I disagree. Go to a counsellor if you want professional help, but don’t get the law enforcement agencies involved unless it’s a last resort, like you think they have the potential to turn violent. Petty theft isn’t the end of the line though, that’s for sure.
I took a bag of Tootsie Roll lollipops from the local market when I was probably 7. When my dad found out, I thought he was going to bounce my head off the wall. Instead, he had me walk back down to the store and hand the bag back to the owner, explaining what I had done and apologizing. It was a small town and he knew who I was and knew my mom, who did all her shopping there. I couldn’t have been more embarrassed. I did what I was told and never took another damn thing again.
Now, if I’d have been caught at that age, I might have responded the same way, but I wasn’t and I didn’t.
Probably mailing it back to the store with no return address with an apology written by the teenager on the computer/printer would be the safest way to keep from being arrested. Maybe a good talking to would help also.
I don’t want to be following Ivan around here, but I think it is directly relevant that he grew up to be a professional burglar of houses.
I believe he sees nothing wrong with it, and feels that if people didn’t want things stolen, they would have gotten better alarm systems.
It may be useful to examine what he says in that light.
That doesn’t sound correct to me at all. I vaguely remember that thread and that’s about the least favouable interpretation of Ivan you could make; a more favourable interpretation (iirc) would be that he finally grew out of it as he aged.
It’d be more useful to look on what I say in the light of my having been there, seen it, done it, and can write fairly intelligently about it, but if you’d rather bring it down to a personality level, go right ahead and make a fool of yourself.
This is almost exactly what I did when I found that my approximately 7 year old daughter had stolen chewing gum from the supermarket. I lectured her all the way back to the store about how people who steal things go to jail eventually. Her younger sister started to cry. “Is Sis going to jail?” She had to return the purloined item to the manager and apologize. Of course, she was so dam cute (blond, blue-eyed, angelic) that the female manager just melted and said “Aw… that’s all right.” I about had a fit. NO, it’s NOT all right! Okay, the manager asked, do you want to just pay for it? NO! The point is not steal something and them Mom pays for it and everything’s fine! Jeez. Way to make a point.
Pretty much what I did too, when my six year old son took tic tacs. He was with my Mom at the time though, and by the time she realized he had taken something it was already eaten so I had to pay for it. He is now doing chores to pay me back (I’ve instituted a policy of you do so many chores… help set the table, dry dishes you get so much money. He’s old enough.), and banned from candy stores for an indefinite period of time until I feel I can trust him, as well as being watched like a hawk.
It sounds like you both caught your children at a good time, when shame and disapproval actually affect them. Doing the same thing to a teenager would likely have a different outcome altogether.
have them plant a box of tic tacs in the yard and secretly replace them with maggots
Daughter shoplifted some paper dolls at age five. Then she buried them in the garbage because (I heard years later) they were staring at her accusingly! She just felt so guilty about her lapse, she could not enjoy the toy.
Son, who at that age did not appear to have a conscience, returned the purloined item, apologized to the store manager, took his spanking with tears and promises to be good, and got a bit better at hiding his petty thefts. Whatever it took to convince him he was Doing Wrong finally petered out around age 15. One of his last misdeeds involved stealing money at home, and forging a cheque from my bank account to himself. For
this last I dragged him in to have a chat with the bank manager, who put the fear of Og into him. I would have had no problem with involving the police on these last two.
an seanchai
I don’t know if it really matters. My daughter picked up some two dollar card, wrote about it on her journal and I saw it. Long story. No I wasn’t snooping. I reacted badly to the notion of my baby girl stealing, no matter what it was. There was yelling, grounding, but the worst thing was I told my brother since it was his daughter my daughter stole with. I shamed them both so bad I know my daughter now has a phobia of being accused of even shoplifting.
Unfortunately it didn’t do a thing for my niece. My brother didn’t make her take anything back, he just took it away. I think she got a tee shirt. He grounded her, took the cost out of her allowance, but here several years later she’s been caught by the police lifting twice and tells my daughter she does it all the time. Likes the “thrill”.
I’ll just throw in my two cents.
I once shoplifted a candybar near the checkout as a wee lad. Parents whipped my butt, gave me a stern lecture, and then took me back down to the store and made ME tell the manager what I did and apologize.
I once threw something out of the window of our car. Again, I got a whopping, a lecture, and was made to walk back down the highway to get it.
I really wanted to smoke as a little kid, because my grandparents did. One night, staying with them, they let me smoke all I wanted. After a night of puking, smoking did not really interest me anymore.
I am no longer the thieving, littering, chain smoker I was in my youth 
IMO shame and suffering the consequences of bad choices are darn good behaviorial modifiers.
All of the lesson-teaching, scale-balancing, or doing nothing that you attempt can backfire. If your child is a teenager, you failed as a parent in some way. Just like every other parent does. You’ll have to take remedial action based on the circumstances, but you have to find a way to be a better parent somehow, so that worse problems don’t arise. Good luck with that. It all just proves gray hair is genetic. You get it from your children.
If I caught my son with a shoplifted item, I’m not sure what I would do.
I’d like him to suffer the consequences of his actions. That’s what cured me of shoplifting–I was caught shoplifting an adult magazine when I was 15 (because the store refused to sell it to me). The police were brought in, but I just got my parents called and was let off with a warning–I was not arrested. Nevertheless, it put the fear of God in me, and I have never been tempted to shoplift or steal since then.
With respect to my son, though, I seem to recall hearing that in today’s zero-tolerance culture, getting the store and/or police involved can seriously backfire, with potential consequences far out of proportion to the offense.