I’ve got teenagers with sticky fingers. I want them to knock it off but I know enough about parenting to know that punishment and commands are largely ineffective. What I need to do is get inside their heads and have them develop their own conscience about things like that–to make them not WANT to steal. So while it might be fun to hear, don’t tell me what to do to them. Tell me what motivated YOU to take stuff that wasn’t yours, and that clearly belonged to someone else. If I can understand the motivation I can probably come up with some way to address that.
I don’t remember much about my own teen years or earlier, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t steal–not from people I lived with, not from friends, not from stores. I take that back, when I was like 8 I snatched a pack of gum because I was hanging with my brother and his friends and well, we all stole some candy. All I remember was that I didn’t like the danger of getting caught, and I didn’t enjoy the gum (and I was a gum chewin machine normally) because it was ill-gotten. Anything else I say about the incident would be made-up or misremembered, that’s all I have. I also took a candy bar from the concession stand at a place I worked at when I was 20. Felt bad about that too, afterwards. I don’t think I was even thinking about right/wrong at that moment. I just wanted it, it was a small item, and I took it. Still bugs me a quarter century later.
So, help me understand the mind of the thief. Why’d you do it?
I’ve never stole anything except for once in 2nd grade when I accidentally forgot to pay for an ice cream sandwich, and it still bothers me.
I know a few shop lifters and no amount of anything will get them to stop. I guess it will take getting caught and getting arrested to stop them.
They honestly don’t think they are doing anything wrong because they are stealing from stores and not people so nobody is getting hurt. That everybody has to pay higher prices to cover the loss or extra insurance costs means squat to them.
It’s the same attitude people have about filing false claims to insurance companies, stealing from employers, or cheating on their taxes. They can’t see big picture… that it ends up costing everyone in the end.
They figure if you are too stupid to grab your share then that is your loss.
Not saying this is how your kids are, just how the people I know are about it. Your kids may out grow it one day.
When my parents caught my sister shop lifting they made her take everything back to the store and apologize. The shame made her quit. I don’t know if it would work with a big store, she was stealing from the neighborhood drug store.
I got NO money. All of my birthday money, holiday, etc., was taken away from me. I wasn’t allowed to have a job.
I was desperately unhappy and lonely.
I wasn’t allowed to have any snacks at home. I kid you not when I tell you the ONLY thing we had was veggies. You think I mean just not candy. NOPE - no strawberries, or watermelon, or random fruit. Sometimes we had prunes. Fucking prunes.
I was controlled in every aspect of my life - from my grades to my friends right down to my hair. It was a measure of control in my life.
When I got out of my parents house and exerted some control over my own life, the stealing and lying stopped just. like. that. Well, the lying took a little longer, but that was still from fear - my parents were huge advocates of lying, and their favorite lie was “Tell the truth and you won’t get in trouble”.
But it was all about control. None of this may apply to your teens.
Interjection *
Don’t worry about me inferring some kind of negative comment about the character of my spawn. They’re stealing, so they’re missing something. If it’s control, or respect, or something else, I’m interested in hearing it. This thread exists precisely because I want to examine the kids under the lenses presented here.
I used to steal when I was a little kid. Somewhere between 4th-6th grade. I used to steal ciggarrettes. :smack:
Anyways, I remember getting caught with a lighter by my parents and they cancelled a ski trip we had planned because of it. After that I quit stealing. I think I just grew out of it. Fortunately, I never picked up smoking.
This sounds just like me, except for the snacks thing (mom loved chocolate and Fritos). I very occasionally shoplifted when I was a teen because I didn’t have any money and I knew my parents would never buy these things for me if I asked them to. I think I did it out of frustration and to have something of my own.
From the very brief description you’ve posted, Inigo, it sounds like your kids might need some guidance regarding boundaries.
I don’t like parents who immediately jump to the excuse that their innocent child is being led astray by the crowd he hangs out with*. But like every cliche, there’s some truth behind it.
Sometimes a kid will be hanging out with a crowd that shoplifts and he’ll do it because it’s part of the crowd’s activities. Remove him from that influence before it becomes a habit with him and he may stop doing it. So check on the shoplifting incidents you know about - was he with certain people when they happened?
