stealing!!

[lizzielottieloo]

hi there, im very new to this, in fact the subject is the reason iv joined...
im so disappointed as earlier today i found that my ten year old son has stolen about £8 pounds from my purse, im also wondering if this has been happening awhile now and iv just not realised?
at first i was very angry and shouted at him, the main thing that annoyed me was the fact he lied when confronted but a few mins later he confessed. iv grounded him until further notice but if im blatantly honest im not sure what to do.this is so out of character for him xxxx

Ok, you've let him know how unacceptable the behaviour is. Now you need to work out why he's done it and whether there is some underlying reason he needs help with. In order to do that you need to calm everything down a great deal, let him know that the telling off is over and open the lines of communication.

Once you've talked it through, if you still don't know how to move forward in terms of repayment/sanctions maybe you should ask him what he thinks is fair. He may be harder on himself than you would be.

Don't worry too much about this. Lots of children do it and, once they've been found out and realised how much upset it causes, the vast majority stop.

What did he need the money for? DD did this nice because she wanted to buy me a suprise birthday present, she had no idea I would notice, didn't think I would mind and because she didn't think it was stealing because she was going to buy something for me.

He isn't being bullied is he?

This happened to my best friend. She rang the local police station and arranged to take her DS in and a CSO spoke to him.

It worked for them tho not sure I'd have done it.

I really wouldn't take a ten year old to be talked to by the police for this. It is far too heavy handed.

An older child repeatedly taking money, maybe, but not on the first occasion you find out and not such a young child.

dd1 stole £3 from her sister once. I'd stopped her pocket money to replace something she'd broken and she felt resentful. She got an almighty telling off at the time. I think she really learnt her lesson a few months later when dd2 misplaced her purse and she came under suspicion. It's not happened since.

If I'm honest I used to steal from my mums copper jar. (when a few coppers could buy sweets.) I was never caught but I turned into a law-abiding adult.

DS is same age. He has taken things, out of character too: keys, money, and my phone. All turned up with him being the finding hero: durr mum your keys were here all the time (no, they weren't!). Apart from the phone which he BURIED and lost (still grounded for that one). With the phone incident, I thought I'd lost it, so said I'd probably need to report it missing to police (was in a very small community, it would have been handed in), I meant for insurance purposes. DS was wetting himself as he thought I meant I was reporting him for nicking it. I don't think he'll do it again, but I wouldn't really report a 10 yo over this. But serious punishment!

Silver lining: vodafone gave me a great free upgrade. DS got another week's grounding for saying that it was a good job he buried the phone....

thanx for the advice everyone, its comforting to know that im not the only one that has experienced this!
it turns out he took the money to buy him and his 'buddies' sweets etc from our local shop...iv since found out he's been splitting his pocket money between his friends too (gullible).
i really laid it on thick how disappointed and upset i was, he had his pocket money stopped til it was repaid, and also was grounded. fingers crossed!! xx