8 year old has started stealing

[anondad85]

Forgive me if this is in the wrong place, and if this is a little long winded, but I just need a bit of advice and/or to get it off my chest.

My 8 year old son (Step son technically, but I can't stand the term) has been stealing money out of my wallet. It's happened 4 times in the last 3 weeks, not huge amounts, £3 or £4, usually just the coins left in my pocket but I'm at my wits end about it.

I didn't realise until later in the day the first 2 times he did it, but the last time (This morning), I caught him red handed. Each time my wife and I confront him about it he says he gives a different excuse as to why he's done it ("His dad wants money", "He wanted it for a school disco", "Because he's greedy") and each time I've taken his console off him in the hope that it will trigger him into thinking about what he's done and how it hurts people.

His behaviour usually improves for a few days. He'll help around the house, help with our 18 month old, etc. But then, once he thinks he's in the clear, he's back at it again.

It's causing problems between my wife and I now as we're disagreeing on how we should handle this. I think he needs to see the consequences of his actions by losing the freedoms we allow him (Console, staying up a bit later at weekends, walking to school with his friends [We can see the school gates from our house]), my wife thinks I'm too hard on him.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you handle it? Is my wife right, am I being too hard?

Have you thought about equating the punishment with the crime more? For instance, if he has pocket money, a savings account, a piggybank... with an incentive to save up fr something, then the amount stolen can be taken from there, leaving him no better off. If caught.

In my experience children of that age steal because their friends have money and they feel left out. Could that be the case? Does he have his own allowance?

He doesn't get an allowance, but my wife and I have said that if he behaves himself for the week he'll get £5 to add to his holiday money for when we go away in June.

The thing is, he knows that no matter what, my wife will always give in. He could steal an old lady's purse and my wife would still give him £xx to spend on holiday so he knows that even if I were to threaten that, it would never happen

A few things to think about.

First, you and your wife need to agree on discipline. That doesn't mean one of you gets to tell the other how to discipline him, but you do need to come up with a shared approach. Neither of you should ever use threats (or offer rewards) that you are not both willing to carry through. If your wife thinks you are too hard (and you presumably think she is too soft) then you are both undermining each other and that will upset your DS and he is likely to misbehave. It sounds as the two of you could benefit from going to a parenting group together so you can talk it through and choose some effective strategies and decide how you both want to apply them.

Rewards are good discipline but an eight year old isn't going to be motivated by a reward he only gets next June. At his age rewards need to be immediate, a small reward every couple of days is better than a bigger one less often. Kids vary and rewards should be things he especially wants, not necessarily things that you might want if you were in his place. If he is really keen on something big and expensive then give him tokens to build up towards a bigger reward. That way if he has one bad day he doesn't lose everything. And remember to make it easy enough to earn the reward - rule of thumb is that he should earn the little reward about 80 per cent of the time. Less than that and it wont motivate him and he'll stop trying.

And last, yes an eight year old should have some weekly pocket money of his own - just a small amount to spend on whatever nonsense he fancies or to save up if he prefers. He should be starting to make his own decisions and learning that buying something now now means less to spend later. He really should always get a regular small amount, and could earn extra through doing extra chores etc.

Good luck