*Which I’ll admit is something of a personal issue in my case. When I was a kid, I hung around with my cousin and some other friends and we did a lot of stupid things like this and, being stupid, got caught on a frequent basis. My aunt finally decided she had had enough with all of us corrupting her innocent boy and transferred him to another school and wouldn’t let him see any of us again. The irony of course was exactly what you’re probably already thinking - it had been my cousin who was the leader in all our stupidity. Once my aunt took him away, the rest of us stopped doing all these stupid things.
Honestly, I was bored. When I was maybe 12 or 13, my friends and I would go to the mall and lift stuff. Nothing crazy. We’d sneak bras under our clothes from JC Penney or crappy earrings from Claire’s. I just think it was something to put a tiny thrill in our boring adolescent lives.
I didn’t steal, but I did trespass. Not houses, but nature areas and abandoned sites. Signs of " no admittance" meant squat. It was the same idea: “I don’t know who owns this piece of land, but they won’t be harmed if I go there and I want to see it, it’s an adventure”.
Most of my trespassing was done with other kids from my nature study club. They were used to trespassing to get to sites with interesting wildlife. Being in the Netherlands, there was no risk of people pointing guns at us, the worst that could happen was that we would get yelled at.
I honestly in my heart of hearts thought it was totally ok to steal from big stores. I thought they were too rich to ever miss it. I thought it was scum of the earth behavior to steal from a person or a house or even a small mom and pop. I actually used to look down on my friends who did that while I saw no problem with stealing that lip gloss from KMart. Didn’t happen that often, but did happen several times between the ages of 11 and 13.
I just heard a story last weekend about a friend’s teenage son who got caught stealing Gummi Bears from a local KMart. Nice kid, lifetime Boy Scout (mom’s a scout leader)…he couldn’t really say why he did it.
But now on top of the shit his mom gave him when she got home (scrubbing baseboards with a toothbrush, Gummi Bears for dinner, having to tell the Scout Master, making his mom cry, etc) everyone has been given carte blanche to tease the fuck out of him. His uncles have given him nothing but Gummi Bears for his birthday and that’s the plan for Christmas. His mom told the story to a large group of people at a wedding.
I’m pretty sure the ridicule helps keep him from even thinking about it again.
I didn’t but I had two friends who did. I eventually droppped them because I was tired of being afraid that they’d get caught and I’d get rolled into the blame.
Looking back they were both clearly adrenaline junkies. Liked playing chicken in any form, and walking on walls, and jumping from high places. that sort of thing.
I don’t know how you turn that into a positive though; maybe get them into motocross?
I never was into stealing or shoplifting… although strangely, about a year ago I kept getting these compulsions to shoplift insignificant things… like grabbing a candy bar and eating it in the store without paying for it.
I did it a couple times, got a thrill out of it that I couldn’t rationally explain, and then the compulsion just went away and I haven’t done it since.
Anyhow, I don’t know what this might add to your thread… but I figured I’d share. I really have no advice other than just to sit them down, let them know it really disappoints you, and that there are serious legal repercussions if they continue to do it. Taking away some privileges would also not be out of line, in my opinion.
I actually stole quite a bit when I was about 10. My mother was SUPER paranoid about my weight my entire childhood and I was never allowed sweets or anything like that. But, of course, the more she denied me them, the more I wanted them. So I’d regularly go to the local mini-mart and steal candy. I was successful for quite a while actually, and would often binge on the stolen goods to the point of being sick. But finally I was caught and police got involved and well…it was enough to scare me away from stealing. From stores at least. After that, especially in high school, I would ‘steal’ all the candy I’d get to sell for fundraising.
I’ve never stolen anything in my life, except the hearts of many ugly men. I think people who steal have addictive personalities. Sometimes, people steal to fund other additions. I remember watching something on compulsive shoppers. They’re addicted to shopping they do it to the point of having no money. They still want to shop, but have no money. So, they start stealing things. Basically, most people who steal are doing it to fill a void.