thou sahll not steal- taken by pixabay.com
Toddlers and children below age 3 do sometimes take things
home even though the items belonged to other children or adults.
However, this is not considered as stealing because they do not
have a clear understanding what are the items that belonged to
them and which are not.
Toddlers are innocent that they take things especially toys
because they like them very much, wanted to own the toys by
bringing home.
Even though that it is wrong to take things that do not belonged to them, it is wise not to reprimand or scold them.
Toddlers will feel guilty, sinful or remorse as if it is a BIG crime that they had committed.
Instead, give simple and straight forward advice such as :
“This is John’s toy train. He will want to play with it later.
So, let us leave it here since we have lots of other toys at home, right? We can come back to John’s house and play again”
Children age between 6 and teenager know that stealing is wrong after they had been educated in school and at home.
Stealing occasionally may gradually become a bad habit that cannot be stop instantly.
They often steal secretly, hide the items they had stolen in secret places and flatly deny that they had done it, even though caught red handed.
When parents or teacher in charge had realized that the child had stolen something, indeed they would be very upset, unable to control the anger which often leads to punishment.
This is natural the instinct of grown ups to jump into conclusion before investigating the whole truth.
We had been taught by our parents, grandparents and teachers that stealing is a serious act , it also scares us to see that our child had developed that habit of stealing without being taught.
Scolding the child with harsh words, fill the child with shame and regrets hurts the child’s esteem and pride badly.
Spanking, slapping and physical abuse on the child are not favorable punishment for stealing.
Hitting the bare hands with rods, pinching the body parts, scalding, forcing the child to kneel down infront of ancestor alter to beg forgiveness, forbid the child to eat or drink are physical abusement that often rule out as necessary punishment for a child who stole.
Naming the child as “theif” hurts the child feelings as deep as stabbing his heart.
Instead, the child may not ever understand why he is being punished without giving a second chance to repent.
He was taught that stealing things or money from others would lead him to harsh punishment but he will never realized the reasons behind them and repent from his mistakes.
The answer is NO.
Whether your child had stolen once or twice, educating him with proper education tools, advice and reasons is much better than enforcing punishment.
Copyright allrights reserved by peachpurple
Photo belonged to peachpurple
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View Comments
Stealing is a bad thing and if not stopped early could lead to very bad behaviour later it becomes a habit. When stealing becomes a habit it's very dangerous because at this point a child could do anything or take anything in order to fulfil his needs. Regardless of what they know about stealing nothing would stop them. So I feel a child should be taught at 4am early age that stealing is bad and that there are consequences that follow that way he or she will be well informed and wouldn't steal anyone's thing.
This is what we call kleptomania. Stealing the items belonging to others is a bad habit. The children should be taught and can be about it without any physical punishment. Taking them to the neighbour's house and allowing them to move with others will expose them to the different surroundings. This is a teaching which the parents do not do. Observe their movements with others and if they do wrong just tell them that it is wrong to do so. This action needs a lot of patience and tact.
I am currently serving a stint as a teacher and have encountered these experiences on a recurrent basis. Stealing can be caused by no more than our old sinful nature no matter the circumstances. Some kids steal out of the fun of it, the danger of being discovered. Others do it for secondary purposes like sadism. It appears that in every society, some people steal some of the time. I have discovered that the children most likely to steal are neer do wells and they tend to have resentment yelling up in them due to the constant bashing and scolding by the parents and teachers. So the society has to examine the whole issue of rewarding performance, a paradigm shift should occur in which people concentrate on the child's strengths not weaknesses. The best punishment should involve lecturing the child by placing him or her in the footsteps of the one who has suffered material loss using one of their possessions as an illustration. This approach has seen of change some children. Its the best time to pull them off the brink.
That is a lot of reason why children why children tend to steal something but the numerator are the parents that should guiding their kids to a good and moral character. Just lately in our town, some kids were caught stealing junk foods in their school. The parents were given notice to come to school.
@peachpurple in such cases, children need to be carefully dealt with. Scolding very harshly should be the last resort. First, one can try to teach kids by real life and other examples, and give them chance to improve their behavior. Counselling can also be an option.