Supervise him better and punish him. Put everything out of reach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is odd behavior for a 4 year old. Is he impulsive? Like run into the parking lot type behavior?

Op here. He’s not impulsive. He’s very thoughtful and smart. He’s not shy though. Probably normal impulsive?

For your information, kids with ADHD are also very “thoughtful and smart.” But they can be impulsive. And no, the extent of this behavior is not normal at all. The fact that it’s $100 bills and not a small amount of money and vitamins (he’s been told, and should know, it’s dangerous) appears to be attention seeking behavior.

Expecting a 4yo to know pills that look like candy are dangerous is unreasonable. They should be up in a cabinet in a childproof container. Same with a wallet, how did he get into it? 4yo don’t know the difference between 1, 10 and 100, certainly not with US bills that all look the same… so this is a supervision issue.

This is bizarre. How does he access all these things? Who is watching him when he does this? And clearly, no one is paying attention to him…how does he have access to pills, clearly you took away the baby proofing too soon. You need to watch him more closely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is odd behavior for a 4 year old. Is he impulsive? Like run into the parking lot type behavior?

Op here. He’s not impulsive. He’s very thoughtful and smart. He’s not shy though. Probably normal impulsive?

For your information, kids with ADHD are also very “thoughtful and smart.” But they can be impulsive. And no, the extent of this behavior is not normal at all. The fact that it’s $100 bills and not a small amount of money and vitamins (he’s been told, and should know, it’s dangerous) appears to be attention seeking behavior.

Op here. I didn’t mean to imply that adhd people weren’t thoughtful and smart, I was just meaning he’s the opposite of impulsive. I do have a child with adhd and a husband with it. I just haven’t seen it for my son. I know it can show up in other ways.

He doesn’t know a $100 bill from a $1, so the value didn’t mean anything to him. He knows his numbers but only 0-10.

He totally knew vitamins were bad. We told him every night that he gets only one because more was bad (and explained it dozens of ways why you can’t have more).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is odd behavior for a 4 year old. Is he impulsive? Like run into the parking lot type behavior?

Op here. He’s not impulsive. He’s very thoughtful and smart. He’s not shy though. Probably normal impulsive?

For your information, kids with ADHD are also very “thoughtful and smart.” But they can be impulsive. And no, the extent of this behavior is not normal at all. The fact that it’s $100 bills and not a small amount of money and vitamins (he’s been told, and should know, it’s dangerous) appears to be attention seeking behavior.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 that this isn’t normal at that age.

Does he have a sibling? New baby on the way or something like that?

Op here. He has two sisters that he loves. Not a new baby and no new changes in our house. We’re a happy household if it matters and I do think he gets attention. He’s a summer baby so not even 4.5 years old.

He doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. We have not been able to impress on him how bad taking pills is. He ate over 100!

I once stole and ate a huge bag of marshmallows and chocolate chips. I got sick and puked that evening.

This isn’t like stealing pills, $100 bills and from a store

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1 that this isn’t normal at that age.

Does he have a sibling? New baby on the way or something like that?

Op here. He has two sisters that he loves. Not a new baby and no new changes in our house. We’re a happy household if it matters and I do think he gets attention. He’s a summer baby so not even 4.5 years old.

He doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. We have not been able to impress on him how bad taking pills is. He ate over 100!

I once stole and ate a huge bag of marshmallows and chocolate chips. I got sick and puked that evening.

Anonymous wrote:Are you the same OP whose 4 yo is wetting pants at school?

Op here. Nope. He potty trained himself at 18mo and loves school.

Anonymous wrote:+1 that this isn’t normal at that age.

Does he have a sibling? New baby on the way or something like that?

Op here. He has two sisters that he loves. Not a new baby and no new changes in our house. We’re a happy household if it matters and I do think he gets attention. He’s a summer baby so not even 4.5 years old.

He doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything. We have not been able to impress on him how bad taking pills is. He ate over 100!

Are you the same OP whose 4 yo is wetting pants at school?

Anonymous wrote:This is odd behavior for a 4 year old. Is he impulsive? Like run into the parking lot type behavior?

Op here. He’s not impulsive. He’s very thoughtful and smart. He’s not shy though. Probably normal impulsive?

+1 that this isn’t normal at that age.

Does he have a sibling? New baby on the way or something like that?

This is odd behavior for a 4 year old. Is he impulsive? Like run into the parking lot type behavior?

Op here… apart from the lock on my linen closet that got installed. It’s where we keep medicine. I’m concerned he’d go after the chewable Tylenol.

Does anyone have any advice for me? My 4 year old son has started stealing a lot of stuff out of the blue. Over the past month he has raided our pantry and eaten a bag of Marshamellows, lots of his Halloween candy, an entire jar of gummy vitamins (his sister opened it and yes poison control was called) and now I just found my own vitamin D pills open (he didn’t eat but had stolen and opened). These were all items that were in high up and out of reach. More concerning- he stole $100 bills from my wallet that were intended for the nanny’s holiday gift. He had them in his pocket in the grocery store and I about had a heart attack. One was even in the aisle. The worst was last week he stole from a store. I marched him back in, called for the manager and he had to return it and apologize.

Basically he’s been on a little spree over the past month and these were all things we caught. He has a great life, has spending money of his own and we aren’t super strict (meaning we often buy him things and he gets desserts occasionally)I’m just not sure why he’s stealing and then hiding things. I could write off one instance but I’m seeing a pattern here.

What should I be doing?