A Future in Sing Sing!
Most children occasionally take things that don’t belong to them. I had already handled this problem successfully with our first child, so I pursued the same solution with Timmy, our second. One day he came home eating a candy bar he had not paid for. I explained that things must be paid for, and we made a trip back to the store. I escorted the child in with money in his hand. We explained that the money was for the candy bar already consumed.
With Timmy my fail-safe plan didn’t work! Things got worse. He would take money from my purse to buy toys from neighborhood children. I had to leave him in the car when I went in stores. Finally, I lost control and did what all the books say not to do. I likened him to Al Capone and predicted a future in Sing Sing. My poor, trembling six year old!
After calming down, but still being desperate for a solution, I suggested he and I look in one of Mommy’s many child-rearing books. Since he didn’t know why he stole, and I didn’t know, maybe a book would. We opened a book and the first sentence was, “Some children steal beacuse they don’t feel loved.”
I turned to Timmy in shock and with tears in my eyes said, “Why, Tim, you know Mommy loves you, don’t you?” He began to cry and we hugged and kissed and comforted each other.
He never took anything again. Later he told his second grade teacher, “I used to take things when I was little, but I don’t anymore!”
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Add comment September 13th, 2006
