So we get home from WallyWorld last night, and ta-da! outs comes candy from Babyboy’s pocket. Hmm.
I really don’t think he totally comprehends the whole trade system thing, he’s still somewhat self-centric, as all little kids are.
For the most part, he’s very well-behaved and just all around a special kid. Lately we’ve been having problems, though, with his recent misunderstanding that he may possibly want to be the boss, whereas our contract CLEARLY states that I am the permanent supervisor with all associated rights and responsibilities. Ah… if only we could have legally binding contracts for every aspect of life…
Anyhoo… I’m thinking of taking him back and making him tell the manager that he took the candy and give it back. I’ve 2 older boys, and they never did this. Or I never found out.
What say you, o wise ones?
My mom made me return and apologize for taking merchandise from a store when I was about six or so.
I was so embarassed, I never did it again. :o
Yeah, I’d say use this as a gentle learning experience. Time to definitively show right from wrong, especially in this case.
Plus it’ll keep the tyke from being a little troublemaker. 
Ditto here.
That’s exactly what you have to do.
I marched P the Elder back to a shop to make him apologise and return the goods.
Feh.
The silly cow behind the counter made a big song and dance about how brave he was to come and apologise and let him keep the toy he had pinched.
Next time he did it, we took his pocket money along and he paid for the toy.
My mom did this too.
I think that was what lead me to life of crime and drug addiction.
My Mom just gave me a good Hide-Tanning …Right there in front of the man behind the counter…That stopped me cold!
When I was about 4, I took a dog’s choker chain from a hardware store. My dad made me bring it back and apoplgize to the manager.
I was tramatized and I have never taken another thing again.
I go with making him return the candy and apologize and give the manager the money. If the manager lets him keep it, YOU keep it. And give him a talk about not taking what is not yours.
When my little sister was three or four she took a packet of Wotsits from a shop and proceeded to walk out of the door. Challenged very nicely by a lovely old man who worked there, she explained that she was too old to know any better.
Yeah, I’d take my kid back and make her apologize, etc. The trouble is that it’s about a 50/50 chance that the clerk will say “Oh, it’s OK” or some variant where they want to let the kid off the hook, not grasping the fact that you’re trying to teach a freaking life lesson here! I might call ahead of time and arrange to meet someone–but that wouldn’t work at Wally-land, I guess.
Hey, have him pick up something nice for you. It’s not like they’re going to arrest him if they catch him…
Just kidding. Making him return it and apologize seems like a good course of action to me. I’m not a parent though, so you should probably completely ignore me.
My Mum made me take a single grape back to the greengrocers and apologise… yup that worked. If you are worried the store clerks will tell him he can keep the candy or something you could phone first and get them on message.
My 5-year-old dumb-butt self for some reason thought no one could see that plastic bracelet I had hidden in the front of my bathing suit!
Yeah, make 'em take it back and apologize, but try to get a quick aside with the manager so they know this is a lesson for the little one.
You’ve got the right idea, OP.
I’ve gotta disagree with letting him keep it if the manager says it’s okay, though. I could be wrong but wouldn’t that sort of teach him that if you’re honest about what you’ve done wrong, you’ll be rewarded?
Yes, honesty brings rewards and it’s great and all, but thinking you’re going to get something every time you do something good is going to lead to a lot of disappointment in life.
When I was a wee Nott, I didn’t really understand the concept of property and ownership. My pal and I sneaked into a long-closed filling station through a broken window, and we rifled the candy machine. “What the heck,” we thought, “this is abandoned. It doesn’t belong to anybody.” It did belong to somebody, of course, and we got into trouble. Still, nobody explained property to me, and I got into further trouble until, years later, I began to understand that what doesn’t clearly belong to me, belongs to somebody else.
So, explain it to the kid. It’s not an obvious concept for a child.
A deft boot up the arse. Simple.
A deft boot up the arse… hmmm, I think not.
I got not only that, but belts, boards, fists, whatever was handy at the time when I got in trouble as a kid.
I’ve pretty much made the decision to not physically punish my children. I’d rather talk to them and allow them to suffer the consequences of their actions.
And as Babyboy’s the youngest of 3 and this is the first major offense to society that I’ve had to deal with, I’d say maybe my approach is working.
Thanks anyway, and thanks to all the others who’ve responded. We went to Wallyworld this morning, where upon the perpetrator gave the candy to a manager and apologized, vowing to turn away from his life of crime, to never repeat the incident. I guess I knew what the right thing to do was, all along. Except I’m extremely protective of Babyboy, due to him being my “specialneeds” child, and it was hard for me to take an active role in his humiliation and public embarassment. It was the right thing to do, though.
Another vote for take the child and the purloined object back to the store and require the kid to give it back and apologize. I did just that with my kid at about that age, and of course since she was so cute and adorable (I’m not prejudiced), the manager on duty said, “Oh, that’s all right.” I snapped back, “It’s NOT all right. She took something that does not belong to her.” The manager asked if I wanted to just pay for the gum. No, that would be rewarding her. I just wanted her to realize it had been a bad thing to do. Oh, yes, and I gave her a long rant about how people who get in the habit of stealing things end up going to jail.
Yeesh. For “deft boot up the arse”, you may wish to read “an open-handed smack on the bottom”. I was using a wee bit of hyperbole there…
A kid of five is generally old enough to have a pretty good idea of the ethics of this situation. At four I remember having some weird notions that daddy went to work… I dunno… because he liked it I guess… and when you needed money, you went to the bank and took some out, the two being completely unconnected… but I knew that you needed to give “the man in the shop” money before you could take something away, and that not doing so was something done by naughty robbers with striped shirts, black eyemasks, and swags with “swag” written on them. But I’m also pretty sure that the “marching back into the shop” bizzo might not work on a five year-old (who would be pretty sure just to look at the ground while being lectured, then he’d have a bit of a cry, but may well be at it again the next time he’s in a shop). On a ten year old, it’d be devastatingly effective, but at five you can count on your cuteness to get you through.
I remember as a small child, if I did anything really bad, I often heard these threats of being “sent to boarding school”. Now I didn’t know what that was, but I knew it was bad. However I also knew, with absolute conviction, that the threats were utterly hollow, and all I had to do was start crying…