How to Teach Children Stealing Is Wrong
- 1). Help children understand ownership. From an early age, we teach our kids how to share and that it's impolite to grab a toy out of another child's hands. The child is learning that it's not right to take something away from someone else. As the child ages, this same concept is applied to stealing, but it's a little more abstract. Your child needs to learn that just because his playmate isn't playing with that particular toy at the moment, it still belongs to her.
- 2). Teach children empathy. Stealing is wrong, essentially, because it hurts someone else. Ask your child how she would feel if someone took her favorite toy. Then explain that this is how other people feel when something is stolen from them.
- 3). Help children understand the consequences. When your child is young, you can help them see that when they steal something away from someone else, they are making that person feel bad. For example, if you steal another child's toy, that child will be sad. As your child gets older, you can help her understand that there are more dire consequences to breaking rules and laws.
- 4). Be a role model for your child. It should go without saying that you shouldn't be swiping candy bars at the grocery check-out. But if, for example, you forgot to pay for the case of soda underneath your cart and left the store, you could use that as a teachable moment. Explain to your child that because you didn't pay for the soda, you are hurting the store because they are losing money. Further, it is technically breaking the law, and if security came running out after you, you could face real consequences.
