely sorry I may have let DD play with them again. Because they ‘found’ it, so basically both the child and parent were dishonest, DD didn’t go there, or them come here again because I couldn’t trust something similar wouldn’t happen again.

You do realise the other parent will see through you suddenly discovering the item, right?