Reply to 7 Year Old Stealing

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] OP, I am the PP back on page 2 or so who suggested letting her eat whatever she wanted for lunch for awhile for the thrill to wear off. I'm sorry, but I think this part I bolded is REALLY a mistake. She will just resort to stealing from her classmates again if she can't buy it, and you're going to stigmatize her. Imagine if she tries to buy something and is told, "No, you're not allowed to buy any food from us?" Oh God, OP. I feel really sorry for your daughter. I can't tell if you are well meaning but just have no idea how to handle this or what, but I feel like all your ideas just go to make the problem worse. [/quote]

We did consider whether including dessert in her punishment is a good idea and, after discussing it with her counselor, decided that it is. We understand that much of this is about control, but it's also about teaching a very important lesson about stealing. As for stigmatizing her, she's is far more likely to be stigmatized by being seen in her school (which is fairly small) as a thief than she is for not being able to buy lunch. We've told her that she won't be allowed to buy lunch until her punishment is over and that her lunchroom teacher knows this, so hopefully she won't try.

We spoke to her teacher, her counselor and the principal. They have a lot of years of experience, including seeing the signs of early stage eating and other serious behavioral disorders and they all said they think our daughter is well adjusted and happy, but that she has trouble with impulse control and recognizing when something is serious, whether its talking when she should be quiet or taking money or sweets when she wants them. As I said, we also spoke to her doctor and her opinion is the same.  They all think she'll grow out of this.  The opinions of people who have worked with young children for decades, who know her and care about her welfare are obviously going to be more important to us than the advice of even well meaning, but anonymous people on this site. I mean, if it was such a bad idea, we think her counselor or the principal might have said something.  They're very forthcoming with their opinions. But they didn't shriek "No!" and point to eating disorders the way some have on this forum. On the contrary, they sought to assure us not to overreact since they've seen this type of behavior often enough to know that every child who decides to do an end run around the parents to get sweets is not headed for anorexia.

We did ask for some referrals and her counselor gave us the names of some therapists. We are going to make an appointment to see one, just to be sure there isn't a more serious problem here.  [/quote]

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